queennessie

Oh yes, it's a new week, and it's my last complete week enjoying the comfort of home. I'll be off to England in nine days, and I'm just so super excited because I'm not really one for home sickness and every experience away from teaches me new and fun things, and generally just feels so much better and brighter than anything I have at home. I'm getting doctors appointments out of the way, and on Wednesday I'm having my blood tested for iron deficiency, as well as a visit to the dentist.

Hopefully it won't end up being a mess like here. Photo by Jakob Esben H.

This edition of WYM is all about music that I have come to know and love thanks to the smart marketing departments that used them in their ad campaigns. And it's all rad!

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Where were you on 9/11. It's the question everyone asks, it's one of those markers in age and time. Can you still remember 9/11? What did you do that day? I think it helps us all to cope with it when we tell our own story, because nobody can deny that it changed all our lives - from the very close impact of losing people you loved, or knowing people who lost loved ones, to the far less personal one of heightened security, to the hidden ones of stricter monitoring of online content and tightened laws.

There are three experiences I want to show you, before I tell you mine.

The first drove tears into my eyes the first time I read it, and every single time I read it since: Meg Cabot's 9/11/2001. I've picked out one moving passage, I'd love to put more but then I'd copy the whole darn thing:

“Why did you go back up?” Jack asked her,
when he finally reached her. By that time she, along with the IT guys,
had become trapped in the fire and smoke.

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” she said.

Of course it did. She was married to Jack. Jack would have done the
same thing. She told Jack to say goodbye to their twins toddlers for
her. That was the last he ever heard from her.

I can never think of this, or of Jack’s happy, cheerful greeting every time I saw him, without wanting to cry.

The second is by Ellen Seidmann's 9/11/2001, from Love That Max. It's shorter, but has a very important spin of how to cope with children and telling them about what happened.

The third comes from GOOD.is, and is about Dylan C. Lanthrop's 9/11/2001. Dylan's point of view is interesting because he was a teenager when this happened, about the age of some of my readers.

When I discussed 9/11 with my Mom today, we talked about what we did on the day. Nobody can escape the question on the tenth anniversary of such dreadful an act. And I found I had created a false memory. I remembered being driven home from school with my brother (it was the fourth grade, and that's mathematically proven), and we heard what happened on the radio. So we switched on the TV to our English language new channels and saw it all being reported on, already happened.

My mom told me that we were already old enough to come home by tram after school, we were only driven in the morning. And due to the time difference, we only learned about what really happened in the evening. Now I wonder why I have such a different memory of things. Maybe it's my head trying to protect me.

As the new header from my Blogger blog and this blog's title indicates, I've simplified my blog name too - it's a bit of a mouthful and a stress to type "Queen Nessie's Musing of the General Populace" for anybody who just thinks about having me write a guest post, so I'm making it easier and more attractive for all of us by just calling this shin-dig "Queen Nessie".

The photo on the right you might recognize as my current profile picture, the other on the left was me around the age of two, I think, and I still can't get over how cute I used to be. It's interesting how similar those faces look (I really wonder what I'll look like in ten years? Could I still find loads of similarities?)

Yesterday Deb texted me and asked if I would like to come along bowling with a couple of her friends, and I was up for it, so we agreed to meet at the bowling center at 8PM. When I got there, it looked pretty full and Deb wasn't there. Instead I found Max and Basti waiting. Max I knew from at Deb's birthday evening and Basti was a friend of his. Just as the drizzle outside turned into rain, Deb arrived with her brother Dave, whom I haven't seen since I was in 3rd grade.

Photo by Jonathan Keelty

I've not made an activist post lately, and going through my labels yesterday evening made me realize that my blog has in fact become rather shallow and self-based. That's not how it started out. That's not how I want to continue it.

When I'm going to England, I'll be studying Politics with Media, and I'm studying this combination of subjects because I want to make a difference, and I think that blogs can do that. I'm not sure mine can, with its limited readership, but I'm willing to hope it can. So I'll plug things more again, because I'm still interested. I hope you might be too.

Photo by Dick Boot

So a huuuuge while back, I had written about my concerns with having a water-drinking habit. Drinking water is important, life-saving even when its been foregone for too long, and simply healthy when done regularly. But I questioned how healthy it is for the planet, when consuming water filled in plastic bottles, which is the main source of water in my family's household.

The situation has changed though, to the better, which is why I've called this post "Good News"! As GOOD.IS writes about a company based in America that has developed a viable technology to return the plastics into the original state - crude oil. While it doesn't wean us off plastics, which is the long-term healthiest choice not only for the planet but us too, it's definitely helping the planet by reducing new production, which not only increases carbon emission but also destroys natural habitats.

Photo (cc) by Flickr user epSos.de

So if you in any way can contribute to the activities of Vadxx in Ohio, please do!

I've told y'all a tiny bit (or a lot, depending on who, when and where) about this guy. He's had several names on here: most often He with a capital "H" to distinguish Him from other regular guys, or NNN, like that sound you make when you're constipated.

Jokes aside, I figured today we could get into a little personal history and get a few laughs out of you still. Just a warning though, in the past I've engaged in behavior quite unbefitting a royal.

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HFF.

And it's Monday again, so my birthday week is over. When the pointers of the clock go past midnight, it's only two more whole weeks till I'm off in a seven-seater car full of dorm items, on my way to England, via the Netherlands. We're taking the ferry.

In the beginning I was disappointed I wouldn't witness the chunnel, but this way I get to stop over in the city where my friend Jenius lives, and she can show me around her place for an hour or two, and discuss hotties.

Today's theme for my WYM post is random recommendations. There's no real connection between the songs, so let yourself be surprised and enjoy!

Monday: Toodar & The October Game - Flash Floods & Wildfire

I thought it would be good to get in the mood for England with sound from over there. Toodar and The October Game worked together on this song, which has a lovely low key and yet energetic sound to it. What I also like is the lyrics, which work a lot of natural metaphors (as evident in the title).

Tuesday: Lil' Kim - Crush on You (Matpat Edit)

Normally I'm not a fan of Lil' Kim, I don't really like her "air", you could call it. But what is great about this song is that Lil' Kim is at the very back of it all. I hear her like she's talking to me through a cell phone from a place with patchy reception. And then I return my attention to the very chilled and mellow editing of Matpat.

Wednesday: Kimbra - Cameo Lover (Shook Remix)

Anybody else getting a distinct 80s vibe from this song? The lyrics do border on pathetic, but I'm thinking it works with the kitschy 80s vibe of the song*. The electric guitar does what I call this wriggly thing in my head, and whenever I listen to this song I keep on shaking my shoulders. I bet if I were more buoyant, this track would be downright danceable. In the 80s that is.

* = Only the song isn't from the 80s. Whudduya say.

Thursday: Mark Ronson - Bang Bang Bang (feat. MNDR & Q-Tip)

This one is a big favorite of my brothers, so I had to endure it quite a while, but it's grown on me. MNDR's child-like vocalization add to the very laid back flow Q-Tip contributes to, that is part of the partly jumpy, partly just meandering melody of the song. Great stuff!

Friday: Miami Horror - Holidays (feat. Alan Palomo)

This song also has a distinct aged feel to it, but not in the kitschy way that Wednesday's track has it. This stuff is cool. Way cool. Miami Horror works with Alan Palomo occasionally, and it's a good collab that is absolutely relaxing and thus on repeat with me a lot lately.

Saturday: Regina Spektor - Eet (Acoustic)

I've shown you this one via the summer camp photo vid I made, and this was also my wallpaper-tearing-down soundtrack. I bet you, this is the song to motivate you to do anything, because it's so action-inspiring. And Regina does it all on the back of classical instruments. Ahmazing girl!

Sunday: The Generationals - Ten-Twenty-Ten

It's like fate wanted me to find this song - it was on my favorite currently airing TV show of the moment, Awkward. (episode 4), it was on one of the music blogs I track for tunes I could like. And boy, this song is good, fate really picked a good one. I just want to dance to this, nod my head along, shake, knock my knees together. This is it.

I feel like I might have put on about ten thousand pounds (way to go Imperial! Gotta practice for when I'm living in England)! We had dinner at the Chinese down the road to celebrate my birthday, and I had roasted turkey with bamboo slices, brocolli and an ominous dark sauce with a flair of garlic. I love garlic. It makes food yummy. The sauce was still a little dodgy to me though (probably soy sauce). I should have ordered the Hong Kong sauce instead. I digress though.

Delish. Only my turkey looked even tastier! (c) denkschema

I wanted to say thank you to all the people that wished me a felicitous birth-day, and lots of other things too. I was truly filled with exuberance at all the people that remembered (or bothered with wishing happy birthdays because facebook told them it was THAT time of year again). It wasn't quite as much as last years, but I did cull my friends list on facebook significantly, so I think that this time there were a lot more sincere wishes, and for sure there were more personal ones, so yay for that!

An especially big thank you goes to Rebecca, from Rebecca-books, who is of course known to you all for her guest blogging here for WYM: Get Your Brit On Edition, and for whom I guest-blogged in her Summer of Fun bookweek (even though summer is almost over, and certainly acts like it has, you should read up the entries if you haven't already)! Rebecca was so amazing to actually dedicate a whole blog post to me and my birthday yesterday, and featuring Charlie the Unicorn, one of my beloved internet sensations.

Charlie the Unicorn (c) FilmCow

Only one more day till I start my last year as a teenager. The hours are slowly ticking away, we're close to the minute domain. Midnight comes and goes and it will be my birthday. Now, it's customary for the birthday child to get the gifts, but this is my blog so I make up the rules as I go, and I have one gift and one request today, on not-my-birthday.

This isn't exactly something people have been clamoring for, but I thought I'd offer up a new page up over at my blogspot blog, and it's called -surprise, surprise- WYM: Worth a Year of Music, just like my Monday blog feature. It's not quite a year ago that I started this, but I thought I'd roll it out now, rather than wait, because I have the suspicion I won't stop blogging seven tunes a week, and so the "anniversary" is really an arbitrary point in the WYM timeline.

The actual content of that page is a list of hopefully all the songs I've brought to you guys, with a link to each week's post, feel free to peruse, listen and find old favorites and "new" smash hits!

Now to my request: I've mentioned Nishat/cleanteeth a couple of times on my blog (probably not enough, if I'm honest), who so graciously invited me to be part of her family for one day in Luxembourg after the conference I attended. She's a cute, smart and charming girl, with a great passion for art. Nishat has great ideas and executes them wonderfully.

Just one of her gorgeous shots. (c) Nishat

She has a new idea, called the Secret Garden, and she needs your help, but it's best if Nishat explains this herself:

Anonymously submit your secrets!

PLEASE help me out here. It takes seconds to anonymously submit your secret at http://www.formspring.me/secretgardenart
I’m planning on bringing your secrets to life in an art installation called “The Secret Garden.” This installation can only happen if I have enough secrets. It’s anonymous, you don’t need to sign up, and your secret will help. All I ask is that you don’t use names in your secrets. Thanks!

I've already submitted my secret, and I hope so will you. Please also pass this message on. For those on tumblr, I've linked you to Nishat's post above, and I would appreciate it if you could reblog and share her request (I'm pretty sure she would appreciate it too, to be honest).

Thanks, from a not-so-fresh 18 year old, but that's about to change at 14:19 tomorrow!

Yeehaw, it's birthday week time and time to party! On Wednesday it's my birthday, and I'm in an excellent mood to turn 19. And something else that puts me in an excellent mood, is music by Orson, a band which has sadly disbanded. But no worries - put on their music, below, and relive the best they have to offer! Wheee!


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