Phantom of the Operaaaaaaa

Hi guys, short blog post to tell you about the most awesome of evenings in the history of the earth ever.. As you can probably guess from the title, I went to see The Phantom of the Opera tonight, and it was beyond amazing. I shall give a few reasons (bear in mind these are the reasons once the superficial ones, like just its general awesomeness, have been omitted, if I included them I could go on forever): 1. The singing: it is just incredible how a person can reach that high a note and sustain it, don't even comprehend how it's possible, it's breathtaking (for me, as well as the performers - aha, pun). It just completely entrances you, encapsulates you in the performance. 2. The orchestral music: in my opinion, it is the music of something that can make or break a drama (be it a live show, a film, a TV series), and in this it certainly plays it's part, being the driving force behind the entire thing. The music is just so hauntingly beautiful it almost brought a tear to my eye (and that takes a lot, trust me), it builds tension absolutely perfectly and sets the mood of the characters and the scene so accurately that it foreshadows the events of the next following scene when it's hardly begun. It creates personalities for the characters and fits so well with the events of the story that they build each other up so that they're both so intertwined with each other that you could barely draw the line between the drama and the music of it. 3. The dancing/general flowing movements around the stage: it is just enchanting, the gracefulness of the dancers, and I was constantly amazed at how they can dance with such energy yet still have enough breath left to sustain such high, beautiful notes. 4. The special effects/scene changes: in films I can understand how they can use special effects to build things, the way in which they can edit the transition between scenes out of the final cut, but this was a live performance, no edits. That's what amazed me so much about it, the way that the scene changes did not interrupt the flow of the performance, but instead built it up. And the way in which the special effects, which basically had to rely on surround sound/sound effects, lighting, and an extremely talented tech person/people, added so much to the performance and made things so brilliantly realistic. 5. The storyline: it is just mesmerising, from the offset you feel such emotional attachment to the characters that it's like you feel the entire performance, can see everything from each different character's point of view. I'll not give the plot away for those who haven't seen it, but I strongly recommend.. no, insist that you go to see it at some point. You will not regret it, it is just spectacular. Emily x

Best Friends, Boy Friends, No Friends

As you can probably guess from the title, today I'm trying to reach into my heart and actually write something meaningful for one. If I manage, feel privileged, I'm not very in touch with my emotions, I mainly just feel indifferent about everything. But here goes.. :)

No Friends

I'll start here cause it makes sense to start at the beginning, as this is what my life used to be like. Primary school was good, there were hardly any girls in my year, so we were all automatically friends, but when I went up to high school, I had to learn how to make friends, and I wasn't very good at that. I spent my first five years there going from friendship group to friendship group, never feeling like a fitted in properly in any of them except for maybe one person in each group who tolerated me. I found minor stability around mid high school in a best friend I made, but I became friends with her to the exclusion of others and lost all my other friends who I was actually started to make. When she got a boyfriend, I was left on my own with no friends. That's when one of my best friends stepped in (I say that despite the fact that we stopped speaking almost a year ago, but I still regard him as one of my best friends as he was the first person who truly, properly cared about me, the one who picked me up and dusted me down and made me smile again). He told me that his friends were my friends, and that I could hang around with them as long as a wanted. I became one of 'the guys' and I loved it, we'd spend our weekends playing rugby or rounders or sometimes a combination of both in the park. But as we reached our final year of high school everything changed, I was in none of their classes, they made friends with other girls, we stopped talking as much and some of us fell out with each other, and I was once again left looking for friends. I'll get to that part of the story later, don't worry it gets great soon :)

Boy Friends

I say this in two senses: boyfriends, and boys who are friends. The first area I know nothing about but what I've observed with my friends over the years. How I see it is that they're more hassle than is worth. They get in the way of friendships, they turn me from the best friend into an agony aunt, patching up every fall out or break up, and I hate that. They quote stupid cliched songs to make girls go crazy for them and make people so happy that they're unbearable to be around cause there comes a point where you can listen to them being spoken about no longer. I feel really awkward around couples, especially when they are all PDA, they don't realise how uncomfortable it makes it for other people. Then there's friends who are boys. Boys make great friends. Why? You can truly be your weird, disgusting self around them, they just find you funny and love you for it. They're great listeners, you can tell them anything, and they give amazing advice. They are good at cheering you up as they see the funny side of everything and make you do the same. And they give great hugs, the kind of hugs that, for that brief moment, make you feel safe, as though nothing could ever hurt you, and I love that <3

Best Friends

What would I do without them?! Truth is I have no idea, they're amazing. I found my group of best friends in my last year of high school. We were friends before, but when I really got to know them I realised how alike we really were/ they showed me the weirdo of a person that I actually am :D best friends are the family we choose for ourselves, the people who don't judge us for how insane we secretly are, and who don't judge you when you demonstrate your ability to eat twice as much as is humanly possible. They're the ones whose houses you make yourself too comfortable in. You can talk endless nonsense to them, or sit in complete silence yet it won't be awkward (that's the true test of friendship haha). They make fun of you when you act stupid, and often when you act normal too. They send you texts every day saying good morning (sometimes they even text that in the afternoon, cause it's hilarious), so that you wake up and find them on your phone and start the day smiling. You could spend all day, every day with them and never get bored, and your inside jokes will be too many to count. It's for these reasons that I love my best friends more than I can say, they give my life meaning <3 thankyou so much for being just so amazing :D much love <3 <3

Emily x