Un Jour

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling!
Walt Whitman

If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
U2

...qu'elle soit futile ou profonde, jamais une chanson ne sauvra le monde...

I recommend the gigging appearance to all you who music! All the gigs I've done so far with mes bandes (can count them on one hand so far... but that's not the point) have been so very different and sooo very class!

1. With "Simpletones" (cello, trumpet, drums, guitar/singer) (watch this space - the name could change for the third time - that Toby's never satisfied!)
Venue: RSAMD.
Highlights included
- Phil the drummer getting a throne to play on
- nice lighting and smoke machine
- 3 amaaazing bands playing after us, an accoustic jazz trio who poached our drummer, a crazy ska reggae band with many veeery good brassists and an awesome acid jazz/funk band
(the best part was I had "dish moments" with them all! hehe )

2. With "Simpletones" again.
Venue: This guy's flat as a charity band night/80s party to raise money for some girl going to save squirrels (or something similar) in Peru. (This was raised through selling drink as the guys had a bar in their flat)
The best bits had to be
- The fact that this was the night when it snowed buckets! thus resulting in a snowball fight at 3am
- Meeting lots of crazy PDE students
- jamming scottish tunes at half 4 in the morning

3. With "Potential Strangers" (2 acoustic guitars, cello, all vocalists) Unfortunately only 2 of us could make it, since Terry was sick :( However...
- We got to play to a reasonably filled up Albert Hall in Stirling!
- We got fed pizza by son pere
- There were lots of other quality acts who played including them

4. With "Simpletones" just this weekend.
Highlights included:
- The venue
- banter on stage, eversoslightdisorganisation turning into a source of much amusement
- Finally getting to socialise with all the boys afterwards (out of band context)

NB - I do not include jamming/busking experiences on this list. It would get too long if I were to do that. But I recommend that people try this out too. (I do however include this photo courtesy of Jamie)





P.S I took a fair few photos on that page anyway


En conclusion: Playing music in random places = gallons and gallons of fun!

Noooooooooooo...

My heart has been broken!


I'm still excited about the film tho! A quality post exams treat!

Oral exams are cancelled for definite!

Even if does make tutor Dougal sad :( je dois avouer que I can't help but feel happy!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

That's one less exam to worry about!

I have been procrastinating from blogging...

Yes I know! This defeats the purpose of blogging really, or at least my purpose for blogging. This blog is a very handy procrastination tool (of course I do enjoy the blogging as well) but no, I have been studying in order to avoid this next blog entry simply because of indecisiveness, being unsure of what to and not to include in this next blog entry.

The last wee while has been an interesting mush of ups and downs, there has been some quality banter and hanging out with various people, from language geeks to CU peeps, in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, plenty studying of course (as I should be doing right now), a crazy Easter weekend brim-full with musicing. I have learnt that Gambit my fav x-man was French and that he is going to be in X-Men 3 (He'd better be - I couldn't find him on the cast listing. I'll be heart-broken if he's not!), that severe radiation to the brain reduces salivation output, and to say something is random en francais would be to say "c'est h.s"!
My good friend Douglas, medic (though not of the NI variety), tech, our flat superhero and photographer extraordinaire told me about a line that someone put at the bottom of an email he received - "May we all be surprised again by Easter" I thought and thought and thought about this before and throughout the weekend, wanting so much to be surprised, and I was, though I didn't expect what surprised me, to surprise me. Strangely, although I knew the story inside out, I'd somehow forgotten that Jesus rose again, or at least hadn't thought about it in a while. The simple incredible fact that he overcame death was a surprise again to me!
Thank God for grace that overcomes all my rubbishness, that paid the price I couldn't pay!

Aaaand... back to the stats project

Our French orals might be cancelled... AAAAAAHHHHH!!! Woooooopeeeee for the AUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Found it!!

Break every barrier down
Thou Lamb of Calvary
Show me the awfulness of sin,
The thing which grieveth Thee:
Purge Thou my soul from dross,
Cleanse me from every sin
Wash me in Thine atoning blood
And make me pure within.

Break every barrier down
Till Christ be formed in me;
Till of the travail of Thy soul
Thou, satisfied, shalt see;
May earth's success seem nought
May self be lose to sight,
Reproach for Thee be counted joy
And weakness turn to might.

Break every barrier down
Thou risen Son of God;
Take Thou possession of my heart
I crown Thee now as Lord!
O for a closer walk
A greater love for Thee,
A fuller knowledge of Thyself
A life of victory.

Break every barrier down
And reign triumphant, Lord;
May every breathing of my herat
With Thee be in accord;
Grant me to enter in
The secret place with Thee
To wak with Thee, as Enoch walked,
Into eternity

William E. Vine (Courtesy of that fabulous bretheren book: "The believers hymn book" :) )

"Cheap Cheap!.... Where quality meets price!"

I noticed these wonderful words written on a shop window on a corner of Dumbarton Road for the first time yesterday... after having lived in Glasgow for almost 2 years... ah the joy of being unobservant!

Oh and if you've been blogging here on the lent blog, then read this and if you haven't even been reading it, check it out - it's fab! :)

Shortest blog to date! Mainly due to the uselessness of google when searching for wonderful very old hymn lyrics... tant pis. They will be found!