Monday, 26 April 2010

I want you, and you, and NOTHING but you, miles and piles of you...

I swear I could listen to JRB a thousand times over and never get bored.

I'm burning CDs in iTunes. Apparently this is a mistake, for now my computer is having a fit and is making me pay by slowing everything else down...

OO! PING! Done :)

It's like when something in the microwave is done...except our microwave just gives out an annoying, monotonous beeeep, beeeeep as if to say "GODDD just move your backside and open my door already."

I'd prefer a cheery, pinging microwave.

I'm fed up. And tired. And I ache.
I need the Delorean out of Back to the Future right now, since I actually don't have enough hours in the day anymore to LIVE.

Nothing is fitting in my head either! Whether it be French revision, song lyrics, plans....my brain can't seem to retain much for very long at all at the moment.

Oh LORDY I can't see either! Still need to get my specs sorted. Damn you Specsavers and your stupid closing hours and cutting processes and rubbish receptionists who don't ring people...*please see earlier blogs for further rants on this topic*

And now I can't find my pen.

For some reason, Mr Mears has started revolving his Graphics lessons around my poor pen, and last week he started throwing it on the floor and telling everyone it should be improved :O
Insults.

Ended up on a badminton court first thing this morning, first against the definition of awesomeness known as Hayley, and then somehow we both ended up doing doubles with Elligwoof and Amanda, and Ellingwoof is obviously jealous of my rather...interesting...technique.

In Biology we had to disect chicken wings for no real reason, and we had no idea what we were doing so we just prodded around and cut up a load of muscle and I felt like I was having a Sweeeeeney moment.
I don't get science. I remember doing an experiment in high school where we set Hula Hoops (the crisps, not actual big hula hoops) on fire, that was fun :)

Someone told me we now have 2 more Mondays left of actual school. OOOOOOOOO.

(*cough* Concert, after school, Thursday, £1, Main Hall, musical peoples doing musical things for a good cause :D)

Saturday, 24 April 2010

You are my girl, and you don't even know it.

I'm....so...tired...
AND I DON'T EVEN CARE!

After a totally uninspiring day with my wonderfully difficult family, I've suddenly been blessed with a random spark of inspiration! FOR A STORY!

Yes, inspired to do write something WHICH ISN'T MUSIC. This is a rarity for me.
And I promise I won't try and adapt it for theatre, either...

Just finished a rough outline :) Romantic slush at it's slushiest, I assure you.

I've already gone on about the rubbishness of the day. I should also mention my concern at not doing any more French revision, too.

I need someone else to fall in love with Elliot Minor, please. They're doing a concert in Oxford in July, and I REALLY want to see them, but Ellingwoof is away, and my son who's seen them before and met them is broke.
Er not literally, I mean he just doesn't have the cash.

I'm not quite sure if I have the cash actually, BUT I'LL SCROUNGE TO SEE ELLIOT MINOR.

Seriously, I can't think of anyone else who's into them.
I refuse to go with my brother. And I will NOT go with my dear father either, however much I may love him.

Friday, 23 April 2010

When I grow (up), I want to be a flute. Or a penguin. Or a rock star.

Okay, so this sounds really big-headed and the like, but I swear if it wasn't for me than SO many people wouldn't have been introduced to the wonders of modern musical theatre, like JRB and ESPECIALLY Rent!

Makes me smile sometimes. I watch people sing or listen to the genius and think 'YEP, that's 47% my fault."

Aaaaand here we are again! Yet another weekend! 4 more till freedom that calendar shows me. (Still have to go back and re-spell calendar every time...I'm abou foolish as my keyboard...)

Can't remember why I didn't blog last night, and I'm too tired to come up with some excuse as to why I didn't :)
I seriously am shattered.
"WELL GO TO BED THEN!" I hear you cry. Yeah, but it's not that simple. I go to bed and then can't grab my train straight off to Snoozeville, so I grab my iTodd and groove away.

Groove away? I can't believe I just put that.

I've just spent the last hour delving into the deep depths of iTunes compiling playlists :) This is something I never do. WHY AM I DOING THIS?!?!
Maybe this is a deep, psychological sign. Maybe I am trying to tell myself that I am changing deep inside as a person.

Excuse the waffling and rambling, did I mention I'm exhausted?

Haha, just looked over Ellingwoof's blog, I'd forgotten about Graphics yesterday :')
Twas the most pointless practical ever, we got some foam, hammered at it and pulled it and stabbed it and furiously drilled into it, all for no apparent reason. Then, Mears turns round and says "Okay, lets pack up, throw it in the bin."

Also during that lesson Ellingwoof kept turning to me shouting BLOG in my face, and I can't remember why.

Everything is a blur. I think I was in a tremendously good mood at lunch today because Nick and I continued doing cloud impressions and Burty made some comment about it, and then she misread my shirt and thought it said 'When I grow' when in fact it said 'When I grow UP'.

I've had a new song idea! I'm just too tired to do any more on it right now. Hate it when that happens. ACTUAL inspiration and I let myself down. Ohh, Taylor, be ashamed.

So, did I mention I'm in a charity concert next Thursday, after school? I'M IN A CHARITY CONCERT NEXT THURSDAY AFTER SCHOOL, TICKETS ARE £1.
Thing is, I'm supposed to be doing a solo and playing piano for it, but I'm stupidly indecisive and can't make up my mind on what song to do.
Help me out? Please? :)
I'm stuck between Closest Thing to Crazy (by Katie Melua? Know the one?) or Fields of Gold? Both are gorgeous songs, but I just don't knowwww....

Tomorrow I'm back down to Bedford to see people I don't know who are supposed to be related to me :)
.....fun times?

Wednesday, 21 April 2010

I ain't flat, the band's sharp.

We have air freshener that smells like fresh linen.

Now, if I stood up and cried "EUREKA! I'm going to make an air freshener that smells as comforting and wonderful as freshly washed linen", Ellingwoof would point and make a mockery of me (although SHE is the one who couldn't spell her own name after 2consecutive tries on her coursework form, much to the dismay of Mr Dr).

The world has gone mad.

I don't like Wednesdays. There's always that dreadful 'middle-of-the-week' feeling about them, and for me they just drag on and on and on and on and....
On Mondays, there's the 'beginning-of-the-week' feeling and on Sundays the 'night-before-school-and-loss-of-freedom' feeling. But nothing beats Wednesdays and their dragging-on-ness.

Graphics first, and Ellingwoof started beating up Burty randomly. It was like the Sims, you know when your sims have a fight and you see this huge cloud with arms and legs flying everywhere? Yeah, it was a bit like that. I'm going to miss Graphics lessons.
Then Music, and well, Ellingwoof was just on a roll today. As I've just said, SHE COULDN'T EVEN SPELL HER OWN NAME ;)
Ellingwoof and Juliette have come to the conclusion that my stage name will be Taylor Slow,a combination of my apparent new nickname Taylor and a play on the whole Taylor Swift thing with me being a bit, well, occasionally slow. Notice the word occasionally, there.

Bleh, French. *Insert tedious moan about speaking exam a week on Friday here*

People really annoy me when they don't get back to me about IMPORTANT STUFF THAT NEEDS TO BE ORGANISED.

I have some promoting to do here: a week tomorrow (Thursday 29th) after school in the main hall, Tom (of the Nelson variety) is holding a charity concert in aid of LOROS, and it should be pretty good :) Acts include Nick 'Bertha' Barstow (for Todd's sake don't tell him I said that ;)...), Becky 'I'm the next Taylor Swift' Orton and Lauren Kruge and her amazing melodeon.
Oh, and then some singer by name of Taylor Slow is going to stumble over to the piano and wail a bit, and then maybe sing Glee duets with Scott :)

Seriously, it's for a good cause and it should be fun so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE hunt me/Tom down and buy a ticket. £1 for you, £2 for staff. But hopefully no staff are reading this anyway.
We have something ridiculous like 200 to flog though, so spread the word :)

Have some sympathy. Last year, as Ellingwoof in particular will recall, I (stupidly) decided it'd be nice to organise my own charity concert.
TWAS A NIGHTMARE. But it paid off :)
And in fact, on a slight tangent, all the money we raised that week (around £150) got sent to my friend, and she took it over to Gambia a few weeks ago and began working on the school there :)
Thing is, because of this ash business, she's now stuck out there.

Maybe if I row a boat over to Norway and threw some pepper into the sky and said MORE ash is coming, I could 'accidentally' get stranded there, and miss my speaking exam?

My plans are brilliant. And totally logical.

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

I want my money back.

I have no idea how, but it seems I have mortally offended my computer tonight, for it is refusing to do ANYTHING. As you've probably had to witness, I'm far from patient at the best of times, and typing out that first sentence was just SO painfully slow...ow...ouch....eurgh...

And now it's winding me up by missing out letters in words after I type! WHY?!?!

Is it angry because I have overfed iTunes of late? Is it because I've negelected the My Pictures folder or something?
I think the crime I am (apparentley) guilty of is ignoring the virus checker for too long. So many times it has popped up, cheerfully proclaiming 'BOO! SCAN TIME!' before beginning to have a nosy around my computer for any unwanted technological meanies that might have invaded.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for the fact I have my own personal police force underneath the keyboard, but it's SO slow I just close it as soon as I can, which it probably finds really insulting. Now it is getting it's almighty revenge on me by putting everything in slow motion....

I really shouldn't be on here, you know.
I'm supposed to be 'revising'. I had a little word with myself and gave myself a metaphorical kick up the backside.
It wasn't quite a motivational speech in the mirror however, it was more of a glimpse at the calendar to make myself scream at how little time we have left.

I can never spell calendar.

I'm fairly pleased with the fact I can now do my Frenchful 60-seconds, but there's the ever so small (actually flippin' huge) problem of doing all the question bits now.

Don't even get me started on those roleplay things.

The most annoying thing is when it comes to SINGING in French for exams, it's not a problem! Once I know where everything fits and HOW everything fits, we're away and it doesn't sound TOO bad...

As for speaking, which should be so much easier, in comparison it's a lot harder.

Today was a bit of a blur, it was one of those days where nothing particularly overwhelming happened so I don't remember much of it. Know what I mean? No? Okay :)

Luckily today was the 'other' Tuesday meaning we didn't suffer death by Double Maths. Ewww. Maths twice in one day. Come on timetable people, WHY would you do that? That should be classed as bullying or something.

Absolute moment of the day was in choir when these 2 ex-studnts returned to chatter on about theatricalness, and they mentioned JRB and Mrs JRB and other obscure Broadway composers that no one else knew and it made me remotely happy because I felt KNOWLEDGABLE!....see, it's been THAT much of an uninspiring day...

My house needs signal. Florence tried to ring me 3 times just now and each time the call failed. Someone buy me a phone signal mast thing for Christmas to put on my roof? :D

Sunday, 18 April 2010

You can't tell what it's like to be me looking at you.

Tonight, I'm going straight in with a bit of advertising for myself:

www.myspace.com/bethanytaylormusic

New song up there by the name of 'Tomorrow, by the Window'. Don't ask me where the title came from, I have no clue :)
I think the song is quite cute though, and all I need now is someone even cuter to sing it to :')

I've also done a few covers (Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening) but some aren't finished and I can't really put them online because there is only so much space Myspace will let us musical people steal :(
Talk to me if you're interested :D

Yeah, so today I had to wave goodbye to the wonderful recording equipment I've borrowed over the last 2 weeks.
I know that might sound really sad, but when you're a little (literally) singer-songwriter like myself who calls a notebook mic, a jack lead, a guitar and an electric piano her 'studio', anything like that is amazing. And that mixer was actually brilliant. Terrifying, but awesome.

For once, I could do recordings that weren't filled with FFFFFFFFF in the background, or didn't have a rubbish delay or something awkward.

I feel really guilty over my lack of French revision.
A week on Friday.
A WEEK ON FRIDAY TAYLOR AND YOU CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT THE FRENCH FOR AWFUL PROCRASTINATING FOOL IS.
(Good job that phrase isn't required at GCSE level, then.)

Ohhh dear. I think we'll worry about that slightly oversized hurdle when we come to it. LIKE TOMORROW.

Oh dear, hurdles. The pain of primary school PE and trying to attempt them. It was always so embarassing, I always got within inches of the blasted things and just...froze. I knew I was meant to jump, but never did.
Thankfully (for both myself and the poor hurdle) I never kept on running into it, however.

Today we went to visit my uncle and my cousins, and my uncle is awesome :) He's the biggest theatre expert out of anyone I know. Top singing teacher who trained at the Guildhall in London (and was friends with some Welsh guy called Bryn who I'm told is now an international opera star? He's on iTunes, anyway. I want to be on iTunes.). In fact, I accidentally came across him singing Martin Guerre on Youtube :D
During his training at the Guildhall he also met Leonard Bernstein (the LEGEND who wrote the music for West Side Story, in particular) and shook his hand. Woah.

So yeah, we're sitting at his eating lunch, discussing theatrical happenings, as you do. The sweetness of Sondheim, how ridiculous things get on the Dorothy show, the Phantom sequel.
He then sticks on Light in the Piazza and my Dad and him and myself all discuss obscure American musicals that my Mum hates, tis FUN :D

I have decided I HATE PE even more than I thought. And that the fact I can give it up forever in 5 weeks is yet another advantage to next year.

5 weeks. It's going to go too fast.

Saturday, 17 April 2010

BOOM, yeah, back on the scene :)

Bet that boom shocked you.
It shocked me.

So, today I'm not going to beat around the metaphorical bush, I'm going straight in with my daily rant.
Today's subject? Specsavers, once more.

Specsavers irritates me. Those of you who managed to stay awake during one of my (many, boring) posts last week may or may not recall how I lamented being kept waiting for many forevers before my eye appointment there, and how dramatically it all ended with the eye people telling me my eyes had actually gotten better and that my specs were way too strong?
Well, if you didn't, there were some of the highlights :)
In one stupidly long sentence.

Well, they originally told me that I'd have to wait less than a week to pick up my new non-blurry lenses, and that they'd ring me.

A week and 3 days later, I turned to my Mum and said 'Have we heard from Specsavers yet?'

So we rang them up and caught them out. We reckon they've had them in all week but they just forgot to ring.

We then went to pick them up and were told we'd have to wait an hour for them to be cut, and that they couldn't even cut them there and then since they were about to close.
WHAT. Since when did we have to wait for them to be cut?! No one prewarned us of this. I was positively outraged and proceeded in getting ever so slightly 'shirty' (always wanted to use that word :p) with the manager, particularly over the fact we hadn't even been told that they WERE READY! GRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Was not a happy bunny :(

Since we can't get back into town for aaaaages because of my Mum's show (oh lordy, wait till I get blogging about THAT), I don't even know when I'm going to get them!

Thanks Specsavers for being OH SO DIFFICULT and for trying to making me BLIND. That's my theory. In order to keep themselves in business they try to make innocent people like me blind so we keep having to come back for eye stuffs. PAH.

This morning I suffered a near death experience in the form of a maths past paper, but then this afternoon came one of the best hours of all my 16 years.

The story begins a few days ago. Mother dearest comes in from work and says 'HMPH (she really does hmph, you know), I think you're stressed.'

OH WELL AREN'T YOU OBSERVENT. (Not that I'd say that really. I'm slightly less rude than that.)

'I've booked you in for an appointment with the massage-person (okay, so she has a proper job name) I go to this weekend.'

Erm, woahhh...*screechy needle off the vinyl noise* - I was a bit confused (as per usual), and a bit suspicious, actually. Since when has mother dearest ever done anything like this to me?! Usually we're too busy screaming at each other to do anything else. Apart from our occasional civil visit into town on a Saturday.

But, seriously, twas incredible. SO relaxing. Pain was involved, but nice pain.
That sounded less odd in my head, but it makes sense if you too have been lucky enough to have had that sort of treatment :)
I just made that sound a lot worse.

Getting off that topic, yeah, I've had a good day :) Amazing what a bit of relaxation does to you; when I came out of the place suddenly the world was perfect and everything was a dozen times lovelier :D

It's done wonders for my creativity too, I'm songwriting all over the place :D

In fact, I shall get my guitar back out now :) If only I could play more than my usual 8 chords...