How do people ever get bored? There’s too much to do in this life and not much time to do it. Especially if you count being lazy as something to do, which I – being lazy – do.

For example now I want to: a) stay in and study (no, really! it is for an anthropology exam about time so it can’t be too bad, can it?) b) go out and show the boyfriend prospective churches (for getting married in!) and c) stay in and look at the sky change colours through the evening while listening to Tales of Jenny. (They are great; and one person in them once offered to buy me some ice-cream or water or something like that while at a picnic in the park, which doesn’t matter at all of course but is today’s claim of fame on my part.)

That was quite random and I didn’t intend for it to stand as an introduction but I have to say it sums me up nicely, so there you go.

Tonight we packed for going back to Athens.

I shan’t bore you with details and explanations but I had to spend a month in Thessaloniki. When I packed for coming here it was still August, and you can see that in the things I brought: t-shirts, sandals and skirts mostly. Tonight it is October, rainy, and unusualy cold –15 °C– and they seem so out of place. I suppose that what I’m trying to say is that t’s funny how fast and how slow the month went by too.

In the past four weeks I’ve –hopefully– passed 4 exams, which brought be closer to finishing that damned (History and Archeaology) course and to the blessed moment when I will be able to shove that damned degree in my family’s general direction and go waste my time on something better. And please don’t tell me the course sounds nice, because it isn’t. It is horrible. In fact that’s exactly what my problem with it is: that they are killing something which could very well be rather great. I hate to say I hate things –it isn’t what this blog is all about, quite the opposite in fact– but I hate these people. I do.

But I digress. I’ve passed four exams (Hellenistic History, which was insane; Ancient Greek, by sheer luck, because I don’t know it anymore, it’s been years since I forgot it; The concept of time in traditional societies, which was okay; and Economic Anthropology which I actually liked) but at what price? A month of my life has gone by and all I’ve done was try to concentrate on the most boring of books and memorise information while stressing, feeling sick and/or close to tears for most of it.

In fact, I still feel sick. The last exam was on Friday and I’m not sure I have recovered. Of course having to walk in the rain for a lot of today didn’t help much but that’s besides the point. Which, I suppose, is that the rest of my life starts today. (Albeit, it is a temporary sort of the rest of my life, because I have another month of exams to face in three and a half months.)

Ready or not, here I come.

Oh, and if you happen to be wondering what this blog is all about, well, I’d have to admit I’m not very sure; but a friend of mine has recently sent me a song of his that says ‘I’d really like to share with you / all the things that make me keep on trying to be good’. This line has been stuck in my head ever since I noticed it (which is why it appears in the sidelines of this fortnight’s issue of the Friends of the Heroes) and it might also be able to give you – and me – an inkling.

I must go to bed now. Goodnight dear reader.

I have a question for the world:

Why is it that, even about half of my wildest dreams have come true in the past year I feel sick and in a bad mood most of the time?

(It’s not any of the obvious things, like fear of happiness or simple ungratefulness. It just isn’t me. I used to be in a good mood nearly all the time — optimistic, always having faith even in the hardest of situations, full of inspiration too; and now I wake up in the mornings sort of like this but it’s gone within an hour or two. Sometimes I get it back – sometimes I don’t– but it’s always fleeting. I don’t hate my life, I just am rather lost.)

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

Let’s start from the beginning, or from something like that anyway.

Once upon a time there was a band that seemed to be able to write songs that changed people’s lives. They were strange songs that seemed to cast a spell on the people who listened to them a lot: they were known to walk around with dreamy smiles, use the words ‘Belle & Sebastian’ as a code for god knows what and harbour a secret desire to meet other people who did the same. Or at least they must have done because when someone had the seemingly crazy –but on retrospect deeply inspired– idea to start a mailing list about them magical things started happening. I’m telling you the truth. Friendships sprouted where before there had been strangers. People met for picnics, got drunk and ended up forming a band, going off for a trip around the world or getting married a few years down the line.

And that’s how I found some songs that somehow reminded me of who I wanted to be, and then, later on, friends that helped me turn my life upside down in the best of ways.

You know, despite everything (described below) I quite like October. (October in Athens, that is.) In fact, what with not having a job –but kind of being able to survive for a while without one– and lovely weather, in a way it is perfect. I can get really quite excited about the weather, especially if it’s sweetly sunny or windy and now it is both of these things — and I have the time to notice it! I also have a (fairly) decent internet connection, a blog, and a fair bit of new music to listen to, which just adds to the aforementioned excitment.

[Of course I also have a university application to fill, a personal statement to write, a teacher/possible referee (who lives in a town 600km away) to meet, a website to finish, another website to write and make pages for, a weekend-long workshop to attend, a gig to organise, a house to clean, a few more things that are escaping me to do and a boyfriend who is going back to the Netherlands in four days, and of course I do need to find a job eventually, but let's now dwell on that, shall we?]

Before we went out the other day I, rather randomly, decided to play a Razorcuts song, and I noticed it said “and it’s strange, thinking back / how a single day seems to capture every shade of the summer”, which made me think of something quite complicated, like “it’s strange how a single moment seems to catch every shade of October, which in its turn seems to capture every shade of the sort of life I’d like to have.” And then I stopped thinking and we went out, and when we came back the boyfriend wrote ‘what if I stopped caring about new music and only listened to Razorcuts for the rest of my life?’ on his blog and then we went to bed, and we lived happily ever after (sort of.)

A couple of weeks I asked Salvatore what I should listen to. “I like this” he said and even though it sounded strange –you have to admit George is a funny band-name– and my taste is usually rather different to his I decided to give it a chance. ‘A week of kindness’ sounded great after all. So there I was with a list of 15 songs, trying to decide which one to play first. I skipped the first one (too obvious) but the couldn’t resist the title of the second one: ‘My fear keeps god a-hiding’. I hit play… and… I think it was late at night, which is usually a rather intense, magical time for me, which goes some way to explain why I was just stuck there, awe-struck in front of a song that sounded every bit like a Sunday parade, my heart leaping to its tune. It was a bright, sad, sing-along sort of song, with a prominent drum beat and a man and a woman singing quietly together that made me wonder why more pop music isn’t like this.

I instantly named the two people in George Jane and Michael. Jane after the Jane who sings ‘It’s a fine day’ and Michael… well, I suppose just because, though it has something to do with Michael Winterbottom and the images from his film ‘Wonderland’ that have remained in my mind, all these years after I watched it. This namedropping, by the way, isn’t random; it’s supposed to sound indicative of the sort of feeling I get off these songs even though it’s probably not very helpful. So let’s try to put it differently: there’s an element of innocence –of the the childlike playfulness that can be found at Bearsuit gigs or Architecture in Helsinki records. There’s also a certain simplicity, an almost folk sort of sound. And, finally, there is what I call a middle-England feeling, the sort of feeling I get off Po! for example.

Despite all this, if I were being honest, I’d have to say most of this record doesn’t appeal to me very much. It’s not that it’s not good enough – I think it is pretty good; it’s just that it’s not indiepop enough. On the other hand, the parts that I like, I like a lot. (Especially ‘Older too’.) These George people have made some prety perfect music: extraordinary, exhilarating songs, songs that bring with them the joy that comes after a great sadness, or that of really, really quiet times.

And they’re called Suzie and Michael. I was half-right.

listen to ‘My fear keeps god a-hiding’

I got bored of looking at that George post, so here I am, with some good news and some bad news. Good news: the landlord decided not to raise my rent this year. Bad news: the kitchen sink leaks badly. Good news: it will get fixed tomorrow. Bad news: it will get fixed at 8.30 am. Bad news: the boyfriend left on Tuesday morning. Good news: I like what’s being said on his blog-magazine-thingie about it. Good news: a lot of the time, life seems a lot better these days. Bad news: sometimes it doesn’t. Good news: I have hope. Bad news: I worry. And I’m not sure what I worry about. Other news: I have to make my dinner. In a wet kitchen. Such is life.

So I grumpily stumbled out of bed at 8 am, tried to keep my eyes open and waited for the plumber, who came on time, shyly asked for a basin and some kitchen paper and then worked silently for half an hour before sitting down, smoking a cigarette and telling me that a person’s aim in life is “to get married, have children and make as much as he can his own.” (By the last one I think he means buy a house, be self-employed – that sort of thing.)

I just smiled; I know that a lot of people would find his remark infuriating if not ignorant but come to think about it, for me, it’s not such a bad way of putting it.

The Budgies have written a song using the boyfriend’s review about them for (part of) the lyrics. It doesn’t make me any happier Tali White never liked the things I wrote about his music that much, for which I think I have secretly been hoping, but never mind that: ‘Think small’ a very good song. It is good in a Tidy Ups, Second-hand furniture, teenage Talulah Gosh sort of way — and a hymn for (indie) pop on top of that.

We want to get to meet you
we want to be your friends
take pictures to remember the good times we spent
A friend of ours once put it in a song
he said “pop love will save the world!”
and we know he’s not wrong

I might feel all grown up these days, but I can’t help but grin at how much this rings true — especially when I look back at the last year or so.

How great is (all) that?