singing a reckless serenade.

Hey! All. Same old, same old. Flicking through a new NME and listening to Manchester Orchestra. The Nme is not something I could deal with on a regular basis. I'm reading a bunch of bullshit punk affectations about the Clash and Ramones and Sex Pistols. Yawn. It's fun in the summer, though. Anything goes in the name of summer. Stupid...summer.

Another day met with drizzle and a grey sky. I've become one of those people who desperately clings to the fallacy that August equals shorts and a t-shirt, regardless of the weather of the particular day. I'm afraid I'm too used to bitter, horrible New England winters not to leap at any chance of summer attire whenever I can get it. Today, we went to Monkey World. It's a zoo, with just monkeys. I've decided that I really don't like zoos. Just something about having hordes of people gawp at animals seems funny too me. Also, I'm not a big animal person--there's undoubtedly an element of that there. Nor do I like people! Hey, it all makes sense. I basically put up with the animals and the rain for five hours, also I had a hot chocolate so all was well. But still, it's a day of putting up with--gasp--people in public. Oh well.

On Monday, we got our stuff together and drove to my grandparents on my dad's side. Grr, driving days, never fun. However, I did get to go down to the beach(again!) in the morning. The water was an unnerving shade of brown and it was cold but, hey, low tide! Low tide's the coolest. This place is one of my favorite beaches I've been to so it was great. Also, got to listen to some crappy pop radio. The drive was surprisingly, not too bad. A couple of hours getting to my grandparents house. Then, dinner and the usual social niceties in the evening. (It's funny hearing "Oh! Haven't you grown?!" when I in fact am definitely no longer growing). So, yes. That was fine.

On Tuesday morning, I had to wake up early in order to drive for an hour to pick up my dad from the train station. He just flew over the night before. More social niceties followed, and then we went into town for a little while. Unfortunately, they didn't have an HMV, which makes me extremely sad indeed. There's so much stuff I need to buy there! I was dragged through, of all places, Boots.

On Wednesday, we want to a sort of park round here where loads of swans...hang out, for lack of a better expression right now. Again, I'm not into animals so the place wasn't really my cup of tea. Also, my god it was cold. So we went there and then we went to some tropical gardens, where I've been to once for an Easter hunt some ten years ago. Unfortunately I had a very severe allergic reaction this time round, which is such a shame because the gardens were so lovely. So generally, yeah, not the world's greatest day, but I'll survive.

So it turns out I haven't done very much for the past couple days. Huh. A break is good I suppose. I should start doing notes from my summer reading book, but I doubt that'll happen till the last week in August.

My grandparents are nice and all, but there are a number of issues that seem to arise whenever we're around. One, my sister is a total show off. She spends every other week of the year slumped over her laptop, talking on Skype with her friends and watching crappy youtube videos. She has no hobbies, no other interests, and she complains a lot. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but she acts otherwise whenever where here. She plays chess, she goes for walks, she talks to people, she wakes up early. And while I'm far from being a competent human being either, I suddenly look like the boring sister who doesn't do anything with her life. Goddammit I've tried to look like a decent human being but it just doesn't work. I've even tried watching the news with my grandparents and making sure people are in the room when I wanna read Plath. No avail. Sigh. I always feel so useless and pathetic whenever I'm here, it makes everything so tough. Additionally, the fact that I have no idea what I want to major in or do in the future seems to trouble my grandparents considerably. everyone's very sciencey on this side of the family and I'm neither very sciencey not very artsy, just kind of in the middle, and expectations are high and it all just gets highly stressful. We're having a family get-together in a couple days and it'll all kick off, and I will hate it. Jesus Christ, why is it expected that people plan out their lives like the moment they're out of the womb? It just seems absolutely insane to me. I'll be no better next year or the year after that, and it'll just get more and more heated to the point where I'll end up telling them I wanna be a prostitute or something. They're nice people, but everything is so, so intense.

Haven't had as much time for reading + music. V soon, excitement ever increasing.

Hey, short post.

Bye, everyone!

ho hum

School starts again in less than a month now. I suppose come September I'll regret the fact that I've had enough of summer at this point, and that all I want to do is wear oversized sweaters and watch the Inbetweeners and be pretentious. I'll also regret not working on the notes for my summer reading essay while, um, reading the damn book. I still can't believe how fast things have been going for me this year. I want things to slow down when I'm a sophomore. I want to, if you excuse the cliches, seize the day, grab the world by its balls, etc. etc. etc. I've been saying this for years, and when does it ever actually happen? Oh well. A girl can hope.

Today is the last day I'm seeing my aunt until the end of December. I'm closer to her than I am to any of my other not-immediate family members and I will miss her very much. We played Cleudo earlier tonight--a family tradition for us, Cleudo, among a number of other board games. When I was younger, my aunt made up these complex dressing-up games based on the people of Cleudo. I got to look through my aunt and mother's old wardrobes--a vintage wonderland, hasn't been altered in the slightest since the 70s. I'll miss this place so much during the year. Tomorrow we're going to see my grandparents on my dad's side, so it's all a bit subdued round here. In the afternoon we all drove to Gatwick in my aunt's car, to get the rental car we're having till the end of our stay. A silver Ford, nothing special. We then went back to visit my aunt's house briefly, more or less the same with minor alterations, but she has a really nice house anyway. For some reason my grandparents had old Christmas crackers saved, so we got to have an August Christmas dinner.

On Saturday, we all went to what I've decided must be one of the most fascinating places I've ever been to--Lewes. My aunt's a bit of a fan. It's a carefully eccentric little town, full of people who fancy themselves a bit anarchic and different. So yeah, this adds up to a high street with lots of quaint shops selling books and vintage clothes and funny ornaments. Don't get me wrong, though, it's fun. We got to go into a lot of said shops, also a cheese shop, and ate at a Polish cafe. They also happen to have a castle and a museum. Ignoring the pseudo-quirky nonsense, Lewes is really cool because it has a lot of historical significance, particularly early Norman stuff. Also, in the 13th century they had the Battle of Lewes, which led to the first instance of the English monarchy being forced to give up some of their power. Some call it the "Birth of English Democracy". Amazingly people outside Lewes don't seem to recognize this(I'd never heard of this battle before), but the residents are damn proud of it. The museum and castle were really nice. you could see for miles at the top of the castle, it was wonderful. We watched some two-hour Amy Winehouse tribute on TV that night.

On Friday, we went to this open air history museum, which is one of my favorite places around here. it's a set of actual houses ranging from the 13th to early 20th century, and it's arranged to replicate a village. it's so, so nice. There's a lot of really nice buildings--a Victorian school building, a 17th century toll house, a mill which they actually use, stables, cottages with historically-accurate gardens, market stalls, the lot. it's very scenic, very informative too. They also got a new tiny 19th century church from London. We got to look round the entire museum. Also, I bought a book on the history of Sussex. We listened to Imelda May in the car, and my aunt arrived from work in the evening, and we played board games and watched a weird art show on TV.

And Thursday, we were met with our first day of serious downpour this trip. It rained into the afternoon but we drove into a little local museum. It's a part of this town I'd never been to before, kind of tacky but in the charming seaside resort way that looks like it's 20 years out of date. They had a lot of run of the mill history stuff, but then they also had an impressive collection of vintage dolls and a whole area of fashion over the last century. I think the latter was probably my favorite part of the place, especially a lot of the 70s fashion. 70s&90s were my favorite times for fashion--the 80s are grossly overrated in that respect. (in many respects, actually). Also, one of my mom's friends had a piece of art up in the local artists section which was nice. After that we drove to another beach(I'm a bit of an English beach fanatic, yeah), and it was very cold and windy and gray. Also, they have the world's longest bench there! Another good day.

Good lord, guys, the Inbetweeners is beyond an obsession for me. I don't have the energy in me to write about my love for this show tonight. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to see it on Monday--my mother still has doubts about letting me watch this show, it's gonna be total no-go territory for my classy, booky, Oxbridge grandparents. This is a shame but I'll see it soon. Hey, there's a new series of Shooting Stars! I shall get it on DVD--it shall get me through another autumn.

Not really that much else going on. Reading John Betjeman, listening to Them Crooked Vultures, Imelda May, Gaga, Wild Beasts, Arctic Monkeys. V in 13 days! my friend plans to go dressed as a sheep, if his mother will let him, which is very unlikely. it's been a fortnight and I don't want to leave this country. I want not to feel like a tourist while I'm here. I want it to be home, but it isn't really, and I hate it. I'll try to make it feel normal while I'm here.

Boring post, man. Wow. hey, I wonder how I'll blog next year. I've put very little though into that.

Good night, all.

silent night

I'm waiting for my aunt to get here and I'm thinking, oh snow, how you torment me. There's a good...powdering of the stuff out there right now. Capturing my attention and my hope(in vain) of a properly white christmas. Europe stole it, I have concluded. A foot of snow, England, really? Kinda want it back now. Dunno if you heard, but heathrow were having problems with it. Yesterday's Virgin Boston flight didn't go and things were looking pretty worrying back there for a while. Luckily BAA(or whoever is dealing with this gigantic nightmare) pulled through for us, and my aunt's in her way. apparently heathrow was quiet--hard to imagine, right?-- since like two thirds of flights were cancelled. I feel bad for those people.

Can't wait to start the Christmas traditions tomorrow. Came home from school in said irritatingly minimal snow, looked in my kitchen and wow, what's this? Orange juice? Iced tea? Pot noodle? Fancy Whole Foods hippie yogurts? Foreign chocolate? Must be a dream. I love my parents. Tomorrow's my last school day of 2010 and on Friday I'm gonna go shopping and bake and blog and eat baked potatoes. In many ways I prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, I realise. Plus, duh, Saturdayy, gonna rock. We got our tree up and it's all decorated and super pretty, and there's only one present under the tree. For me. From my sister. because she's cool. plus, mum got me this big book of Christmas songs too play on piano. I can play water down versions of all of the basics, except We Three Kings seems to be missing. I have a very very simple copy somewhere. Anyway.

So last week of school--a science quiz(90%, thank god), another science partner quiz, a math quiz, a spanish quiz, another spanish quiz, and a math test. WHAT IS THIS? oh yeah, and a science presentation tomorrow. to quote jez of the new(and wonderful, naturally) episode of Peep Show, everything is "triple fried fucked". everybody's presentations are better than mine will be because my topic's boring and I'm scared in front of crowds and my partnerias vile and has to be reminded to do things like capitalize the bulletpoints on slideshows. ugh. and he didn't do a damn bibliography for his pictures. stupid.


I wrote that all that two days earlier. Sorry. where was I?

Oh yeah, presentation sucked. My geometry teacher's pissed at me. Spanish wasn't super straightforward. throughout the week, I've basically been falling asleep, failing stuff, watching nothing interesting go on, be the only one I know with serious amounts of homework. gym was cool this week. first, because Tuesday we played matball against the juniors and seniors and God knows I like to see cocky fourteen year old boys go all embarrassed and shy after someone beats them at sports, so I basically had a field day. we played pick up sticks in spanish, too.

THEN, last day of school last block, was absolutely incredible. There was this giant matball game that I don't think anyone watched, and I found out we didn't have to be there. there was some concert going on elsewhere, so me and a friend kinda walked off with some people to see that. then, I found this other friend in my gym class and she's like "Martin Johnson's here! martin Johnson's here!" all fangirlish. He's the singer in Boys Like Girls and he went to our school and yes I'm aware that gives away where I live, but no one who reads this cares. So, while everyone else went in to see the concert, my friend saw this group of people hanging around down the hallway so we walked over to them. And lo and behold, we look into the band room, and there he is. Bearing in mind, I don't actually like this band nor was I particularly familiar with his appearance, and I'm not ordinarily bothered when someone finds an English book with his name in it. But truth is yes, I'm very very pathetic, and yes, I did suddenly develop a desire to meet someone I dislike because they are a famous musician who is reasonably attractive and he was, y'know, right there. don't judge me. he walked out and all these other girls crowd around him. out comes my friend's phone. everyone's kinda gone fangirl/ape at this point, a real famous musician in the flesh! I was so in that mood to if I'm honest. my friend talks to him first, asks for a picture. My being me, I have to prep myself for five minutes to say a word to him. and then I'm like "Can I have a picture with you?" and he said "of course you can". DID YOU HEAR THAT? Wow wow wow wow wow! And fuck yes I got a picture. With him. Oh my god, how amazing is this?(only downside being I'm gonna have to start pretending I like his shit band)

Now that that's all out of the way, I'm going to have to state the obvious; it's Christmas eve! My 2nd favorite day of the year! Now that my aunt's here, things are going great. It was amazing finally getting out of school and sleeping. I feel totally awake which has become such an odd sensation. Yesterday after school we went into town with my aunt to this gift shop, because we go there with her every year and it's always closed. I got a necklace with a creepy moon thing on it, and I love it to death already, somehow. After dinner, I watched a musical version of A Christmas Carol which I've always loved, and nearly fell asleep to it.



And today was of course, fantastic. My family and I made a gingerbread village in the morning, then we made the icing for our cake, and iced it. (so much food). after lunch, we made paper chains--too many in fact-- andfinished decorating our gingerbread village. I made one I penned The Jackson Pollock of Gingerbread Houses, which my aunt similarly penned The House Of The Village Eccentric. It was so much fun to make. Then, we drove around our town looking at the pretty lights, which I love every time. then we made yule logs and mince pies. in essence, another perfect christmas eve. I loooove this holiday, so much. currently I'm sitting around with my family, at the moment, and it's wonderful. my sister is trying to paint a pineapple. yaaaaaay.

I'm not very interesting tonight but I wanna get back to what I've been doing. so I apologise. I'll get back to you on Boxing Day I hope when I'm all excited-out.

Good night.

Oh yeah, merry christmas, of course.

Oh. Well, hello there.

Hello there.

Just so you know, I'm not good at the opening post/All About Me thing. Never have, never will be. First off, I'm a pretty boring person. A lot of people say that, but trust me, I am. I mean, really, what do I actually do? Let me think. My name is Naomi. I'm English but I live in Massachusetts now. I'm 14 years old and I'm about to go into 9th grade. High school. I hate school, too; I keep blogs to complain about it, mostly. I also keep a blog to write. I like to write, a lot. Here, journals, at school, whenever I get the chance. Naturally that makes me a reader, too, I suppose. I do the 20th century classics thing mostly. Orwell, JD Salinger, Harper Lee, Twain, all those goodies. And some older ones, like Dickens and Hawthorne. All of those types of people. Your pretty run of the mill listing there. When I'm not reading or writing, I'm absorbing myself in an equally run of the mill music life. I'm 14, okay, what do you expect? I like boys with guitars and synthesizers, mostly. You know...Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Biffy Clyro, Babyshambles, Editors, Elbow(from which this blog gets its stupid name), Florence and the Machine, Franz Ferdinand, Joanna Newsom, Jonsi, Kasabian, Keane, Kings of Leon, the Libertines, MGMT, Paloma Faith, Peter Doherty, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Snow Patrol, , hat sort of thing. oh, and I'm an indie girl; kinda hovering between hipster and not, which is awkward. I often like to write about music, too. I don't like many movies, most I do have Johnny Depp in them, but I have a mad insane relationship owith UK 'telly'. Obsessions include but are not limited to Peep Show(Um. Marry me, Mark Corregon?), Mock The Week, QI, Nevermind The Buzzcocks, would I Lie To You, Doctor Who, That mithcll and Webb look, have I Got News For You. Yes, PANEL SHOWS. oh, I could watch them all day. And I certainly will at one point. I don't have much else going on, you know?

Anyway, that's about me to a t. Not that it matters--no one reads these things and even if you, you'll catch the gist of what I'm about pretty quickly. I'm like a living anti-climax, right? I find it difficult to sound enthusiastic on these things. iIam, of course, it's just tricky.

to be fair, i'm a little distracted right now. I'm super tired. I've had a mad few days. Over the weekend I had a sort of family gathering, all 16 of us, and I was so busy I couldn't have time to go online at all. I love family gatherings, we haven't been totally together for four years. Me and my family went out on Saturday morning and we came back and my cousins C, who is 18, and A, who is 16 came round. I saw A last year. She doesn't seem to change, except somehow I outgrew her this year. C just proved to the world that he did catch the 140 IQ gene that runs in everyone in the family except me by getting a brilliant A level results, and he's off to university for physics. I haven't seen him since he was 15. Now he has a ponytail and army boots and staring eyes. He's scary to be honest. And a total smart Alec too. After one uncle and one aunt arrived and we had dinner and apple crumble(my favorite ever) and first we measured peoples pinky fingers for the sake of it, we had a quiz and a drawing competition and all he drew were dots. No one took it seriously. Also on the downside, our parents decided to have a kids' drawing competition and my sister can be a wordimnotgonnasay sometimes. Attention seeker to the extreme. the fact she can draw better than me doesn't help. By the way, that was just the beginning. Where did this attention seeker Natalie come from? her plan was to make out that she can speak publicly, does crosswords and plays chess regularly, draws the whole time, plays Croquet, and is clever and witty. it's weird, because the real Natalie watches Spongebob and goes on Facebook all day and wakes up at midday. Somehow they didn't notice her crap and she was like the baby again(still is, really) and I looked like the pathetic older sister who can't really do anything. Although, that is sort of the case. Anyway, that made it up and down. That and my grandmother. I like my grandma, really I do, but she is liberal and extroverted to an extreme, which in itself makes you twitch after 15 minutes of convo, but then she has this fascination--no, obsession--with all things education. Colleges, really. My cousins Chris and Alex who came later are 20 and 22. I played croquet with their dad, by the way. I sucked, We lost. But it was fun. Oh yes, I got to go out in a Mini! It was really cool! Anyway, education is all my Grandmother wants to talk about. Alex mentioned something about a phd and she misheard and had a sort of euphoric moment when an extension of education was prosed. he is not, in fact, getting a phd. But all my grandmother cares about is how is school going, where will this lead you, where are you planning on going, etcetera. It's tiring. My 16 year old cousin isn't going down this Science-Math Degree Douchebag route so my grandma's ruled her out entirely. That makes me next in this conveyor belt of unverisites. Which kinda sucks. no, I won't be a scientist. No, i don't know what I'll be. No, i'm not gonna chose between the arts and the sciences. And you quickly lose the will to fight it anymore. She's also very stubborn. While she does now think my sister is heaven on Earth, she still wants me to talk about school and such. I'm tired of all that. I really wish we didn't have to do all of this. Sunday as good, all 16 of us together and we played outside and did a quiz and joined in conversations, but me and my cousin had to escape into the other room for lunch. No one seems to know how fucking annoying the college thing is. i wish everyone, all my cousins, were young again and we didn't have to go through this. *wistful sigh* Wasn't it yesterday I ran around chasing my cousin Alex with an inflatable banana? Now he's getting a computer science degree and has facial hair. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN.

Today's been stressful, though. School, I'll have you know, is starting tomorrow and it's all I can think about. High school, even. I missed the orientation and in between having too much to do, we got to look around and get my lock. The place was both simpler and nicer than I expected. I got a great locker, it's on the edge in its row and right by some stairs. the layout is super straightforward and I'm really excited by the freedom of all of it. My schedule for tomorrow reads physical science, then Spanish, then Geometry, then Gym. Which is gonna suck. At least i have study hall instead of gym the other day. First term is gonna be rough. Actually, it's all gonna be rough--I'm, getting used to that. i shan't be making friends, I imagine. I'm just to hope I have classes with people i'm okay with. i'm worried, of course, about homework, waking up(ugh. gonna miss that!), the winter, the nervousness, etcetrera. Also, I have to take the bus this year. The last two years my mum drove me. Can't anymore. That kind of terrified me, and no one's telling me anything about it. So I will DEFINITELY do something wrong tomorrow afternoon, if I make it that far. Busses are too stressful. I can't wait for the day I can actually drive to school. But anyway, I need to supress supress supress. Summer is over. A new year awaits. I'll just pretend I'm not miserable about it! Yaaaay! Welcome to my world!

- Love and kisses and I'll change the layout soon I promise, Naomi