I Hate Graceful People: Weekly Review: 4th

I apologise sincerely for not posting this on Sunday night - time just ran away with me and it was 1am before I knew what was going on (I have to get up at 5:30), and last night Hayley came over, so we stayed up late looking at photos and chatting about the good times. I do need some sleep, so I decided that this had to hang on until today.

Last week was another pretty hectic one; I'm working two jobs at the moment, plus I'm back at uni, so it's all been go go go. Lots of late nights and early mornings, as ever in my life. I suppose the most significent event of the past week was last Monday, when I went to see Sting in Manchester.

Yes, Sting. Actual STING! As in Every Breath You Take, Roxanne, Englishman in New York Sting. I think I mentioned on last week's post that I wasn't actually that bothered about the gig, but my-oh-my I should have been. It was incredible! He performs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which in itself was a grand thing to see, but combined with Sting's voice (which has only become more powerful with age) was completely beautiful.

Rachel drove us up to Manchester from York, but the AA Route Planner LIED TO OUR FACES and tried to get us to drive down roads that did not even exist, so we got utterly lost, ended up next to Old Trafford stadium, tried to use our BlackBerrys to find newer, improved directions, which then proceeded to try and lead us down other nonexistant roads, ended up driving around Manchester for an hour, all the while getting more and more panicked that we'd never find it, or that we wouldn't get parked if we did find it, and when we did eventually get to the venue it was entirely by accident (curse you Manchester, and your lack of road signs/street signs/normal roundabouts). So it got pretty stressful there for a while. That, combined with the fact that ticket prices were absolutely ridiculous prices, made for a not particualrly excited me.

But my God, it was worth it. What. A. Show.

Is it weird that I found him totally sexy? Still, when he's an old(er) man? Like I said to Rachel, "it's like fancying my dad." We didn't mind.

What else happened last week? Well, on Tuesday night I was once again at my life-drawing class. I wasn't going to go because I was feeling quite ill at the start of the week, but I manned up and went along (after Steph cooked me my tea - bless her), and I'm so glad I did, because I produced what is probably my best drawing yet. After last week's monstrosity, I began to worry that I was actually getting worse at drawing, rather than improving, but this week I was reassured.

We moved on from charcoal to graphite, and while at first I found it horrid to use (it's like trying to sketch with a big fat crayon) eventually I came round and got used to it. It's much easier to create a life-like sketch with graphite (my charcoal drawings always end up a bit cartoon-ish).

Last week I was on a complete sixties vibe, listening to early Beatles (this coincides with my John Lennon/Beatles tour of Liverpool on Saturday) and The Kinks, and googling pictures of The Shangri-Las and sixties fakers The Like - who I love - for hair and make-up ideas. I always loved the way the men dressed more, in every era actually, but especially in the sixties. I highly recommend searching 'mods and rockers' on Wikipedia, because the description of these 'conflicting British youth subcultures' is hilariously brilliant.

I've been trying to pluck up the courage to wear this dress ever since I bought it about 18 months ago, but I never have. I think I need a jet-black bouffant and a fancy dress party to go to.

Talking of hair, this is what mine looks like right now (It's really frizzy because I never brush it):

Sacré bleu! What has happened, you must be wondering. Well, in my ever-ongoing attempt to have fiery locks ala Florence Welch/Karen Elson, I decided to start from scratch and slapped two cartons of pre-lightener onto my hair. I lie - my mum actually slapped it on, I can't do it myself. This is the result, post-lightening, pre-reddening. It's actually fairly close to my natural hair colour, or so my parents said. I've forgotten what my natural colour is - I haven't seen it in years. However this was on Sunday night and it is now Tuesday and I still haven't put the red on. I think I might stick with it orange for a little while; I quite like looking like an overgrown marigold.

Finally, this week saw me break the 50 followers barrier! What a glorious thing this little website is - you lovely, lovely people continuously fan the flames of my ego. Because I'm so delighted that there are people out there who read and comment and say cool things and make me feel good about myself, I just want to say...