Montage...Music

So this is something I wrote about music...more or less. I've been told my taste in music often differs to that of the people around me. So someone in my group wrote a similar piece on mainstream music while I countered with the weird and the wonderful in my repertoire. Enjoy!!

PS
The title of each song has been hyperlinked so you can enjoy the music too.

Music: The Weird and the Wonderful
In an attempt to broaden your horizon...

Mick Flannery: Safety Rope.

Have you ever heard of Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan or Mumford & Sons? Well you might want to start with them first. They were the gateway drugs that eased me into the serenity of this particular song and the rest of Mick Flannery’s story. I spent more time listening to this track than any of the others on his White Lies album. Part of the Irish folk music movement that seems to be quietening down now, raw emotion has never danced so well with music. 

Koop: Koop Island Blues.

I didn’t know what Electro Jazz was until I found Koop but boy am I glad I found them! A seamless mix of  Gatsbyesque jazz sounds with a modern electronic twist that’ll transport you to parts of your mind you forgot existed. Innovative and surprisingly fresh, their style brings all the nostalgia and poignancy of the glamorous 1920’s to the dance floor. The European duo featured the charming vocals of Ane Brun on this single, someone else to look out for.

The Like: He’s not a Boy.

If you ever saw the movie The Boat that Rocked and liked it then all girl band The Like will be right up your street. This upbeat number that samples sounds from the late 60’s musical revolution will have you on your feet, mimicking moves that you’re far too young to know. If nothing else it will remind you to live a little because your parents did too!

The Verve: The Drugs Don’t Work.

I’m not ashamed to admit that this song from the English alternative rock band moved me to tears the first time I heard it; that’s the power of good music for you. From the lyrics to the wonderful musical arrangement every second of this song pulls at your heart strings. You don’t need Google to tell you that there is a story in this one.

Sleeping at Last: Turning Page.

The bad news is that this song was on one of the Twilight movie soundtracks. The good news is that all 4 minutes and 14 seconds of this song are better than the entire franchise. The ethereal vocals will soothe you and the lyrics will uplift you. Do not for one second underestimate the quiet power of this song

Montage...Express Yourself

Art forms like graffiti and tattoo have always intrigued me. Don't get me wrong I do not encourage vandalism nor do I agree with permanently scaring your body. The art form itself is what piques my interest. Furthermore my creative writing blog should be enough evidence that I am very much a fan of self expression in all it's forms. This is one of the greatest purposes of art. 

Also I want to say a big thank you to Rashad Iqbal, a fellow student who graciously let me pry into his life for the purposes of this article and whose great insight made my article relevant.

So without further ado, my third montage piece...

Express yourself

When the staff of my high school got tired of watching students doodle on tables, walls and bathroom stalls they started throwing out hints about a graffiti wall. The concept meant that everyone could scribble their heart away on a wall built solely for that purpose if we stopped marking our territory on the body of the school.

There was hardly a part of Manchester that was truly devoid of graffiti and although it wasn’t always the most attractive, the brashness and the hurried feel that came with it was always attractive to me. After a while, seeing large spray painted letters and bold colours became the norm.

Dubai was a rude awakening for me. It felt like I had spent my life dreaming in colour and woke up to black-and-white. That was when I first started to recognise graffiti as an art form. I was sure that there was no graffiti here. But that isn’t strictly true. It might not be the invading kind you find in most of the western world, but it’s there if you look hard enough. It might not be all over the walls in between clean-cut buildings or on the busy streets, but the art is recognised by some here.

One of my first graffiti experiences in Dubai came from Rashad Iqbal, a 2^nd year student here in our very own Middlesex. As soon as I saw his work I asked him to do some things for me one of which he handed to me and has been with me ever since.

Speaking of the challenges of being a graffiti artist in Dubai he says that “there isn’t much support and at the same time all the paint supplies are really expensive here which makes it really hard to practice.” He also goes on to explain that not being able to see other people’s work around you on a daily basis like you would in other parts of the world means that he often lacks motivation and inspiration.

So how do you overcome these challenges? Well according to Rashad you need to develop your own interest and find an online community; his would be deviantart.com. He finds that although there are graffiti artists here in Dubai, they don’t have the strongest community presence. “When it comes to a community the strongest I have experienced was at deviantART.”

What you might find even more surprising is the fact that Rashad has actually displayed his work on a wall in Dubai. In fact he and about 350 other people were part of the charity event at the Graffiti Tunnel in Dubai Festival City organised by GYEM in 2010. He says that “they provided legal areas to do graffiti.”

As much as we laughed at our teachers in high school for making a big deal out of nothing, there was a tiny part of me that felt like a vandal when I took my marker pen out to hurriedly scribble “MiiMii was here” on my science desk. Maybe that was part of the thrill but more than anything was the recognition that graffiti could also be an art form. 

Montage...How Safe Are You?

Another Montage article for you guys. A couple of things before you start reading. The main character, if you will, is a really integral part of this article for me and I couldn't have written it without her help. Sharon, thank you very much for opening up to me about your experience. I only wish I could have done your story more justice. 

You can find her blog here: http://howtomakeitindubai.blogspot.ae/ and the article referred to below here: http://howtomakeitindubai.blogspot.ae/2013/01/how-to-be-wuss.html

Also a couple of you might see your names pop up in here...thanks for your contribution it meant a lot and provided great balance to my rather haphazard attempt.

Enjoy ;)

How safe are you?

How often do you hear a police or ambulance siren in Dubai? That probably depends on what part of Dubai you live in. But when last did you get up to look out your window when your neighbour’s car alarm went off? Did you ignore the noise because you don’t care or is it in fact because you feel like Dubai is a safer place than most? If you often leave the cocoon that Dubai creates for us or if you’ve lived anywhere else before, you’ve probably realised how safe we are here by now.

The people I spoke to around Knowledge Village listed qualities such as a stable government with a cautious foreign policy, good economy, lower crime rates and strict laws. Tola, a UOWD student said “the tourism drive of the Dubai government is key in ensuring security. Why? People don’t go to unstable or chaotic places and as Dubai’s economy in the 21^st century revolves around tourism the need for security cannot be overemphasised.” An article in Huffington Post seems to agree with this as Dubai was ranked the 7^th safest city in the world by TripAdvisor.  It was liked by 11 people and disliked by 10.

One person who might have disagreed with this ranking is Sharon, and Indo-Canadian piano teacher in Dubai who had a worrisome experience here recently. On a blog entry on her personal blog howtomakeitindubai.blogspot.ae on the 25^th of January this year she gave a detailed account of her experience. The entry titled “How to be a wuss” describes what at the very best can be called solicitation or sexual harassment and at worst attempted rape.  Thankfully she had a lucky escape but did not report the incident. Why?

One reason stated by Jennifer and Paulette, two 2^nd year students from Middlesex University, is that they feel like locals often have the upper hand. “If I’m reporting a local to the authorities they would probably back them over me as they value and protect their people so much” says Jennifer. She goes on to explain that she has never actually tried it and this is just a matter of perception which makes her feel rather vulnerable especially as a student in Dubai.

This imbalanced perception of safety created by Dubai varies with each person I speak to. One thing that keeps ringing in my head however: with these apparently obscured views on safety and security, what happens if we leave the safety of Dubai?

Montage...They told me it would be 9 to 5!

During my last school year part of the curriculum for one of modules was to produce a magazine. We called our variety magazine Montage and I was voted editor. I figured a lot of people on here wont get to read the magazine. So over the next few weeks/days/whatever, I'll publish the articles that I wrote in the magazine. I hope you enjoy it and as always your feedback would be great.

They told me it would be 9 to 5!

If you’ve made it this far my assumption is that after the all too exciting university phase you plan to work. Some of you already have to divide your attention between a full time education and a part time internship or even a full time job. You guys more than the rest will understand what I’m about to explain.

Over the holidays, I spent some time with family and I remember asking someone when their next holiday would be: “about the same time next year.” He said it with such frankness that more than the fact that he only had a week off each year I was worried that he had become immune to it.

Remember Dolly Parton’s 9-5? No I’m not that old. My mother had a taste for country music. It’s one of the few Dolly Parton songs that stuck with me the whole time.  A part of me always looked forward to when I could work my 9 to 5 job then go home afterwards to have dinner and relax with my pet parrot or goldfish. I always told myself quite proudly that my work would not invade the rest of my life; I’ll never take my work home. Needless to say, that was before I realised the real meaning of being a journalist or any type of writer for that matter. The first rude awakening came last summer.

I got an internship for the summer and in my interview I was told by my boss that I’d have to work from 9 to 6. Not too bad, especially considering that they were quite lenient with us about our lateness.  It didn’t quite hit home then but I found myself being constantly tired. It was a short internship so before long I had forgotten the experience of having no time for myself.

Then in September I started another job. This one involved me working with someone in a different continent and time zone. This meant that sometimes communication was irregular. I was back to working hours that varied quite drastically from the 9 to 5 I had envisioned. To add to that I started another internship at the start of the year and my body was beginning to give up on me.

It creeps up on you. Suddenly you realise that your work files have become furniture, you’re having takeaway dinners in front of your TV and you had so little time to feed your goldfish it died. Your life revolves around work and sleep and very little else.

The 21^st century work culture is much different than the picture Dolly painted for us isn’t it? There is almost no escape thanks to the internet, smart phones and all the other clever ways your boss can find you if don’t pick up their calls. Gone are the days where your location, salary and type of job determined how much time you spent at the office. A PR consultant talking to our class about the possibility of an internship with her company was quick to warn us about trying to work while school was in session: “you start at 8:45am and you don’t finish till about 6:50pm.” Even scarier is the fact that office walls no longer mark the boundaries of where work stops and life begins. As long as you have a phone and a laptop you are almost always working,

So what do we do? Mummy and Daddy won’t pay the bills forever so we can’t quit before we even start. Unless you’re going to be working for yourself or for someone who offers you flexible hours, you can’t dictate when you want to work. I have one suggestion because it’s the only thing that has ever worked for me:

“Chose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”-Confucius

Are you willing to learn?

I didn't always go to the best schools. Sometimes I blessed enough to be in a really good school but not always. I moved around a fair bit and sometimes showing up in the middle of the academic year meant taking what you could get. Now don't get me wrong my schools weren't awful. I had fun and despite what I might say most days, I wouldn't take any of those years back.

However I was often in the school with people who were more interested in playground brawls than the library. Somehow I was always assigned to the class with the one kid who would rather ruin it for everyone than sit still and shut up for an hour. But those experiences taught me one thing and equipped me with some useful personal skills.

The truth is for anyone out there who has the opportunity to learn and is willing to make use of that opportunity, you can do it. I learnt to revise for exams or read past time literature surrounded by people who where unwilling or perhaps unable to shut up. I learnt to multi task, read or study while simultaneously listening which believe it or not can be quite handy. I learnt the meaning of the word pedantic which one of my many high school English teachers used to describe a boy in our class that would stop him every 5 minutes to correct some apparent mistake or the other, rectify some problem, make some comment or go on some incoherent tangent. Whilst all of that was going on and against what seemed like some insurmountable odds at the time, I graduated from that high school with and A in English. I realised that I might not be the best at practical, but I am pretty handy with theory, a fact proven by my C in Physical Education and B in Science. I don't mean to sound arrogant by the way. I'm just proving the simple point that if you are really willing to learn, especially if you have the opportunity to, the only thing stopping you is yourself.

Now think of all the people who do not have this opportunity. Think of the people in the past and present who were left to their own devices and still managed to do what you with all your opportunities disregard today.

Think hard.

What's new Scooby Doo??

So I haven't been here in a while...

It's nice to have something to say at least. Let me catch you up.

Well my deadlines came crashing down on me near the end of last month and usually it would be my fault with the aid of procrastination. But I'm proud/relieved to inform you that this time it wasn't!! It was actually my teacher's fault. But I shan't dwell. All I can say is pray for me because the looming results day terrifies me somewhat.

I practically drifted from my last deadline to a short term job courtesy of a runaway friend. But now that even that is over I've had some time to recoup and rest.

Now I'm sort of half mindedly looking for a new reason for people to pay me this summer and also continuing the never ending journey of self-discovery. If you DIDN'T know I was on this journey I'm somewhat surprised by you...aren't we all on this journey?? Well now you know. I am constantly trying to figure out who I am. And that is mostly because I am a different person every time I check.

I digress...

Although this summer isn't as clear cut or planned out as the last, I actually feel more confident and comforted in some ways. It probably has something to do with all the plans for the future I've been making.

The important thing is that today I am happy and I hope you're happy too. There is a lot going on in the world that should make us all depressed but happiness is a choice. And the more you realise that your happiness is your responsibility and no doesn't depend on the existence of anyone else then the more happy you become. More importantly the more you realise that there is no comparison between God's love and the love humans claim to have the happier you will feel.

God  Bless

PS

What's new with you??