Feels like London
Or so I hope. A whole bunch of my favourite bands (namely The Griswolds, Velociraptor, Cub Scouts, DZ Deathrays) have been in the UK for The Great Escape music festival. Of course, I wish I was there. I love England in particular. I love English people. I wish I lived in London (for at least a bit, anyway). (I also wish I lived in Brisbane, but that’s a story for another day.) I am waiting out for a music festival that will have a lot of my favourite bands. There has been Groovin The Moo, and Splendour in the Grass, to name a couple of festivals. But the one that has really been my cup of tea, especially speaking from experience, is Homebake. A lot of local talent, a really chilled festival, and a whole heap of bands that I do like. Homebake isn’t until early December, so I’m going to have to endure this freakishly cold autumn and a possibly colder winter before that rolls around.
It’s about 14°C here (~57°F), which isn’t cold at all, and perhaps I should feel lucky that it doesn’t get colder. But if I love England so much, I should be getting used to temperatures of zero, really. I love the cold a lot more than the heat, but that would be my choice out of the two extremes only. Otherwise, I would gladly choose autumn or spring as my desired year-round season. That said, it is still autumn and it’s really cold, considering.
Last Wednesday it was Fern’s birthday, so I met up with him and his friends on Friday to eat street food and have dessert. There is an Asian market down in Chinatown on Fridays, and most of the time I forget about it. I can’t remember if it’s every Sunday either. We went down there eating takoyaki — well, I chose the vegetable balls — which was only about $8 for a box of eight balls. We sat out in the cold wind and ate, and somehow, despite the chilling breeze, it was nice.
I didn’t know any of Fern’s friends (except Anna) but it was nice hanging out with them all. Very nice people who didn’t make me feel left out at all. I’m usually a bit shy to hang around friends-of-friends, because sometimes I may be the odd one out and the only one who doesn’t know everyone else. But I had a good time with them. Later that night I went to see one of my favourite bands, March of the Real Fly, who had put my name on the door so I could get into their show for free. I photographed, as usual, so it was just another gig, really.
I’ve been skipping several gigs lately, in the sense that I have them in my calendar, completely plan to go, then bail at the last minute or the day before. I guess I haven’t been feeling up for it, and travelling/transport is usually an issue. I used to wish that I could drive and/or had a car simply to get home from gigs and concerts, but now that I think about it, I doubt I’d go to everything even if I did have a car. To be honest, it’s kind of draining. I enjoy what I do, but it’s good to have a break from it every now and then.
Speaking of breaks, semester ends in a few short weeks… got some work to chug out (two essays), but I hope I’ll be okay. I’ll only have one big subject next semester, then I’ll be free! I am not sure what to think. I think it’ll just be fantastic to get out of school. I feel good, though, that I’m abiding by Jeremy Neale’s old quote, “Stay in school”. I am positive “Don’t do drugs” was in there somewhere, and that’s usually teamed with “Eat your vegetables”, and I really have been eating a lot of lentils lately, not to mention I’ve never done [recreational] drugs.
As part of Project Simplify Georgie I’ve decided to kill a few bad habits and develop some good ones. As part of my life learning I have decided that I need a bit of routine in my life and I can’t be spontaneous all the time. I need to stop wearing my retainer erratically, eating so much chocolate, sleeping late and spending money on food when I can cook my own. To remedy this, I am still steering clear of this notion of “goals” and ticking things off a list. Rather, I want to break these habits by doing the opposite (wearing my retainer, eating less chocolate, sleeping earlier, cooking more often, obviously), but not by setting specific times or numbers. I believe a good idea is to give myself a range and an acceptable space to do it in.
For example, I won’t just cut out chocolate cold turkey, because I’m bound to get cravings. Instead, I will wean off by letting myself have a treat twice a week, then reduce it to once a week. As I’ve noticed I sleep at around 12am to 5am, I will attempt to sleep between 10:30pm and 1am.
These life lessons sound ridiculously easy and like common sense in text, but until you evaluate your life and your bad habits and what you complain about, you don’t realise that it isn’t so easy to actually stick to.