Disappointment

     I don't think I've been quite as disappointed as I am now for a long time. I went to see the Strypes in HMV and discovered that there was a competition you had to get tickets from on a radio channel I don't listen to. This wasn't said anywhere really, it was advertised as a free gig on loads of websites and the competition was never mentioned. So I couldn't get in, I'm really upset about this but I guess I'll get over it. There's a signing after the show which is open to the public so I'm going to that but it doesn't make me feel much better right now. I'm just gonna pig out on junk food and watch stupid stuff online now.
     Cya,
     Ruska

Freedom (I think, shut up its almost 4am)

     I've got this sense of freedom these days, like I'm being treated more like a mature adult (which I certainly amn't) who can be trusted to be independent. With my parents I think it's the whole 16 thing of me no longer being a child, like I've been fairly independent of the parents for a few years now but not fully, now I get to make all my own decisions for my self. The other night, for example, was Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) and since my family on my dads side is Jewish they were having a big celebration for it, originally I was going to go with my dad but he had loads of deadlines due so he just stayed at work late and skipped it. Beforehand that would have automatically ruled me out of the dinner but it was left up to me whether I go or not this time. I know it seems like a little thing but for me it just kinda makes me realise that I'm growing up and I can't always depend on my parents to do everything for me anymore. The other thing is my school, in Junior Cycle we were always told "do this or you'll get in trouble, do that or you'll get detention" etc. etc. Now it's different, the teachers don't really check our homework that much and we're just told that if we don't put in the work we won't do well but it's up to us to make ourselves do the work. This, in my opinion is really great because it makes us feel more responsible for how we do in the Leaving Cert and then it's our fault if we don't do well, not the teacher's. This is still pretty new to me but so far it seems to be working, as in I'm doing almost all my homework these days as opposed to the bare minimum I could get away with, which was quite a small quantity due to my excellent deceptive skills, not only do I do my homework now but I also feel this sense of prose whenever I finish a particularly hard sum or whatever. I have no idea how much sense this makes, I started writing at 03:21am and it's now 27 minutes later but whether this is shit or great thanks for reading this far. 

     Ruska

P.S. Just finished reading John Green's 'Looking for Alaska,' it's amazing. GO READ IT!!! NOW!

The Strypes (and other stuff about my life right now)

     I know I talk about them a fair bit now but I'm ridiculously excited about the Strypes album that's combing out this Friday. It's called Snapshot and is being released earlier in Ireland than, I think, anywhere else, for obvious reasons (they're from Cavan). They're playing at midday at the reopening of HMV on Henry Street and I've received permission to bunk off school (I call it mitching but I dunno if anyone else does). It's times like these that I really appreciate how great my mum is, I can't tell my dad though because he would be fairly pissed about it. 

     I dunno if anyone actually reads this blog, I've stopped checking the stats because I'd become slightly obsessive over them, the whole not posting much all summer probably didn't do it much good... Weronika has basically stopped writing for the blog for a few reasons so its basically just me now, she's started writing a book apparently so that's taking up a load of her time, that and her mad exercise regime coupled with the start of school just leave her without a whole lot of time. I don't have all that much time either with me being in 5th year (second last year of school) and getting loads of homework but I've got the weird 3-4 hours of sleep a night thing going on so I've got most of the night to write and read and shit like that. 

     Anyway, back to the Strypes, if anyone who lives in Dublin and isn't busy in the middle day and has a vague interest in that kind of music reads this blog I recommend you come along, it's a music shop so I presume it's free to get in and it's really good music (and it's HMV!!) So yeah, that's about me 'cept for the fact that I got an iPhone and am typing this on it nothing much is new.

     Cya,

     Ruska 

Live music and other things vaguely related to the topic

     In relation to live music I almost don't care what the music playing is like, as long as there's energy behind the playing of the music it doesn't bother me about the music itself, very much. Obviously the better the music, the better the gig, that's just logic. I also like to know the music, again not necessary but it tends to help. Then again I've been at so many gigs with bands I'd never even heard of and they've been amazing. What I would consider as the best gig I've ever been to was just recently, on my birthday, I went to see Nine Inch Nails at Belsonic in Belfast. That was an amazing gig and I had never listened to their music beforehand, now I'm a big fan, or at least a moderately big fan. Where you are really effects your experience, if you're right at the back and unable to see its going to be a bit shit, likewise if you're right at the front it'll be amazing. For example, a few days before my birthday we went to see Regina Spektor in the Olympia in Dublin, downstairs there is standing and the balconies are seated and further away from the state. Now both me and my mother were fairly tired that day and Regina's soft and pretty slow music added with the far away seats with very little sight of her just had us falling asleep halfway through the show. We left early and I felt ridiculously guilty even though we only left about two or three songs from the end. Needless to say I haven't listened to her music since. The Strypes are another example of an amazing gig but I think for me that was solely for the music, as I am a pretty big fan. On the topic of the Strypes, they're releasing their first album this Friday (only in Ireland though, England gets to wait till Monday) and they're playing a gig on Friday at midday at the reopening of HMV on Henry street, that combines my two favourite things in the world, ever.  The Strypes and HMV in one and near me too!!! Unfortunately it's a school day and I very much doubt my mum will allow me to skip school for that :'( 

Ruska

Tools for Solidarity (also 1000 views)

     Tools for Solidarity are this charity organisation based in Belfast. Basically what they do is repair and refurbish tools and sewing machines and send them out to Tanzania and some other African countries. Here they teach locals how to use and maintain the tools and sewing machines. My parents both volunteered for TFS about 17 years ago, that's where they met, and they've kept in contact with the people who run the organisation. They're really great people and we still go up to visit them occasionally, for the past few years I've spent a week or two of my summer holidays there. I'd spend a fair bit of my time there at the workshop fixing tools and I really love it there, that's where I've been disappearing off to in Belfast. They have a constant flow of volunteers there who usually stay about a year and they tend to be lovely. This is quite disorganised but what I'm trying to say is that they are an amazing organisation and I've been thinking of volunteering there once I'm finished school. It's kinda a big thing for me to say this because before now I've firmly held the belief that I won't have any clue of what I want to do once I've left school until I'd left school but now I think that that's bullshit, it was just my way of not planning my future which I really don't want to do. Now I know that I want to volunteer with something, even if not TFS, and that I want to travel the world a bit. I have no interest in going to college or any further education but that's me now, for all I know I could change my mind by the time that comes around, I've still got two years. I'm fairly sure my dad wants me to go to college (he does teach in one), recently he's been pressuring me to try and figure out how many points I'll want in my Leaving Cert (big end of school exams) by figuring out which college courses I'll want to get into but I honestly think that if I do go to college it'll be as a mature student so that'll no longer matter. This was meant to be fairly exclusively about TFS but turned into more so it's probably fairly impossible to follow, sorry about that. Anyway that's that, on a completely different note, the blog has hit a thousand views so cheers for that.
     See yous,
     Ruska

Apologies, Excuses etc.

      I've been busy, do you really expect me to do this regularly during the summer? I have loads that I've written in this notebook I have but haven't typed them up yet. I will at some point soon, I don't know when though. I'm going to Belfast tomorrow evening because it's my sixteenth birthday on Wednesday and I'll be back when school starts. I'm much more likely to want to write then anyway I'll have much less to do (well much less that I want to do) it'll go back to being a great form of procrastination and I'm sure I'll post almost everyday. Also Weronika will be back, actually she's back today at some point, not sure when though. I'm sorry this is kinda shit, I'm in a bit of a rush, I'm going to gig tonight, Regina Spektor (I think that's how you write it) no idea what she's like so this should be interesting. I am genuinely sorry I haven't posted in ages and I'll get back into it soon enough.

     Ruska

6am Rant About Bieber

     First off, I'm sorry I haven't written in ages, we've just moved house and all I've been doing is unpacking and obsessively watching this TV show all the time. So that's my excuses over and done with, let's get on with something vaguely more interesting. I just decided now that I'm going to do a thing on Justin Bieber and it's probably going to shit because it's six in the morning and I've been up all night watching stupid shit online. I watched a really nice film actually, 'Come On Eileen' but anyway.
     I very, very strongly dislike Justin Bieber, just to get that out there, not for his music or anything like that. His music isn't particularly good but it doesn't make him deservant (I really hope that's a real word) of my disdain. I don't like him because of his stupidity, there are so many things he's done that are just ridiculously stupid and also he basically brainwashes his fans to think what he thinks, he's against abortion (which makes me like him even less) but fine have stupid views if you want but don't use your fame to make people adopt your views he said, I'm not sure of the exact quote but it was something like this, "I'm against abortion so my fans should be too" that's just nasty because a lot of his fans are very influential teenage girls who would believe anything he says, I'm done with that now though, it's not quite what I wanted to write about today.
     I wanted to write about his fans, probably the most dangerous fan base around at the moment. I mean One Direction are mostly harmless there's been no big scandals about them or their fans as far as I know ('cept the fact that one of them likes older women but who cares). Justin Bieber on the other hand has had drug scandals, which to be honest I really don't care about. It's his fans reaction to them, I'm going to presume you heard of 'cut for bieber' probably the stupidest, no scratch that, most certainly the stupidest thing I've seen done, these girls (majority girls anyway) decided that ''Ooh, I'm going to help Justin through his 'tough' times by cutting myself and posting pictures to Twitter and Facebook." Firstly I don't understand why this is supposed to help Bieber through his drug addiction or whatever it is. Presuming he knows about this whole 'cut for Bieber' thing it's really just putting huge pressure on him not to fuck up. I mean if you were his age wanting to have fun or whatever it is he wants from it imagine having the pressure of knowing if you do get a little bit, just for the laugh or something and people find out, thousands of teenagers will harm themselves. So there's this to go against the fans and there is so much more. There's the ridiculous jealousy they have of him visiting people. He visited someone who was dying of cancer or something like that and loads of his fans were outraged that he visited her not them, likewise when he visited the Anne Frank Huis he got girls saying that 'why does she get a visit she isn't even that special' (him writing in the guest book that Anne Frank would've been a belieber is a whole other story). I'm not going to go on because honestly he's not worth the time, I can't even be arsed to edit this, I'll do a quick spell check and then I'm posting.
     I'm tired and cranky right now so it may well be that when I wake up a bit more later in the day I'll take this down or something, I dunno. Weronika hasn't been on for ages either, I don't know her reasons for it, probably more interesting than mine but I haven't really talked to her in the last few weeks, she's busy with Poland and I'm getting into loads of bad moods because I'm spending the majority of my day sitting on my laptop avoiding leaving my room because I know I'll get given out to for being on the laptop while I should be unpacking so I'm fairly stuck in my room full of boxes right now. So yeah, sorry about this shit stuff, I felt pissed and needed to get it out somehow. (You have no idea how many times I misspelled Bieber in this thing)
     Anyways, ciao,
     Ruska