The Life and Times of Me

Eric, have you not read my rant yet? Has not anyone else? Does no one have anything to say about it?

I have a secret and I have promised to to say anything :-0

By the way, the rant below was written over a year ago (very out of date but I have had revision to do you know!)

posted by Amy @ 10:29 0 Comments

Eric, just for you:
My Thoughts

The world is seen in many perspectives by many people. The perspective you choose is often related to your up bringing and economic status. Most people have friends whose perspective of live is similar to their own. Why is that? This often seems to be because people don’t like to argue. If another person’s life perspective is different from yours you may initially get along well, soon it may become apparent however that you just disagree or get annoyed with one and other. I would say that this is an important step in life; learning to distinguish between those who are similar to you and those who aren’t. I have a problem; I like to see myself as an individual and therefore don’t think there is anyone else like me in the world. I have friends who I have chosen because they understand and accept me. Many people see me as an eccentric with silly ways and useless ideas. To me they are close minded and they are only thinking logically rather than both logically and laterally.

Young people today are said to be politically apathetic, I would disagree, and they express their politics in other ways. No longer marching for what they believe in but buying to show their political persuasion. I heard a flat mate of mine say the other day that they didn’t want to start earning as they would have to pay tax. To me tax is a duty. Most top earners will never notice the tiny amount of money taken from their pay package. Tax is a way for us to continue having free education, free health services and sanitation. Tax is also a reflection of a democratic society.

As a self proclaimed socialist I don’t think its right for me to go and spend money on expensive named clothes that were made for next to nothing in less economically developed countries were labourers earn less in a year than I get in week. A conservative or capitalist however wont have a problem with this- money is theirs to be spent or saved as they want, the individual is important and no one else.

I was asked recently how you know when you’re in love. This got me thinking. What signs are there? When you first meet someone you just feel lust towards them. As you get to know the person better your feelings develop and as well as lust you start to get a more emotional and intellectual connection. I think that this mixture of lust, emotions and intellect is what love is. You therefore know that you love someone when you no longer just want the physical contact caused by lust but are happy with the emotional and intellectual contact.

Mad said to me today that I have to be careful, just because I’ve snogged someone it doesn’t mean that they will put up with me taking the piss out of them; is this true I wonder? It is now making me worry, have I crossed the line? Maybe I will ask!

Meetings go well if there are aims, objectives and people willing to compromise.

Arguments can be fun, only if they can be resolved and there is no chance of them becoming violent. A good argument also has to have two sides that are willing to be involved and have reasoning’s behind their points.

Football is a none religious sport which has many religious connotations especially within Christianity. Especially in Scotland. People in Scotland ask what football team you support just so they can find out if you’re a catholic or protestant; why is that? Really it is none of their business and not really important in the grander scheme of things.

I would love to have my own small holding, so I can keep some a goat, a horse and some chickens. Maybe I’ll have a vegetable plot as well and a Landrover. This is a pipe dream although I would love it. Maybe also have a little stream or river running along the bottom of it.

posted by Amy @ 19:45 0 Comments

I am a pink liberal, well at least according to both of my brothers. Maybe I need to explain more fully. I am a liberal who doesn't mind other peoples views just as long as they are the same as mine. I do not mind people who are different as long as they are the same as me. Apparently I am a middle class girl who likes to think that I am working class.

I am not sure how different this description is from me as a person and my political veiws. I am certainly not working class however I wouldn't claim to be middle class, maybe I am from the proffesional class. I would say that I was liberal, but I also like to think I am a socialist (I don't beleive in private schools or hospitals, I do believe in a living wage). I do get pissed of by veiws that I don't agree with and quite possibly don't understand. Maybe this is because I have not seen enough of the world and maybe because I don't have religion or the likes I will never be able to accept different people.

On the other hand though, during my years in school I wasn't accepted, I might have some serious physcological problems caused by years of torment that have led me to be unwilling to accept those who are different!

Anyhow, I don't think that I am a "pink liberal." Although, I don't quite know what I am yet, at 21 years I am still discovering what I am and what my lifes aims are. Maybe I will find religion or maybe I may just get a bum in the oven and end up a single parent on the dole. Which ever direction I go in, I will be happy :-)

posted by Amy @ 22:24 0 Comments

My big brother sent me a note saying that I havent written anything interesting since my rant about breast enlargements on the 28th of Feburay. Well Eric, I live a boring life and I think that this blog would be even more boring if I went off on rants every time a wrote something. However I am willing if you will give me a topic to rant about something (you should have an idea about what I get annoyed about; rasism, public schools, private medicine, sexism, Tony Blair not being a socialist etc.)

I am back in Liverpool and about to start my revision, just as soon as I get dressed...

By the way Eric, have you finished and handed in your dissertation?

posted by Amy @ 08:50 0 Comments

Been in St Albans since Monday afternoon (after a silly train journey, I am going to write a long letter to complain about it, when I can be bothered). Rosemary and I have had the house to ourself for most of the time and we have done some crafty stuff, some shopping, had a trip into London (we went to the V & A and natural history museum both which were very busy and also the tate modern), bounce on the trapolene and watched lots of films and TV in a relaxing sort of way.

I am back to Liverpool on Monday to start some revision (first exam is on the 28th of April, the next and last is on the 13th of May) and then back to Dundee on the 22nd!

posted by Amy @ 17:37 0 Comments

Review of concert by Dundee University Choirs and Orchestra, St Paul's Cathedral, Dundee, Sunday March 28.
by Russell Reid

THE audience at the spring concert by Dundee University Choirs and Orchestra directed by Graeme Stevenson in St Paul's Cathedral, Dundee, last night were welcomed by the University Brass Ensemble playing splendid music on the cathedral steps by Charpentier, Purcell, Stanley and Jeremiah Clarke.

It made a fine prelude to an excellent concert, which began with the University Orchestra in Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. It is a sunny and sparkling work, eminently suited to the young players.

If it is to make its proper impact, it must open with a ping like stretched elastic, and this it certainly did. Although it would have sounded crisper in a less blurry acoustic than the cathedral's, there were some exciting crescendos, and a fine momentum maintained in the second movement.

Although one or two moments of uncertainty from the horns in the third movement led to some anxiety, the final presto was vividly done, and showed how far this young orchestra have come on recently.

While the resonance of the cathedral did not help the orchestra, it enhanced a particularly fine contribution from the Chamber Choir in a selection of madrigals from the 16th and 17th centuries.

This group is singing better now than for years - popular numbers such as Morley's Now Is The Month of Maying and The Silver Swan, by Orlando Gibbons, were beautifully shaped and phrased, and the blend and balance of voices was well night perfect.

Only in the last item, Since First I Saw Your Face by Thomas Ford, did the basses seem rather too forward.

The University Choir gave us a rarity - Brahms's Liebeslieder, or Love Songs - his setting, in waltz rhythm and accompanied by piano duet, of 18 short texts by the minor poet and homeopathic doctor George Daumer.

Brahms may have been inspired to set them to music by his secret romantic dreams about Julie, the beautiful daughter of the composers Robert and Clara Schumann, who at 24 was 12 years his junior. To his anguish, shortly after he completed the piece she became engaged to a young Italian nobleman whom she went on to marry a few weeks later, only to
die within three years.

The contrasting moods of words and music -tenderness, anxiety, frustration, longing and joy -were all nicely caught and projected by the chorus, and although the four soloists sang beautifully, it might have been better if they had come forward and done so from right at the front rather than from their places by the chorus.

Danielle Murray's soprano is light and slender but ideal for these songs, alto Fiona Harley sang naturally and enjoyably, Alex Keith (tenor) in both solo and duets was his usual confident and accomplished self, showing much evidence of thorough preparation, and the clear, incisive bass of Robert Phillips carried the music well.

Barbara Flower and Margaret Mitchell played the often tricky piano accompaniments flawlessly in what was, ultimately, a rewarding account.

posted by Amy @ 09:26 0 Comments

This caught my ear on the news. Walton prison is less than a mile from my house, my brother and his mates used to play a game on one of the playing feilds near by: who can hit a golf ball over the prison walls.

Also the news of Alistair Cooke dying. I didn't always appriciate his letters from America they kept the UK in touch with what was going on over there...

Yesterday the equestrain club had a fun and games day. We had dressage, Vaulting and jumping. I was the least experianced rider and I didn't come last in the dressage, I was impressed. I did have a bit of an incidenet though. The horse I was on Sam, refused to trot, so I was given a crop and so I tapped him gently and he went straight from walk into canter and then didnt stop till I dropped the crop (sorry about all the rhymes). I survived which is good.

posted by Amy @ 10:40 0 Comments