Amanda's Blog

So after meeting my friends new friends - Will and Geroge from Texas - we went to Mahiki in Mayfair, aka the place to get THE most amazing cocktails. I had the pina colada which is served in a whole pineapple, and Jess (above) had the monkey brains, served in a coconut with a scary/funny face carved on it!  we also had a sharer cocktail called Zombie which tasted like heaven. Mahiki is tiki bar themed, although a little pricey, the drinks are the best I've ever had, the people were 90% friendly and the music was great! the only bad thing was the temperature. I think the air con system was broken or something because it was like the sahara in there! there wasn't a point in the night when i wasn't covered in sweat, not cute. Apart from that, I had a great time =D me, jess, Rosa, George, Will and julia went back to our flat afterwards and stayed up until 4am talking - except from Jess who had work in the morning - about random crap, I swear when you get American and british people together there is always lots to talk about. We disagreed about a lot but I got Will to admit that our chocolate is far superior.

I read this pretty quickly, which is a big deal because I am a seriously SLOW reader! it's one of those books that you just can't put down. I loved this even more than the first book of this triliogy - northern Lights - check out my review of that book here. because there are more interesting moments, and you get to know the characters a lot more through the tasks they must complete. Fate plays a bigger role in this book, everything appears to happen for a reason and a huge war is coming, creatures and soldiers are travelling from different worlds for the biggest and most important fight in the history of the universe. Lyra is stuck right in the middle of this war and is the key to making sure 'the right side win this time'. Philip Pullman stuns me yet again with his highly descriptive (but not overly so) language and imaginitive plot, if i hadn't already read these books some years ago then I would say that so far, it isn't predictable, and the characters are growing as the books progress, I even cried over a minor character dying! he had barely any time in the narrative but Pullman managed to make me attatched to him all the same. If you love high-fantasy, lot's of drama, magic, imagination and religion vs science themed stories, then this is definitely the one for you! 

So I'm clearly addicted to chocolate, shall I start doing a chocolate bar of the week thing? haha. I'm assuming this one is new because I've only seen it one shop. It's kind of the most awesome thing ever, doubly as big as a normal chocolate bar (to accomodate the popcorn) it is genuis in my opinion. I've done nothing but read today, I should have another book review up tomorrow if all goes to plan. I've been stuffing my face a lot lately, so bad! so I ordered some veg this week. I can't actually remember the last time I had a vegetable, slightly worrying. 

My interview went well! they hired me then and there, and said I should expect to start work next week. I think they were kind of impressed that I showed up to the interview wearing my work clothes, I wanted to show my dedication! which obviously worked, I had such a spring in my step afterwards, can't wait to be thrust into the working world, and actually have some money to do stuff this summer =D I'm looking foreward to this weekend and to next week in general becaus I'm meeting up with some old friends, going out with some new-ish ones and visitng the family.

What are your plans for the weekend?

I haven't done one of these in a while, I pretty much failed my '50 book reading challenge' but whatever, I'll still do book reviews and I'll be doing much more of them now that I have all this free time on my hands! Northern Lights is the first book in the 'His dark materials' trilogy by Philip Pullman. I've read this series before but it was when I was about 14 I think (7 years ago) and I saw all three books in a charity shop for £3 each, what a bargain! I just had to buy them. Back when I read them the first time I had borrowed each book from the library but I remember them being so good that I instantly wanted to buy them, even though I couldn't remember all of what happened in the plots. You know a book series is good when it stays with you like that!

This book introduced Lyra, a young girl who lives at Oxford college and loves climbing the roofs, playing with the gypsy boys and is generally a child (I think shes meant to be 12?) but pretty soon she has to grow up fast as she is thrust into all kinds of magical and dangerous adventures involving the altheomiter (or golden compass as stated in the film adaptation) which is a compass that tells the truth.

This is beautifully written in it's simplicity, the characters are all interesting in their own right and contribute well to the overall plot. I love the plot, but without giving away the ending, I was disapointed with how Pullman decided to finish the book. Basically I think Lyra should have had more of an emotional response to what happens before she gets all excited about her next adventure. Other than that, I loved the book! I'd definitely recommend it, though I'd say perhaps to someone of 16yrs and older not because the content is particularly mature but because there are a lot of fictional scientific principles that I feel a younger audience might not understand (at least I didn't when I was younger!)

Also, I watched the film straight after finishing this yesterday, it's good but it's not very true to the book at all. In fact, it misses out a massive and important chunk of the plot. However, cincematically speaking it's worth the watch.

I'm kind of obsessed with this chocolate, it tastes so good, but unfortunately it's only sold in Tesco and there isn't one near me so I can only get it when I order online.

anywaaaay, I have a job interview this Wednesday which I'm very excited for! it's to be a cashier at this event's company in Camden, I bought my work clothes (they want to see me wearing it for the interview) of a black collared shirt, smart black trousers and black leather shoes (they have to be leather apparently. So I went to the Clarks outlet down the road from me and got an amazing pair of black leather brouges for £40! pretty good considering they used to be £70 and they are made of real leather.

Today I enjoyed the sun a bit while I browsed the shops, now I'm getting some writing done. I'm considering this writers challenge I found on twitter (#JuNoWriMo on twitter if you want to take part) where in the month of June writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 words - which is essentially a novel - in 30 days. A little crazy but I like a challenge! I'm going to do my best.

On my mothers birthday weekend I took my little sisters to China Town. It was a gloriously sunny day so we soaked up the sun a little and then browsed the shops. Mainly I wanted to get Aloe vera king (I'm obsessed with this drink!) and get a present for my mum's birthday. Here are the pics.

Wonton soup

Shark fin and crab meat dim sum. We stopped at a reaustarant to get some lunch, I was starving because I hadn't eaten breakfast. I had the soup and my little sisters both had dim sum.

I saw these cool looking cakes in a Chinese bakery.

We walked past Patisserie Valerie on our way out of China Town and I had to take a pic of the amazing ice cream, it looks so beautiful and delicious!

I decided to go into the cafe where me and my little sisters drooled over all the amazing cakes, no pics of those though because I got a bit camera shy in front of the customers! I picked up some macaroons and some chocolate truffles for my mother because I know she loves them.

I got an aloe Vera king and some strawberry flavoured Pocky from a corner shop on our way back home. I was really tired from walking around all day (it took a LONG time for my little sisters to decide what to get my mum, they are so picky!) but so happy, it's rare that I get to see my sisters now what with them revising for exams and me living so far, it was great sisterly bonding time =)

I'm so happy that I've officially finished all my assignments for this year of univrsity. Now I have nothing but free time to continue writing my story (I'm currently at 53,000 words!), paint, read and look for a job/internship for this summer. I went out last weekend to celelbrate finishing my second year of university. My friends kind of stole my camera for the night and took most of the photo's, they took over 70 photos but I decided to just include the best ones/funniest. I was going to edit them but I just really couldn't be bothered, seeing as there were so many! anyway, here are the pics.

On the way to the bar we saw a couple of men dressed as snow white and the seven dwarfs! kind of funny.

Olivia and Melissa.

Olivia and her boyfriend Joe.

Olivias AMAZING New Rock boots, I was so jealous.

Me, Becky and Lucy.

Chris and Lucy.

Mel (just on the side) Becky and Lucy, I love this one because it was a candid shot, they didn't realise it was taken until after haha.

Mel is happy.

Becky made a moustache out of the lemon that came in her drink ahaha.

Olivia close up, I loved her eye make up

Mel found some guy dressed up as Elmo and she just had to get a picture!

Random candid shot of me mid-sentence/laughing.

With Joe and Michael. 

Pulling faces with Chris at a low angle.

We got a nice barman to take a group shot of us all.

Now for the scary and bright close ups that Melissa did, here's Lucy!

Here's Chris!

Here's Becky!

And here's me! didn't really appreciate the close up, but when my friends are around they always take my camera!

That's it! Had a great time, hopefully we can all do it again some time, it had been far too long since the last time we'd all gotten together! Today I'm writing my story and reading a lot, how is your day going? xoxo

So I stumbled across this interview with Emma Watson for Rookie ----> http://rookiemag.com/2013/05/emma-watson-interview/ and loved it, I've always been a fan of Emma Watson and her work, I was pleased to read that she's got upcoming projects, one of which is a film called 'The bling ring' which is based on the L.A. theft scandal (if you didn't know, basically what happened is that a few girls decided to go rob Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton's house, I think there were other victims but I can't recall) and I watched the trailer for it, looks pretty funny I think, and interesting. It's directed by the talented Sophia Coppola and you can find the trailer here ----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q4LzhgExvrc

The film is based on the real lives of these fame obsessed girls who stole from the celebrities homes, and there is even a reality t.v. series about the girls called 'Pretty Wild' which I remember watching a while ago, and decided to re-watch today. I'm ten minutes into the first episode and damn, these girls are self absorbed, but of course that makes for compelling viewing. They do whatever they want whenever they want to and the mum kind of sits there and watches it happen! the mum home schools the girls (if you can really call it education) she bases all her classes on the film 'the secret'. Hahaha, I found that so funny, and at first I thought she was kidding. She was not.

'The bling ring' is due to be released June 14th 2013.

Going to have to do this in parts because I like too much music. Anywaaay, i've been thinking a lot about music latley, whenever someone asks me what kind of music I'm into (and it happens quiet frequently when I'm out) I don't really know what to say, because I literally love EVERY GENRE. And people sometimes don't believe me and I'm like, WHY WOULD I LIE, ugh. Or they'll be like 'That's weird', meh. I don't know how this happened either, probably my mum's doing, she played all kinds of music around the house when I was growing up, the most prominant ones I can rememember are The Fugees and Alica Keys because my mum was really into soul and RnB. Then my older sister got really into rock and goth type music, so I got into that, then my little sisters were listening to pop so I got into that. Basically I've fallen in love with every genre I've ever been exposed to haha, BUT I don't like every song I ever hear, it has to be the best. As in, great lyrics, catching/interesting melody, interesting sounding vocals etc.

So I thought I'd list just some of my favourite bands/artists and a brief reason of why. I'll also include my favoutie lyric from each artist.

Nirvana

"It's okay to eat fish because they don't have any feelings" - Something in the way.

I'm only starting with Nirvana because A, they are aweseome and B, I'm listening to them right now. I have always loved Nirvana because even though people say Kurt Cobain didn't put any effort into his lyrics, they are interesting and evoke strange images. I think he probably didn't put effort in (he wrote a lot of them 5 minutes before going on stage) but the fact that they are so interesting just proves what a naturally talented song writer he was. The songs are catchy, moody and the epitomy of grunge.

Sidenote: I recommend reading Kurt Cobains journal, you can find a free pdf of it online. Very interesting - contains lyrics, daily musings and occational artworks. I'm reading it at the mo.

Linkin Park

"I'm so sick of the tension, sick of the hunger, sick of you acting like I owe you this. Find another place to feed your greed, while I find a place to rest" - Place for my head

On to something heavier, a friend introduced me to the amazingness that is Linkin Park four years ago, the music is so heavy, catchy and raw sounding. The lyrics are cool and the songs have a kind of... atomospheric sense to it. I don't know how to describe it, basically its the kind of sountrack you want when trying to write creepy stories (I've done this before, very effective). I love the rap element to their songs too, works well with the rock.

Sidenote: Linkin Park did a collaborative album with Jay Z which is amazing. It's called 'collision course' and includes mash up's of both artists songs. Definitely worth a listen.

Lana Del Rey

"In the land of Gods and monsters, I was an angel, looking to get fucked hard" - Gods and monsters

It's rare when I like a current artist this much, her voice sounds so cool to me, especially how it changes too, so versatile. Most of the time she'll sing in a lazy, soft and and deep tone, ranging to high tone sometimes - I love when she starts to rap too (she's described herself as 'A gangster Nancy Sinatra') although her lysics aren't the best, she certainly sounds amazing, particularly in the songs that have string insruments in the background, which gives her music a much more thematic quality. She said something along the lines of 'I want to make my life a work of art' which I thought was really beautiful and a creative idea. 

Sidenote: She's made a song for the Great Gatsby sountrack called 'Young and beautiful'.

Marina and the diamonds

"I wish I wasn't such a narcassist, I wish I didn't really kiss the mirror when I'm on my own, oh god, I'm gonna die alone" - Teen Idle.

I can't express my love for Marina! she's such an artist. She works hard on every part of her music such as the theme of her album, the artwork, her outfit and make-up, every part of it has  a purpose, check out the blog I wrote about her latest album here Her voice also is so strange but in a good way, the highs she can reach are pretty impressive.

Muse

"Give me all the peace and joy in your mind" - Bliss

Mat Bellamy is another amazing song writer, the songs are incrediable, as is Bellamy's voice, he can reach crazy high tones as well as crazy lows. I'm not sure yet about the new music they've produced because it's such a departure from their usual style, but it's growing on me. They always manage to produce something amazing, you can tell a lot of thought goes into their music and I like that they are influenced by so many different genres. 

Sidenote: for a creepy but FREAKING AWESOME cover of 'Feeling good'

Paramore

"I'll stop the whole world from turning into a monster, and eating us alive" - Monster

I've loved Paramore since I was like, 14. One of those rare bands where I love every song they've ever done, even the covers. Williams voice is so pure and powerful. The lyrics are pretty cool, I like that they have a very disticntive style, yet all their songs don't sound the same. With their most recent album they have tried new things and I'm happy to say I like it, it works for them.

The Rolling Stones

"I'm a king bee buzzing around your hive" - I'm a King bee

I think for the most part, I love older music, The Rolling Stones is one of those bands that could definitely soundtrack my entire summer. I love their upbeat, click your finger along type of songs. Also I LOVE Mick Jagger! he has such stage prescence, and just generally seems like a chill and cool guy. Also, Keith Richards is a legend - he's ranked #4 on the list of top 100 best guitarists. 

Sidenote: Keith Richards was also in Pirates of the caribbean at worlds end, as a pretty badass pirate! 

Yeah Yeah Yeah's

"Don't hold on. Go get strong. Well don't you know, there is no modern romance" - Modern Romance

Karen O has such a unique voice, it's screetchy but in a rock and roll way, she can also do quiet interesting things with her voice, creating sounds I didn't even know were possible. The lyrics are always cool too, the melody's range from simplistic gutair to thrashing rifts. 

Sidenote: Karen O's style is totally amazing in case you didn't notice, I mean, look at that head dress! one of my style icons for sure.

Fall Out Boy

"My pen is the barrel of the gun, remind me which side you should be on?" - the pros and cons of breathing

Pete Wentz has a talent for lyric writing, and particularly for naming songs, some of my favorutie titles include 'Re-inventing the wheel', 'I slept with someone in fall out boy and all I got was this stupid song written about me' and 'Our lawyers made us change the name of this song so we wouldn't get sued'  haha, Wentz has a great sense of humour. The music itself is amazing, I've loved every song they've ever made, particularly their album 'Infinity on high' which I personally though was their peak, until I heard their latest stuff. They are more amazing than ever, Patrick's voice has matured and sounds even better, the lyrics are also more mature which I like. 

Sidenote: embarassingly, I used to write fan fiction about fall out boy and panic at the disco, also I used to have their posters pretty much covering every inch of my bed room walls.

Panic at the disco

"Haven't you heard that I'm the new cancer, never looked better and you can't stand it" - There's a good reason these tables are numbered honey, you just haven't thought of it yet.

Another band that favour unusally long but well thought out song titles, with such numbers as 'I write sins not tragedies', 'build god then we'll talk' and 'The piano knows something I don't know'. The lyrics of these songs really do sound like mini narratives, the melodies are wimsical with a hint of seedy-ness. Their best album is the first one 'A fever you can't sweat out'.

So, on Sunday me, Julia and Rosa decided to check out 'The world on Regent street' which is basically this event in London where lot's of different stalls are set up to give demonstrations - such as noodle making and give out free samples of things like tea, wine, food etc. I didn't get to try any samples because there were massive lines for everything! but that's okay, I really went to take pictures anyway. My friends kept pulling me in different directions and were probably annoyed at me always stopping to photograph something, therefore some pictures are of better quality than others, also there were large crowds and people kept knocking into me. Actually it's a miracle I got any in focus shots at all. Anywaaaay, here are the pics =)

My outfit and make-up for the day. The dress is Primark and the cardigan is from New Look.

We had delcious deserts and cocktails at Planet Hollywood. I had the white chocolate bread pudding with Bourbon sauce and vanilla ice cream/whipped cream - it was amazing!

Followed by delicious cocktails at Revolution bar.

Whilst trying to find a karaoke  bar, we stumbled upon a beautiful cafe called Pattisserie Valerie, they had the most awesome looking deserts in the window so we had to go in obviously (1 desert just wasn't enough that day haha) I had the cream doughnut and a caramel latte.

Tired and getting bored, we came home and watched 'Up' which I hadn't seen and now it's one of my favourite films! We also ordered Chinese later that night, I had Wonton soup and satay chicken.

All in all, a very decadent day! me and my friends are going on a very strict budget to try and save some money now, so we thought, let's have one massively awesome day filled with cool activites and food in London before our lives become boring =D