Post-Concert Depression

NOTE: My brain is completely muddled and still blown-away and I'm writing as I think, so this isn't at all in chronological order.

The concert last night was amazing. That's genuinely the only word I can think of, because I'm still completely speechless. But amazing doesn't even start to cover it. I got a load of footage which, after doing my homework, I'm going to start editing together. I'll upload it to YouTube and post it here whenever I finish it. Throughout most of it, you can hear me screaming and singing along. And it's kind of blurry because I had to zoom in. Even though I could see them pretty clearly on the stage, they look like specs through the camera. It was weird.

Fun and B.o.B were the support acts, and while Fun was pretty good, B.o.B was absolutely awful. But whatever. Hayley came on to sing Airplanes, dressed in a thick winter coat. I love her pink hair, and it looks even more amazing in person than it does in photographs.

When Paramore officially started, there was a curtain in front of the stage, and you could only see the silhouettes, but when it was time for Hayley to start singing, the curtain dropped. It was really effective.

She loved how we all screamed after pretty much every sentence when she was talking, and said it was one of the biggest concerts they'd ever held. She also loved how co-operative we were when she asked us to do stuff (stand up and dance, sway, get our phones out, etc.), and the last time anything as big as this happened was in December '09 in the same place (London 02 Arena).

She made us all stand up and dance for crushcrushcrush and spent about five minutes making sure the majority of people were standing up. Apparently, it usually takes a good fifteen minutes or so. And then we all got our phones out and waved them in the air to The Only Exception and I got a lot of footage of the crowd swaying their phones because it was really amazing (it's slightly jolty, though, because I kept switching the phone and the camera between hands).

When she introduced the band members, Jeremy and Josh easily got the loudest cheers (until Josh introduced Hayley), and I managed to record her saying "WE. ARE. PAAARAAAMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREEE!" which I'm really proud of. She says it at every concert, and I knew that more than anything, I wanted to record her saying that. AND I DID.

The last song they sang was Misery Business, and she led into it like this: "Before tonight ends, we have some business to take care of. And there is only one kind of business at a Paramore concert." And then the music started. It was so amazing. Josh from You Me At Six came on stage and started singing, too, and while I'm not a fan (I haven't really paid them much attention, to be honest) of You Me At Six, I can't deny that he has an amazing voice.

Jess and I both got Paramore hoodies with "Paramore" written in small, red letters on the front and "PARAMORE" written across the entire back. There's a fountain pen/injection needle between the PARA and MORE, and under neath it says "We wrote our names in blood." (a line from Ignorance) which I think is really creative and I love it to pieces.

When they started playing Decode, nearly everyone started cheering loudly ... and I just sunk into my seat and silently watched them perform. It's not a terrible song, I suppose, but (a) it's overplayed, (b) it's Twilight, (c) the cheers proved to me just how many Paramore fans like Twilight, and (d) I'm really not-at-all keen on it. It's the only Paramore song I don't like.

I really wish they had played Decoy and Swim in Silence (two demo songs), along with For a Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic and Careful. But I know they have to limit themselves, and the songs they did choose to play were wonderful, too.

Now, I could go on and on about that marvelous concert, but I have homework to get on with and things to catch up on online. So, suffering from Post-Concert Depression, I bid you farewell.

In brief, other news:

• I have tickets booked to see Deathly Hallows on the 19th at 5PM.
• Darren Criss was absolutely amazing in Glee (This deserves it's own blog post ... I'll write one up after I watch next week's episode).
• I'm doing terribly with NaNoWriMo. I'm a fair few thousand words behind.

Such Little Time

I am fully aware that I haven't blogged in an entire month, but I'm not going to apologise for it, because it genuinely isn't my fault. For the past three and a half weeks (since Friday 9th), I've been stuck in my bedroom with the lights off and (new, black, thick) curtains drawn, unable to do anything but watch movies and sleep. I only left my room to get more water, eat, and go to the loo.

Because I've had the worst migraine ever.

I was up crying with my mum one night during the first week, and a little while later, I actually went into A+E. That's how bad it was. The slightest noise or sliver of light made my hands instinctively fly up to cover my eyes and let out a whimper of pain. It was awful. Eventually, I started spending a few minutes on the computer, but I couldn't read more than a couple of sentences at a time, and I had to set it aside every ten minutes. Therefore, I wasn't up for being on the interwebs, let alone writing a blog.

It's been gradually easing, and it's nearly completely gone now, but having been sheltered from noise/light for so long, I'm still rather sensitive towards it. I've missed two weeks of school, and this week is half-term, but I'll be going to back on Monday.

But that's not the only thing I'm doing on Monday. Throughout November, I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. As it sounds, you have to write a novel in one month. Specifically, a novel with at least 50,000 words in it. Now, I'm not actually doing that ... I'm doing the NaNoWriMo Young Writers' Project, which is for people up to the age of seventeen who don't feel capable of doing the entire 50k. Unlike the original site, you can set your own goal -- I'm going for 25,000 words. So you probably won't be hearing much from me throughout November, either. AND in December, I'm going to be editing, studying, AND reading my friends' novels.

But I'll try to blog as much as I can.

I'm really worried about my Book Count. I know it's just a fun challenge that I've been partaking in all year, but I still have to read eight books before 31st December, at 11:59pm. I can almost hear you now: "What are you on about? You still have two months!" But with November pretty much cramped, and December I'm pretty busy, I don't know how many books I'll manage to read. (I will, however, be counting my friends' novels towards it). But even more importantly than my Book Count, is my English teacher's. He wants everyone in our class to read ten books before the end of term. That means that the few days before the New Year (which is when I generally get a lot of reading done) won't count towards his ... manga doesn't count in his mind, and 10 poems can equal "one book" in our book logs -- but I still don't know how I'm going to manage.

I'm thinking that maybe I'll let him know about NaNoWriMo, and see if he'll let me read a lower book count/let my friends' novels count towards it.

Anyway, I have to go and eat dinner now. I have another blog in the works that I started while I was ill (wrote about three paragraphs before it got too much), and I'll probably finish that while procrastinating next month. Heh.

Tiny Update

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in ages. I've been pre-occupied. I have a half-written draft of my holiday blog waiting to be finished and I really don't want to write it but a part of me does. Yeah.

So, I went out with Jess the Thursday before last, and while we were waiting at the bus stop to go home, this rather chavvy-looking guy in his late teens comes over from the next bus stop down and says "Ello ladies, my friend over there (he points to the taller one of two other chavvy guys) thinks you're fit and he was wondering if he could have your number. Oh, and how old are you?"

Instantly, I noticed how he didn't specify which one of us he was talking to, and he was looking at both of us, so presumably, if it was legit, his friend wanted BOTH of our numbers. The little player. "I'm thirteen," was all I said, and my nose was wrinkled slightly. He asked Jess how old she was, and she said "Thirteen", too. He nodded, and then as he was walking away, he cracked up and pointed at his friend. He called him something that I didn't quite catch, and yelled "They're thirteen!" for the entire world to hear.

From the look on his friend's face, it was a joke (and one that he had been left out of), and he started shaking his head at us and mouthing words that we couldn't lipread.

That's pretty much the only eventful thing that's happened recently.

BUT, on that same Thursday, someone I know committed suicide (I didn't find out until last Saturday), and Esther Earl lost her life to cancer during the early hours of the Thursday morning just passed. You're not to know this but Lisa, the person I know, had been mentally ill for a long time, and she'd had enough so she committed suicide. I'm not going into any more details because I'm not meant to tell anyone. She was the mother of an old friend, and she was an amazing person. Esther Earl was a sixteen-year-old nerdfighter who I didn't know personally, but I looked up to and respected. After a four-year-long battle to cancer, she passed away.

So it's been a very sad week for me. I can't wait to see what happens NEXT Thursday ... *sigh*

On the bright side, my best friend Katie lost a bet between us and wrote me this amazing fic that I think you should check out. AND I've decided that I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but not the official one. I'm doing the Young Writer's NaNoWriMo, because there's no way I can write 50k words in a month. Not now. The YWP, as I'll refer to it from here on in, is a flexible NaNoWriMo challenge that lets people of ages 17 and under set their own writing target, rather than aiming for 50k. I'm going for 25k, and each year, I'll raise it by 5k or whatever, until I feel confident enough for 50k.

Anyway - a holiday blog is on it's way, and I'm going to go and read some more of An Abundance of Katherines. Speaking of reading, I only have eleven more books to read until I reach my goal, and four months to do that in. It's going to be so easy. Also, once I hit my target, I'll continue recording the books I read. For the hell of it.

See ya!