I've mixed it up, some people I want to have really good and serious conversations with but seem to still have a certain level of social awareness, and some who seem like fun but would still be willing to participate in a proper conversation. I've had Shopenhauer as my imaginary friend for a while now, I am certain he was full of dry humour that people don't seem to appreciate but that I see all over his writing. So he definitely gets to sit next to me. The rest are arranged in a manner that shakes up their comfort zone on one side and on the other they might be with someone they could have a good conversation with, possibly, when not participating in a general, table wide conversation. I've got Darren Criss on my other side because he seems like a fun person to hang out with, so provides a necessary easing up of the athmosphere while still being perfectly happy with engaging in serious conversations elsewhere.
Anyone who has talked to me lately may have noticed I have taken to swallow a few select TV shows whole in the matter of a weekend for each show, including "The Thick of It", "Community", ""24", "The Office", "House of Cards", "Spaced", "Black Books", "Hellcats", "Greenwing", "Ugly Betty", "Gossip Girl" and the latest one, "Glee". These are just a few, obviously, but my approach is usually to watch the whole thing in one go, which is why I prefer watching series once they've actually been taken off the air and are completed. I'm not very good at the waiting for story lines to unfold thing, I am a greedy reader. And similarly, I am a greedy watcher and need to know a storyline as immediately as possible. The more information, the better. That's why films rarely cut it for me any more.
Either way, I was just bantering with my friend Mariana about which songs she would sing to me as she's part of a club that gets together and sings. I, of course, cannot sing. I'm worse than Mike. In fact, if I was anyone in Glee, I'd probably be Mike because I can shake my booty but I seriously cannot sing. But one can enjoy the hypothetical in blog posts, so that's what I'm going to do, especially because I WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU WOULD CHOSE AS YOUR TOP FIVE. Seriously, you gotta comment, otherwise it's not as fun!
I'm going to implement some rules, though, that are along the lines of how I imagine Glee choses theirs 1. It's not just about a random song you like and can sing 2. The lyrics have to be relevant to the situation YOU are in or something you wish you could say or the way you feel at the moment. That's what singing other people's songs is for, they can express how you really feel without being too personally specific - usually. As if I had to tell anyone, but some people take the easy way out. Let's not. 3. Usually, I'd say you need to be able to sing it (has to be in your key etc) but let's ignore that because it would mean I can chose no songs. Ever, at all. But if you can actually sing, be my guest and include that in your specifications. I will let YouTube do the job for me. 4. Feel free to do mash ups and suggest your version of the lyrics break down! 5. In my case they all happen to be some of my favourite songs as well, but relevance comes first!
So here we go, my top 5 songs I would sing if I were in Glee, that express how I feel about things in general at the moment:
1. The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell I'm turning 26 in a few months and my sister, whom I always felt more like a twin sister to, turned 29 and that's just infinitely scary. So thoughts of age are crossing my mind a lot lately...
2. Long way to the top by AC/DC It's a long way to the top, if you wanna Rock 'n Roll - the way I'm doing my fashion line is a long way, paved with situations the song discusses but I'm doing it Rock 'n Roll style.
3. Cherries from my Neighbour's tree by Tok Tok Tok This is what I would sing to Stu. Let's have the best of times.
4. Born this Way by Lady Gaga acoustic version (ignore the people singing along and shouts) I'm a lot of things, even the most basic of questions such as "Where are you from?", "What do you do?", "Who di you like?" and similar such everyday requests already demand responses that would fill a page just in listing things without explanation. Therefore good to remember I'm what I am and that's that.
5. Girl from the North Country by Bob Dylan Pretty much exactly how I feel about two girlfriends who are far, one south one north, but often on my mind.
People talk about regrets. I try not to have them, and strictly speaking I don't because everything led me to where I am now. If I hadn't made the choice I'm about to explain I would most likely be a lawyer right now and not a fashion designer/writer. Instead of regrets, however, I sometimes do wonder and play a "What if..." version of my life in my head regarding certain decisions.
When given the choice between an all girl's traditional English boarding school and a laid back, culturally focused curriculum in an international boarding school and hub of what turned out to be a bunch of too-rich-kids-for-their-own-good, I somehow landed in the latter school.
I thought that given the fact that most my (good) friends had been guys up to then and any female friends I had tended to be second- hand friends that were actually my sister's friends, I figured I'd go insane in an all girl's school.
What really tipped the balance, however, was the fact that the former offered merely media as a subject while the latter offered film studies - the only school to do so in the 20 brochures I was shown of schools that fitted my criteria.
What the hell was I thinking. Now, don't get me wrong. Happiest days of my life. The fun I had at that school outside and inside the studying for six A-levels I completed are not for public ears or eyes. Well, the studying might be, and yes I'm one of those people who actually LIKES the subjects she takes, hence having taken six.
But you know...
Right, moving on.
I live by a park in an incredibly middle class neighbourhood with a private all girl's school at the top of the hill slap bang in the middle of the park with tennis courts and a cricket ground. Every now and then I see girls in beautiful navy blue school clothes and neat white knee-socks walking home down the hill by my house with their violin and flute cases, and I get jealous. Sure, I can dress however I want now - I can just dress preppily, in navy blue, whenever I want. And would it have been the same if I had no choice in wearing the uniform? I wonder.
But uniforms have an immense appeal to me, I suspect for this very reason. Even before I chose a boarding school I was already obsessed with uniforms but as I mentioned above, I chickened out in the end and actually made my decision based on the actual content aka curriculum and not the book cover aka beautiful people in beautiful uniforms in beautiful buildings.
Yes it was the right thing to do but the fashionista in me still hasn't been silenced nor is she satisfied no matter how often I walk around in preppy, librarian chic combinations filled with navy blue and cute pleat skirts.
I therefore have an extremely soft spot for anything traditional eduction in prep-school uniform -style. Whatever it is, I probably love it. "Dead Poet's Society"? Hell yeah.
Gossip Girl; the early years - Blair Waldorf in particular, of course. When I was really young, Enid Blyton's "Twins at St Claire's" made do - a book version of mainstream, light and fun stories in between the philosophy and law books I read. Over the years the Enid books got replaced by detective books a la Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes and henceforth by fantasy books a la Wheel of Time, Dark Material trilogy, The Inheritance Cycle etc. to lighten the reading list.
Cruel Intentions, although I prefer the original Shakesperean version, I can never really resist those beautiful costumes.
I got pretty obsessed with Les Choristes because they added another passion of mine - a capella and choir voices. As part of my primary school I had to be in a choir but it was understood that for the sake of everyone's ears I should move my lips in sync, look cute and under no circumstances actually sing, much like the note stand boy. There's a personal connection with most things one appreciates.
And true to form, most recently I have Blaine and the Warblers indulging my dissatisfied inner prep-school girl.
I was planning on rummaging through my old and new pictures to put together all the ones of me dressed as what could pass as preppy school girl but realized that most of the ones when I actually bothered taking a picture are interpreting the look widely as "cute pleated skirt and color matched" because most of the time when I'm dressed preppy Im just on my way to run errands and tend to forget to take pictures. I will remedy this in the future, I promise. At least to myself. I'll report back on this and will let you know.
In addition to this, however, I have also accumulated an unhealthy collection of Blaine, Warbler's and Kurt gifs and feel they're hogging everyone else's space so I FIGURED THEY DESERVE THEIR OWN SECTION. Why? Because they combine everything. They're gorgeous (for me to think that about men is rare) especially together, sing a capella (which makes any song better), Darren and Chris play characters with issues I deal with and therefore identify with, display an wonderfully realistic romantic relationship (not cheesy!) that actually hurts my chest to watch, and last but not least, wear beautiful navy blue uniform. And of course, their expressions make wonderful gifs.
