Hello! It's been a while, I know, I've just been a bit busy since my last post - travelling, starting a new job etc etc. Anyway, I am back and thought I'd kick off with some music / vids for you.

Just as I got home this evening I Giorni came on the radio. This really reminds me of the end of my first year at university, back in May 2008. I'd come to the end of a tough year and on my very last night as a fresher, lying there trying to get to sleep, I remember listening to this wonderful piece of music. It felt very much like the calm after a storm - that's the only way I can describe it. I love a lot of Einaudi's music but this is the piece I discovered first and I think I will always love it the most.

Clair de Lune - Can music get much more perfect?

Canon in D - So good I'm posting two versions because I like them both.

Rondo Alla Turca - I'm no musician. I didn't do GCSE music and never played an instrument, but this is bloody brilliant is it not? I would love to see it performed live by an orchestra.

Anyway, that's enough classical I think. 

I also like The Maccabees...

:)

Until next time,

C

It's now been a year since I graduated, and as I haven't posted anything for quite a while, I thought I'd write something about how my first year in the 'real world' has gone. 

For most of my final year at university I was quite certain I wanted to get into the ad industry, but then a few things happened which made me start questioning everything, and suddenly I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do with my life anymore. I think I went into panic mode. Throughout school, college and university I felt incredibly supported by everyone around me, but graduating felt like someone pushing me over the edge of a cliff and screaming at me to fly.

And I so wanted to fly. I wanted that graduate job in the big city, the one involving the steep learning curve and the inspiring chats with respected industry folk. I wanted to feel I was progressing, both personally and professionally. 

Like the thousands of other graduates all trying to find their feet post university, I started firing off several applications a day and went to quite a few interviews, but the graduate job never came. September rolled round and I found myself applying for a position being advertised at a local secondary school, teaching cover lessons. Somehow I ended up getting the job, and even though it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I was just happy to finally be employed. 

Nearly a year later, and I still am employed - but not for much longer, because at the end of this term I shall be leaving, and no, I don't have another job to go to. The simple fact is that whilst I've learnt a lot and have enjoyed aspects of the job, the job was far too emotionally demanding for someone who isn't interested in a career in teaching. I was so busy trying to improve my classroom skills, getting to know the 1000 children at the school, doing detentions and helping with after-school activities that I had no time or energy left to pursue my other interests. So I quit.

I have a few plans for the next couple of months - some more work experience, a little travel (more about that soon) then back to full-time job hunting. Again, I'm left wondering exactly what's going to come next and in some ways I'm back where I started a year ago. It's only when I reflect more deeply that I realise how much I have progressed since then. I've learnt so much from my time in the classroom, and actually - it hasn't been a bad first job at all. Maybe I did manage to fly in the end, only not quite in the right direction.

I intend to post a few things about what exactly spending nine months at a secondary school does teach you, but I'll save that for another day.

Until next time,

Carly (A.K.A. Miss Scholes)

X

I was walking along in Birmingham yesterday, in the pouring rain, when I noticed a very old man just ahead of me. He was hunched over, hobbling along and getting very wet, and I felt sorry for him. There was me, sprightly 21 year old, bouncing along with music streaming into my ears, staying fairly dry due to the bright pink umbrella my mum lent me that morning. It occurred to me that I could do something kind of nice here. 

Shall I? No. Hmm. He might think I'm weird. No. 

I walked ahead, feeling a wave of guilt. 

Turning around, I waited for the man to catch up with me.

"Excuse me? Are you okay? Would you like to share my umbrella? It's pouring." 

"Sorry?"

"Would you like to share my umbrella?" I held the umbrella higher and motioned for him to come underneath.

"You're very kind, but no thank you, I'm fine." 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, but thank you." A smile. 

I can understand why he declined the offer - maybe it would've been odd sharing an umbrella with a complete stranger, but it's really just another one of those societal rules that really make no sense at all. He was getting drenched, I had the opportunity to help.

These are the kinds of rules I quite enjoy breaking.    

After work one night last week I went along to a Frui workshop on night photography, and aside from it being great fun, I also came away with some great photographs (at least, I think so!).

I've uploaded a few to Flickr; and this one even made it to the Frui website!

This is so good...

When was the last time you received a real letter through the post? Not a letter inviting you to apply for a credit card or reminding you to renew a magazine subscription, but a real letter, hand written in blue ink on proper note paper?

I received such a letter the other day. The handwriting on the front told me instantly who it was - an old university friend I now haven't seen for quite a while, and although the note itself was quite brief, it was so lovely to read. 

Facebook and email are great for staying in touch with people, but there is definitely something a little bit special about a real letter landing on your door mat, especially when it comes most unexpectedly.

That is all :)

Carly

Ever wondered how you can be awesome? Sorry, fucking awesome? Read Julien Smith's guide here. 

I'm reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road at the moment and there is a brilliant line in it that I wanted to share. That line is this:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

When I googled this I came across a whole load of other Kerouac lines too.

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." 

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." 

"A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world." 

"The best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view" 

"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness." 

"What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?" 

"Bee, why are you staring at me? I am not a flower??" 

:)

C

I've just seen this on TV again.

Before I start, I want to make one thing clear. Mother London, I love you. I truly admire a lot of your work, and particularly the recent ads for Ikea. Cats roaming about the shop as they please? Fantastic. Extraordinarily cool people dancing to 80s music in kitchens at parties? Genius.

However, the new Ikea ad is just awful. It's the one based on the idea that men and women are always arguing about who is most responsible for the house being in a mess. I have two thoughts on this advert.

Firstly, why would you want people to associate your client's brand with arguments? Untidiness may well be the third most common cause of arguments in the home but guess what people argue about the most? Sex and money. Next time, pick one of those. 

And secondly, the ad is not funny. Okay, I smiled at the centipede bit but that was it, and I wasn't exactly falling off my chair even at that. Hearing the audience roaring with laughter just makes it worse. ("Why are they finding it so hilarious? They must be trying to TRICK ME into laughing too.")

Next time, Mother, get in some comedians (I mean, copywriters) who can actually make people laugh, and if you can't manage it, just run the Jona Lewie one for a bit longer :)

Yours, 

C.

I went to Amsterdam last month and have finally put my photos on Flickr. There aren't many good ones, mostly owing to the freezing cold temperature, the snow getting my camera wet, and my fear of being shouted at by Dutch people if I took photos of them. Anyway, here are some of them (and the rest are here).