Music I’m Loving Right Now Vol III – Autumn Days Playlist

Autumn is upon us. And as the days get shorter and colder my listening habits change, gone are the fun and exciting party tunes of summer, it’s all about Indie Rock and a little dash of chilled out Hip-hop.

Recent Music Discoveries From The Playlist

Nell

Nell is a Korean Indie-Rock band, they have been around for ages but it was only in early September that I discovered them. My favourite song so far has to be Broken (hence why it’s the opening track on my playlist), I love how deep the song is…I just can’t get enough of it.

The 1975

I’ve known of this band for quite a while and I never actually took the time to check them out. But as I’ve been in an Indie-Rock mood recently I decided to finally listen to a few tracks. As a result, I’ve fallen in love with their Electro-Funk-Indie-Pop-Rock vibe!

This track is super reminiscent of Fame by David Bowie…Was it intentional for a band called The 1975 to release a song with a very similar vibe to a song from that very year!? Hmm

The Solutions 

Another awesome Korean Indie-Rock Band. And this music video is rather aesthetically pleasing too.

All Things Come To Pass

One of the tasks for my Creative Writing course on my degree is to write a Haiku. Poetry is not really my forte and especially rather abstract ones such as the Haiku. If you’re not familiar with the haiku then let me briefly explain what it is a where it comes from. The Haiku (俳句) is a short Japanese poem, it literally is only 3 lines! The form of the Haiku is that lines 1 and 3 have 5 syllables and line 2 has 7.

examples include:

古池や蛙飛びこむ水の音 (furuike ya / kawazutobikomu / mizu no oto)

an ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water [Basho 1686]

いざさらば雪見にころぶ所迄 (izasaraba / yukimi ni korobu / tokoromade)

now then, let’s go out / to enjoy the snow … until / I slip and fall! [Basho 1688]

So seeing as some of the most famous examples of Haiku featured an abundance of nature I decided to make sure mine did too. I have long been interested in East Asian culture and in part that is because I am utterly fascinated with Buddhism especially the Japanese and Korean branches Zen and Seon Buddhism, which came to each country via China’s Chan Buddhism.

In Zen Buddhism you are encouraged to let go of ties to the material world, and it is often stressed that All Things Come to Pass, everything is impermanent. In Japanese that is called 無常 (mujō) and in Korean it is 무상 (Musang). What I found rather interesting about the Korean term 무상 is that it roughly translates into English as Free (or maybe thats just the Linguistics nerd within me?). And when you really think about it, if we release ourselves of obligation and stress and realise that everything is impermanent it gives us the freedom to chase life and embrace living in the present.

Okay, I will get to my Haiku in a moment, but first I need to turn to the Japanese custom of Flower Viewing to further explain the inspiration for my Haiku. Hanami (花見) is a tradition in which you observe the transient beauty of flowers, and in most cases that would be Cherry Blossoms as they only flower for a very short amount of time. So that links back quite nicely to the whole theme of All Things Come to Pass.

So here it is in all it’s 3 lined glory, I present to you my Haiku 

I don’t really know if this is any good but the inspiration behind this Haiku is rather interesting (well to me at least) so I thought I would share it with you.

And on a side note if you are fluent in Japanese please kindly translate my Haiku I would be interested to see what it looks like and sounds like in Japanese.

Turning 25

Just a fair warning this is a little…shall we say bleak? No, Jaded… well not exactly but let’s just say it’s not exactly brimming with positive energy…read at your peril…

Just kidding, no harm will come to you from reading this, it is purely just the musings of a girl, I mean woman, who is a little lost and very conflicted with growing older and becoming a whole different age bracket on surveys.

Turning 25 is surreal, a quarter of a century has already passed and yet it feels like it has been but a short moment. A blink of an eye if you will. I guess everyone feels this way at some point in their life. But, for me right now I feel a rather strong discontent with turning 25. I feel like I am still trying to become the person I am meant to be, and I am still building a future I have no true solid plans for. Am I just wandering and living aimlessly? Will I ever know my direction in life? 

Is a quatre life crisis such a thing? And that’s me bravely assuming that I will become a centenarian! Perhaps I am not overreacting and turning 25 is a difficult time for many. My proof, of course, comes from literature the voracious reader within me always finds quotes from books that mirror my exact situation. I came across this short Story from Korean Author Bae Suah called Highway with Green Apples, the line as follows struck a chord with me.

I am one week away from my twenty-fifth birthday. I hate being that age. That age is neither as fresh and full of life as fifteen years nor as jaded as the afternoon of thirty-five years.

Besides the eeriness of the timing (I read this exactly within the week before I was due to turn 25 and the book begins in autumn, thus the protagonist like me has a birthday in Autumn), this line sums up the confusion of turning 25. Betwixt youth and maturity, 25 is an age where you assume that you should have everything in order. But assumption often falls flat and while maybe the average 25-year-old may have direction or feel at ease with themselves, there will be an awful lot of us in the opposite position, lost and confused.

So…20 years separate these two pictures, 1998 to 2018. I have changed quite a lot but still, the person in the second picture is unmistakably the little girl of the first. Looking back over pictures brings so much to the foreground, its a reminder that we change but we also stay the same, it’s a reminder that time has passed and perhaps they are…a wake-up call? Live like there is no tomorrow as for all you know one day you will wake up and 20 years have flown by…

Now, to put an end to this rather deflating and rather bleak outlook, I need to insert some positive thinking in here somewhere. If you’re still with me, thank you for being patient and reading this far, time to change the tone…

I have learnt a lot about myself in these 25 years, I like Learning Languages, Movies and Literature. I drink too much coffee. My favourite seasons are Spring and Autumn. I think too much about how other people perceive me (something I’m working on), and I have an insatiable desire to travel the world (also something I’m working on). I value logic but emotions rule me sometimes. I believe in love but feel that a true incarnation is hard to find. I believe that I am rather self-aware but rather frustratingly I am still struggling to find my place in this vastly beautiful and richly diverse world. But maybe someday soon I will find where my me shaped puzzle piece fits. And until that day I will continue to learn about and learn to love myself.

Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is one this summers most buzzed about books. At only 176 pages it’s a perfect read, and if you can’t get away this summer then, you’ll find yourself transported to Japan for a short while. 

いらっしゃいませ! This phrase is a mantra for Keiko Furukura who has spent the past 18 years of her life working at a convenience store. She is a bizarre protagonist, she studies those around her and imitates them so that she can fit into society. And this is chiefly the basis of the story, Convenience Store Woman is a study of people that society deems different and how they are often marginalised or expected and even coerced into normalisation. 

At the Convenience Store Keiko encounters perennial slacker Shiraha, like Keiko he is an outsider, but he is also her exact opposite, he has literally no purpose in life. For, Keiko working at the Convenience Store is her life, she doesn’t need anything else. However, she dabbles with the idea of partnering up with Shiraha as that is what is expected of her, and when she tells her friends that she is living with another man they are all ecstatic for her. However, Shiraha is an absolute jerk, he uses Keiko and babbles on pretentiously about how modern society is still exactly like “Stone Age” society. Having a character like Shiraha come into Keiko’s life is essentially a way for the author to help make Keiko realise that being normal is overrated, she unlike many others doesn’t need the traditional, get married and have kids lifestyle, her job is satisfaction enough, and it keeps her going and feeling like she has a purpose. And in life surely that is enough?

Overall, Convenience Store Woman is a fascinating read, it makes you realise how judgmental people are! And I found it to be quite a funny quirky little read with a good-hearted message, which is always nice to find in a book.

And as always, let me know in the comments section what you thought of Convenience Store Woman and while you’re here check out my other book reviews.

Finding the Right Pair

So I went to the Opticians recently…and well it had been a while, the last time I remember going was when I was a child hahaha. And guess what? I apparently have an astigmatism (one eye is the shape of a rugby ball or something like that) and one eye is higher than the other (ooh what a catch). And what does all this mean? Yes, I need glasses.

I then made it my mission to go glasses shopping, of course, Charlotte and I had to call in on all our usual shops like Topshop, Waterstones et cetera, so the actual amount of glasses shopping we actually did was quite minimal. But I quickly came to 2 conclusions, 1 I look really nerdy in glasses and 2 why are they all so freaking expensive? (I naturally gravitate towards luxury aka designer brands, Hello Chanel and Gucci!).

Enter Ace & Tate, I found this brand while scrolling through Instagram, and given my current predicament, I was rather curious. Ace & Tate are based in the Netherlands and have a range of cool modern glasses (and sunglasses) that are a fraction of the price of most glasses you can get from your local opticians! And what is also fantastic is that you can pick 4 frames to try on at home free of charge. Here are my picks…

1 Neil in Satin Gold

2 Pierce in Fizz

3 Morris in Fizz

4 Jay in Satin Gold

And here is how they look on…

I think the whole idea of a at-home-try-on is such a good idea as you can ask friends and family for their opinions, you don’t feel as self-conscious as you would in a shop trying them on and the lighting isn’t as harsh either! Also, you can bust out a few selfies for good measure!

After some deliberating, I think the pair I’m going to order is no.1 Neil in Satin Gold. So the next step is to send back these try-on frames and place my order 

Thanks Ace & Tate for making this process a little easier (and for not breaking the bank either!)