Feeling Guilty...

Okay, so my best friend just sent me the link to a blog she's been writing for the last couple of months, and alongside the feeling of pride I felt for her (it's really starting to take shape and I genuinely want to read more of the sorts of things she's posting), I also felt extrememely inadequate.. As in, I feel I never really follow things through.. For instance, this blog. I started it back in March, meaning to post frequently and yet I've managed, what, 2 blog posts since then?? But this idea isn't new.. I've been writing songs since I was 13, and more recently have got into recording them as well, thanks to another good friend of mine. When I was in U6 at school, I decided once and for all that I was going to make my own album, and do it properly. Not just record another bunch of rough acoustic demos of my songs. The aforementioned friend, who not only records but also produces music, was super excited about it and we spent *hours* on skype talking about how I wanted the first song to go, while he sat there and painstakingly created an entire backing track for it on his computer. And so it went with another 4 songs - one which he'd even written for me. We recorded vocals for 4 of the 5 songs we(/he'd) created backing tracks to, and in the meantime he also started working on instrumentals for another 2 songs. That's when it all started slowing to a halt... I went off to university and discovered a social life for the first time in my life really.. Suddenly I had a choice of groups of people I wanted to hang out with, rather than being able to list my "real friends" on the fingers of one hand. Along with that and four modules of Maths to study, I almost sort of lost interest in what we'd done.. It actually reached the stage where I decided to forget the album, and just release the songs we'd already recorded as singles. But I was mainly doing this because I felt I ought to, to make up for the fact I'd given up on something he'd spent so much time and effort on...

The point is, that although I'm trying to get my act together musically at the moment (I wrote a new song for the first time in months whilst on holiday!), seeing this amazing blog that my friend has carefully created just highlighted the unfinished-ness of my internet profile. A YouTube account that hasn't seen a new video since January (and before that a year had passed between uploads..), a SoundCloud that has had maybe four demos added to it over the course of a year, and to top it all off, a near untouched blog that has the same "Current Favourite Songs" for a couple of months at a time. (Not that that doesn't happen occasionally, just saying :P).

So I suppose, what I'm trying to say is that this is a sort of resolution, to kickstart everything back to life :). I'm heading back down to university in two days, will be living in a shared house with my friends for the first time, and am hoping for a fresh start to life in a way. I've been getting fit all summer, and today found out that I've finally got back to the weight I was this time last year. (Guess what..? I slacked off the exercise and let the beginnings of a two pack fade away... Definitely a recurring theme.). Anyways, the point is that I'm in a healthier state of mind as well, because of this, and I reckon if I keep up the healthy living, maybe I can keep up this blog too. And who knows, I might even rediscover the songwriter in me and bring my YouTube channel back to life!

Okay, late night rants at myself over haha..
Night world. xo

Links!
The blog of the friend that inspired this post: http://www.missmuggs.blogspot.co.uk/

The friend that spends far too much time not giving up on my musical ability:
https://soundcloud.com/tarunofficialmusic
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tarun-Official-Music/289630901056401?fref=ts

My Music:
https://soundcloud.com/syndie-simon/not-the-first
https://www.youtube.com/user/SyndieSimon
https://www.facebook.com/SyndieMusic

Late Night Rambles

Okay, so I found out today that The Pixies - an old band my dad likes - are releasing a new album, entitled "Indie Cindy", which I thought was quite cute, given that that’s my name :) (even if they spelt it wrong). And it also reminded me that I created this blog and then never wrote on it… So. What’s occurring? Well, to be honest, I’m spending most of my life right now *waiting* for something to happen. Not that nothing’s happening exactly, it’s just, I have exams, and that’s literally about the most interesting thing I have to say about my life. I feel like I need to be around young people again. Awful as it sounds, I think there’s only so much time you can spend with your family before you need to see some other people your own age !! So, I’m going back to Exe on Sunday, which should be good. I’ve planned out a routine and booked a loooad of gym classes for myself cause I think I’ll need a routine to a) make me do some work and b) stop from going insane.. I’m listening to some really chilled music right now. My “Pretty Little Liars” playlist. :) I’m really getting into it (the TV show that is), it’s got a bit less scary as the episodes have gone on, and more teen drams, which is what I like haha. Okay so this is basically just me rambling now, so I’m gonna save this and then go to sleep. Night Night World xo

Post #1: Facebook vs. Blogging

Okay, so having created this page a while back, I haven’t actually posted anything on it yet… Partly because although I have plenty of things I *could* post about, none of them felt interesting enough to be worthy of my “first post” (!). And to be honest, I haven’t really been giving it much time or thought. I’ve been inundated with Coursework, and have spent free time either musing over other people’s blogs/vlogs or updating my Tumblr, Pinterest, etc., which I’ve found myself getting more into recently.

So.

Because of this, last night I was having a little conversation with myself about what separates all these sorts of sites (Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, BlogSpot etc.) from the one that has drawn in 1,310,000,000 active followers worldwide…: Facebook. I mean, what makes Facebook so great? What’s it got that all the others don’t?? And then I was thinking about how I personally view it, compared to how I think about other sites. And this is what I realised: on FB, we create a profile that everyone we know can see. I mean, think about the number of people you have in your “Friends” list, who you don’t even really know? I regularly do what I call a “friend cull”, where I go through my list and delete people if I feel they have absolutely no relevance in my life anymore (unless of course I’m feeling nosy about where they might end up). But that still leaves all those people who I met in freshers’ week at uni, who have stayed, simply because “what if I ever need them on here for something uni-related in the future?”. It was the same at school – I would have people who I didn’t even really like listed as my “friends”, for the sole reason that I shared a class with them.

So, as I was saying, all these people can see what we post, and we are very much aware of this. So we don’t necessarily post what we actually want to, if we think we’ll be judged for it. For example, when was the last time you *actually* told Facebook the truth, when it asked you what was on your mind? And for those that do, girls who post relatable love quotes for example, their contemporary’s bitch about them! I’ve seen it happen! Ever heard someone say this about one of their contemporaries? :

“So-and-so ALWAYS posts pictures with quotes about how sad she’s feeling; she’s such an attention seeker”.

And so what do we do instead? We post statuses because we think they’ll receive a load of likes. Or pictures of ourselves in party dresses, drinks in hand, to show what a great night out we had. (Which begs the question, were you really enjoying yourself if you were so busy taking pictures all night?). And the amount of times I’ve said, “That’s such a nice photo of you! You should make it your profile picture!” and the response has been “I know, but I’ve got 52 likes on my current one, and I don’t want to give that up” only goes to prove my point further. It’s just a test of popularity. We’re not truly representing ourselves, we’re portraying the person we want other people to *think* we are.

Okay, so with my rant about Facebook over, I think it’s fairly obvious what I’m going to say with relation to blogging sites. The thing is, when you post something on say Tumblr or Pinterest, you aren’t doing it because it’s the “cool” thing to do, you do it because you find it interesting, or it’s personal to you – a song lyric or quote you live by for example. I mean, if someone favourites a tweet of mine, it normally comes as a surprise. Half the time I’m just having a rant or ramble about something, I’m not actually expecting any sort of response from anyone! That, and the fact that I think “well if people don’t want to hear about any of this, they can just unfollow me”. I made a point of not telling anyone when I got Twitter or Tumblr (or any other similar sites), because I didn’t want anyone I actually knew to find out about them in case they judged me for what I posted. I’d much rather have no followers and have an open platform to post what I like, than to have a large following, but have to restrict what I say. Because otherwise, honestly what’s the point? And I’m taking that approach now to blogging, starting with this. I don’t care if no one reads this. I don’t care if no one comments on it. I don’t care if no one wants to follow me. I am writing and posting for ME and no one else. Enough said.

And on that note, I think I shall just leave this as it is, because I’m now 8 minutes late for a film night with my friends... Haha, Happy living!! :D 

Syndiestar xo

Ironically, about half an hour after I finished writing this, I got a text from my mum having a rant at me about the message I was supposedly giving off with a picture I’d just posted on Facebook… See what I mean?

Claiming My Blog

I had to post this to my blog in order to "claim" it on Bloglovin'. It's a really useful site I use to keep track of all the blogs I'm into, plus, more importantly, it means they're all in one place! You should go check it out if you haven't heard of it :)

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