Thursday November 28th 2013. Today is Thanksgiving, in the USA and Canada. Traditionally celebrated on the fourth and last Thursday of the month, the holiday was originally a harvest festival and is now an opportunity for people to spend time with their families and those they love, share food and appreciate what they are grateful and thankful for in their lives. Or if your name is Joey or Monica, to shove a giant uncooked turkey onto your head... oh Friends references. Of course many people take issue with Thanksgiving, arguing that, as it is essentially a holiday celebrating the destruction of Native American people and their homes and communities, its a bit ridiculous, hypocritical and insensitive of everyone else to spend the day roasting turkeys, consuming pumpkin pies and watching football games and parades. I think this is probably true to a certain extent, but at its heart I think Thanksgiving is a really lovely idea. If you can ignore the aspects that you may personally disagree with, and enjoy the spirit of it: being grateful for what is good in your life, and appreciating how lucky you are, then there are a lot of benefits to be found.
Its quite sad that we don't celebrate in the UK. In my opinion we could all do with feeling grateful a bit more often. I know I spend so much time thinking about the future, the things I wish would happen, the things I want, the expectations I have, that I barely ever take the time to think about what is good about right now, in the present. Not to sound incredibly cheesy and annoying, but we are all pretty lucky. Most people have roofs over their heads, families and friends who love them, exciting things to look forward to. I think its nice to spend a day enjoying those things rather than obsessing over everything we could potentially do or have at some unspecified time in the future. To be honest the worst things I have to worry about are not life threatening or even that bad at all: getting a job, trying to learn enough to pass my A-levels, hopefully going to university. And although everyday life gets boring and stressful, and November is a horrible month, and getting out from under your duvet in the morning is a challenge and sometimes you just have a bad day, thinking about all the good things about life is the best way to make yourself feel happy again.
I'm happy that Christmas is now less than a month away. I'm grateful for my bed being really warm and snuggly so I can hide from the world with cups of tea when I'm feeling ill. I'm thankful for all the stuff that I love that makes me happy, like all the covers of Love is on the Radio with Carrie and Giovanna. And this Taylor Swift song. And just for YouTube in general and Twitter and the fact that I have lots of blogs to read. And Rookie and Humans of New York for making me feel better about humanity. I'm excited for all the things I have planned for the next couple of months. I'm happy that I watched this video earlier today and that it gave me the idea to write this. (I'm also thankful for lots of the same things... Harry Potter, socks, tea and coffee, just to name a few.) And make up. I'm very grateful to whoever invented mascara and concealer and bronzer and all the other stuff that means when I get basically no sleep I don't have to look like an actual zombie, despite feeling like one.
What are you thankful for today? Happy Thanksgiving!
"Because she wears high heels, I wear sneakers. She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers..."
Firstly, I love Taylor Swift. Her music makes me want to dance around my bedroom, singing into my hairbrush. It cheers me up after a bad day, a long shift at work or a fight with someone I care about. It makes me smile when I'm already in a good mood, and is the only thing I want playing on a long train journey. I have some tissue paper hearts that came out of the confetti cannon at her Summertime Ball performance on my wall of posters in my room and I own most, if not almost all, of the music she has released. Red is my running music, Speak Now gets me up in the morning and Fearless plays through my headphones while I fall asleep. Listening to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together got me through my GCSE revision last year as whenever I thought I was going to go mental doing chemistry questions, maths equations or history past papers I would get up and dance madly around my house, singing along and blasting it from my speakers. And I will be the most excited person in the country when she announces UK dates for the Red Tour.
However, listening to the lyrics of You Belong With Me the other day, I realised something. Although it may be my favourite Taylor Swift song, and definitely her best video, it kind of made me sad. Its safe to say its a pretty well known fact that Taylor is famous not only for her music but for her high profile relationships and break ups as well, so it probably isn't a surprise to anyone when she writes songs about heartbreak and girls stealing her boyfriends from her. But something that occurs almost as frequently in her songs as mentions of beautiful blue eyes and driving trucks through the rain, are lines where she sounds pretty harsh or judgemental about other girls. She is a star, so it is in the job description to be entertaining and make music that people will love and want to listen to over and over. You may think that it doesn't really matter whether Taylor Swift makes a bitchy comment in a song - whether its about what a girl "does on the mattress" or what a guy is doing "with a girl like that?" - and you would be right. With people dying in wars all over the world and losing their jobs and homes due to the economy, the lyrics in music could be seen is completely irrelevant. But you could also argue that it is important; that how we talk about people is what makes us who we are.
And, honestly, that line just really irritated me. Because we all (girls.. mostly) have days where we do want to get up in the morning and put on a really short skirt and a lot of eye make up. Perhaps you're not feeling very confident or there's someone you want to impress, maybe you just want to dress up for the day. And sometimes on Taylor Swift's planet it seems like that makes those girls into the "slutty" girls. But at the same time, maybe even the next day, you might wear jeans and trainers, or go bare-faced, not even bothering with mascara and does that then make you the "sweet and innocent" one? The one "listening to the kind of music she doesn't like?" Not really. The way you dress shouldn't influence what other people think of you, and even though the image you present to world can sometimes feel like the most important thing in the world, it's not. Who you are doesn't change because of how you dress or how your hair looks. And sometimes, I want to wear high heels and sneakers at the same time. That's why wedge trainers were invented, okay.
My little sister, her friends and many people their age and younger all love Taylor and I think a lot of parents would prefer their daughter to be singing along to her music rather than Rihanna or Ke$ha. Its a little more innocent and while they may not actually understand some of the lyrics, Taylor Swift's whole image is just that bit more classy, more appropriate for younger girls to look up to. However as much as this is a good thing to have role models, and to admire people who are talented or successful, I think its just as important, personally, to be a "good" person. The definition of this could vary depending on different people's values, or what they see as important, but overall I would say you should be kind about other people. We're all guilty of it, and people who know me might be laughing if they read this, as I have a really sarcastic sense of humour and can probably say some very harsh things. This isn't necessarily something I'm proud of though, and I hope that people know that when I laugh at them, its because we're friends, not in spite of it!
So Taylor, maybe you need to take the advice Tina Fey gave you at the Golden Globes. Maybe you do need some "me-time to learn about yourself." And even though I really, really, really loved when Ed Sheeran came on stage with you and sang Everything Has Changed, maybe don't date him just yet. I don't think the world can take another really good break up album with lots of acoustic guitars and it definitely isn't going to handle two. And, last thing - I promise, please don't make that face again, the next time Adele wins an award you wanted... because we all know what you're thinking. And it makes the lyrics to this song look really ironic.
xxx
I think I have some form of writer's block.... I'm sat here staring at a blank white screen and no words are coming to mind.
This is not good for many reasons but mainly because I miss blogging. I'm challenging myself this week to write one post a day. Even if it's only a sentence long it's still better than nothing.
This was todays installment and reading it back its definitely one of the more boring things I've ever written. In a better mood, I'd delete the whole thing and force myself to write something longer, funnier or just less yawn-inducing but right now it's pretty much all I can manage.
Moods like this were what Taylor Swift songs and tea were made for.
This amazing box of caramel teabags is currently on order while this album is on permenant repeat on my ipod. http://www.teapigs.co.uk/tea/all_tea/rooibos_creme_caramel.htm
Does anyone else find themselves wishing it would snow so we don't have to get out of bed on a Tuesday morning? For me, Tuesday is probably my busiest and most tiring day so I'm even less happy on a Monday night than a Sunday.
Ergh, this week feels like it's going to go on FOREVER! I promise to do a better one tomorrow.
I want to bake these and just go
around feeding them to people
who look sad.
Recently one thing that hasn't been a big part of my life is, sadly, blogging.With everything going on its been slipping my mind and being put off while I focus on school and improving my coffee making - both for work and for the general purpose of keeping my tired little eyes open. Anyway, now that its half-term it's clearly time to catch up on a few posts, and as I've been seeing this one on several blogs recently I thought I'd have a go at my own one.
Currently I am...
Reading (or still trying to read) Anna Karenina. I have been battling to finish this book since August and I think this week I might finally crack it. I have cheated on Anna however with these, much shorter, reads when I needed a break from a) thinking about English Lit and character development or b) feeling guilty that I saw the movie before I finished the book. Is there anything better in this weather than curling up with a book and some coffee?
Feeling infinite...
Listening to...
Also, how good is this?!?! Skip to 1:24 to see something amazing.. Am I the only one already planning their wedding? Please invite me, Taylor?
Enjoying... autumn, salted caramel lattes, time with family, the Halloween decorations adorning work which improve my mood at 7am every shift and the anticipation of so many movies I'm waiting to see. Thinking about the storm on the East Coast and worrying about my aunty in NYC. Sending lots of love to anyone reading this who's been affected by it. Stay safe x
Finally.. falling in love with Twitter all over again, missing being in the sun in Spain and at the same time counting down to Christmas.
