I've been feeling a touch mopey lately (much house stress with some life stress thrown in for good measure) which is no fun at all and not the stuff of amusing blogging. To shift my fit of the mopes, I've been thinking about those little things that bring me smiles. Hopefully some of them will bring you smiles too.

1. My message tone
I confess.It's a sound clip of Matt Bellamy laughing. Fan-girlish? Yes. A bit stalkerish? Yes. Do I care? No. It's a lovely clip of his loon giggle and it makes me smile whenever my phone goes off. So there.
2. Unexpectedly hearing songs I love on the radio
It's always nice to hear something you love without choosing to. This goes double for hearing songs I love in clubs.
3. Appeasing my inner child
A disney movie. Fluffy, sparkly, pink goodies. Squeeing over a disney princess clock. Dancing about in my room. Eating party rings. Things I did as a kid are absolutely awesome and a gaurenteed way to feel more cheerful.A twitter feed of Chuck Noriss style facts about Chris Wolstenholme, Muse's bass player. Hilarious every time and a sure fire way to make me chuckle. I get these sent to my phone, which of course combines this delight with number one on this list. Perfect.

I've just seen the trailer for the second Sex and the City movie (yes, I know, I'm behind) and I'm officially excited about this film! I watch the series sporadically whenever it's repeated and I keep eyeing he boxsets, but I very much enjoyed the first movie, which I saw with my mum and my godmother. The part of the first movie I loved best? Carrie's little fashion show as she prepared her closet for moving.

As my mum says, SATC is not about the characters or the plot (although I love those) it's about the fashion. I can't wait for part two because I can't wait to drool over the clothes, and of course, most importantly, the shoes. I always want the shoes, and wish I could walk in such creations. As it is, I struggle with much of a heel, although I am improving. I might have to send myself to heel bootcamp. It's fine to wear stilettos around the house, right?
I'm a big Samantha fan too. I hope they leave her flying the flag for single girls like they did in the las movie, and don't give in to the urge to have everyone all safely coupled up. After all, that's just not Samantha.
Anyone else not caring this is likely to be not as good as the show or the first movie and looking forward to it anyway?

I'm back at university now, and so have been able to transfer my pictures from my camera onto the laptop. This means I can show off my snow pictures! Hooray!

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For a little while now, I've been a member of a forum called Mookychick, a community for ladies of the alternative persuasion. At the end of last year, we started talking about starting a style blog of sorts where we could show off all the different styles we have that come under the category 'mooky'. So, 14 of mooky's members, myself included, started Alternachick - 365 days of Mooky style. We take it in turns to post a picture of ourselves and little blurb about what we're wearing/doing/thinking/feeling. So far, we're on day 8, and today was my first post. You can check out the whole blog here. So far, it's been a lot of fun and I'm loving nosing at the styles of the other girls. Hopefully, we can keep it going and do the same thing again next year. So get following, we want this to take off!

Another project for the year is the 50 book challenge. I'll be aiming to read at least 50 books this year, and posting reviews on the LJ community of the same aim. I'll link when I start posting over there. Wish me luck!

 

SNOW! Hereford is absolutely coated with it, and I'm a very happy bunny. I'm such a kid about snow. I just want someone to come out and play in it with me. Sadly, most of my friends are back at uni, which makes me sad. I need a snow buddy!
I took some pictures of it yesterday, and discovered I've managed to leave my camera cable at uni, which was silly of me, so I'll do a pretty snow post on Saturday when I'm back in Aberystwyth.
The other great thing all this deep snow is the nice empty shops. I took a stroll into town to visit Topshop (baby sized straigheners! I couldn't resist) and learnt that I like sales very much when I can actually get near the racks. I'd better become Posh Spice or something, so I can have shops closed and spend in peace.

I've been hunting the sales for a new handbag as mine has taken rather a battering and the lining is trashed. I just want a simple, good-sized bag in a colour I can use with most things, so brown or black or grey or something. I like an inner pocket, and a mobile pouch thing (handy for keys too!) but I'm not fussy, so I thought I'd have no bother. Sadly, all the bags at the moment seem like pick-pocket magnets to me. I kept seeing nice bags and then would investigate further to find they fasten only with a central popper thing, leaving either end completely open. This seems a little too easy for someone to just stick their hand in. Is it being daft to insist on a zip fastening?
I've been reading Elle the last couple of days and apparently see-through perspex and PVC bags are coming in. Um, what? A see-through handbag? Isn't that just advertising your stuff? You might as well walk up to shifty looking people in alleys and say "I've got a Blackberry, the latest Ipod, a digital camera and very full purse in here." Am I just being paranoid, or does anyone else think this trend is rather stupid. I want a secure handbag, please!

So yesterday I had a look at the communities in the LJ spotlight last night and spotted one that looked really interesting. I went over to the profile and read the first couple of pages of entries. These were definitely interesting, so I joined. Later on, I check my friends page and see that someone on this community had made a post worrying that the spotlight and the inevitable influx of new members would change the feel of the community. This seemed fair enough to me, but I then I started reading the comments.

Nearly all of them were agressive, instantly presuming that all the new members would be complete imbeciles,  who were unable to post with readable grammar or spelling, angsty teenage girls writing bad poetry about guys they wanted to fuck, or people pretending to be mentally ill in some way to seem more exciting. A few new members, myself included, attempted to join the discussion, stating that we understood the worry but we were being made to feel unwelcome, and that we wanted to be given a chance. We were instantly attacked, told we were 'whining' (which, surely, all these bitching comments from old users was anyway) and told we were being too sensitive. I'm sorry, but being made to feel so hugely unwanted by a community is quite hurtful. Why should all members who find communities through the spotlight feature be tarred with the same brush?
After this, post after post appeared on this community, bewailing the loss of the private sanctuary, insulting new members and repeating the assumption that new must mean ignorant. After a whole page on flist was filled with this, I left the community. I'm so dissapointed; I really thought the idea behind the site was interesting and I was anticipating having some thought-provoking and amsuing late-night reading. Not so.
As I said, I can fully understand the concern that the vibe of a community will change with so many newcomers, but is such aggression and rejection of anything or anyone new really necessary? I've joined several spotlighted communities in the past and I've never seen such a reaction. It's always been pleasure at being spotlighted and welcoming to new members and a willingness to guide these newbies into the correct way of posting and interacting within the community.
I won't name and shame this community, but I'm sure anyone who attempted to join will know exactly which I mean. I'm ashamed to say I did react to some of the attacks on my first comment, and was not as polite as I would like to have been, but I didn't appreciate the automatic assumption that I was an ignorant pre-teen who had misunderstood the point of the community. I'm sure they do have problems with such people, and I saw some examples of these cringe-making posts myself, but I think that there must have been plenty of newcomers like myself, who read before joining and wanted to be a part of a thoughtful LJ place. I think this community has missed out on some potentially interesting people.

Somebody on this community made the point about the way people react to a band they like suddenly becoming popular, in other words, the 'sell-out'. This seemed pretty apt. People can get to be extremely possesive of and defensive over something they feel is 'theirs', be it a band or an internet site. I've seen this first-hand too. There's been a lot of backlash in the Muse fandom towards 'Twilighters'. The stereotypical twilighter is someone who heard Muse on the Twilight soundtrack, or listened after reading Stephanie Meyer's gushing praise of the band. They are young teenagers, post idiotic things all over the Muse forum and do not bother to listen to any Muse track not on the Twilight soundtrack or marketed to the mainstream music radio stations.
Sadly, these people do exist and are extremey irritating. I admit to wanting to scream when I see yet another thread on the forums about Matt Bellamy's hair, or facts about Robert Pattinson or some such thing, and I can't be doing with people who claim to be huge fans of the band, and then be unable to name anything pre-Black Holes and Revelations. However, there are some people who found Muse through Twilight, but did make the effort to go and listen to the back catalogue and the B-sides, waited until they'd got the feel of the community before mouthing off eveywhere and learnt to use the forum's search function. I love new fans; I like that something I love so much makes other people happy too and I especially love people who say "I've just found Muse through these songs, what should I hear next?" I like these people who ask the seasoned Musers for advice. We do try and be welcoming over at the forums and guide the Twilighters who send us batty, so I suppose I feel like other communities should make the same effort.
If something makes you happy, why not share it and let others be made happy by it too?

Apologies for the length of this post, I had some ranting to do!

One of my New Year's 'goals' (not resolutions) is to write more regularly, in order to make writing every day, or at least most days, a habit. It's a good way to improve my writing and it's good practice for making a career out of this later on.
Luckily for me, I came across WriYe.

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I'm a Daddy's girl. I'd like to say I always have been, but actually no, this came about, somewhat ironically, after my parents divorced about ten years ago. Clearly the way to get along with your parents is to not live with them.
My dad and I are very similar people, it turns out. We get along like a house on fire these days especially, something which seems to be unusual with other girls my age. The focus is all on being friends with mum, it would seem.
Being closer to my dad has given me some important life lessons, some silly, some sensible. I'm in a sharing mood, so now you can have my dad's lessons too.

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So it's over. David Tennant's gone from Dr Who.
I'm such a Dr Who nut, and a real David fangirl, so I've been rather dreading him leaving, especially as Dr Who is going to have a whole new production team for the next series. It makes me nervous that I won't love it so much anymore. Still, Matt Smith's first scene looked good, so high hopes!

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I've never really understood why New Year's Eve is such a big deal. Don't get me wrong, I love an excuse to throw on a cute outfit, sink some drinks and dance until my feet hurt, the change of the year seems a funny reason to do it. New Year has never been a big deal in my family, we either mostly ignore it, or have the occasional family gathering with games, buffet food and Jools Holland. We stopped these gatherings after my great uncle created an argument by eating the prize while other family members played Chocolate Trivial Pursuit.
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