Thoughts from Reading Festival

As you can probably guess from the title ^^^ this year I went to Reading Music Festival (23 - 25 August). And yes, it was amazing, yes, it was one of the best weekends of my life, yes, I loved every minute, and yes, I am currently suffering from serious post-Reading blues because just oh god it was amazing - but that's not what I'm going to blog about today, because jeeze if I did that I'd just prattle on pointlessly forever. In fact, I can feel myself starting to do that now, so I shall get to the point!

Sat on my friend James' shoulders for this photo, hence the
height. Even from the photo you can tell how incredible
the atmosphere was there

I've said before that I love live music and I love gigs so much. There is nothing quite like the buzz you get at a gig, when everyone starts singing along to the lyrics of a song of a band you love immensly - I mean, if I get that feeling as a lover of the band, I can't even begin to imagine how it makes the band themselves feel. It must be utterly surreal and incredible. I have such a huge deal of respect for the music industry and for music artists. As someone who writes, and I do write on a daily basis - even if it's just adding details to a character I've come up with, I try to do some kind of writing every day - I know how much of yourself you inadvertently put into what you create and so how nerve-wracking it is to show what you've done to someone else, because if they reject it, it almost feels like they're rejecting you. I'd imagine it's fairly similar for musicians, and yet I'm so grateful they do what they do, obviously, because music has saved me time and time again. When I see bands I love live, and I hear that music I love actually being performed in front of me, to say it generally reduces me to tears would not be exaggerating. I have cried at most gigs I've been at.

In my lifetime so far, I've seen a definite shift in the way music is perceived. I am still a huge lover of CDs and physical editions of music - I have an iPod, but it's full of music I've loaded on there from CDs. I also can't stand piracy and illegal downloading of music. When people say, "Yeah but it's only 99p they're missing out on, it's not much, come on, what difference will it make" my mind then goes "If everyone said that, the band would make no money!" More and more people I know now illegally download music - which OK, that's their decision, it's just one that I hate personally. Why do I hate it so much and why have I suddenly been thinking this? I will explain.

Being at Reading Festival was one of the single most incredible experiences of my life. I was surrounded by 3 of my best friends pretty much at all times (4 when we could find Hannah) which made the weekend amazing, but obviously, what made the weekend fantastic was the music. Having constant access to all this live music was unbelievable and phenomenal and fantastic. It made me think about how those musicians really were baring their souls to us, singing about things that mattered to them, and how they were touching so many people just by being. I have always appreciated and loved music, but it made my love and appreciation for music increase ten-fold. How on earth does this link to illegal downloading, I hear you ask. It fits in perfectly.

Personally, I don't get the whole illegal downloading thing. If you love a band and want to support a band, why do you think you have the right to get that music for free? The hours that band have put in to create that music is more than anyone can probably guess. How would you feel if you spent months, maybe a year or more, of your life doing something, making something that you were hoping to earn some money from, and people react by saying "That's amazing, I love it!" and you earn no money at all. It would be an utter kick in the teeth to all the work you've done. Everyone has the view of "Well, other people do it, why shouldn't I" and that's true, but eventually it'll damage the bands, in my opinion. By not paying you're not supporting these bands, and eventually these bands wouldn't be able to continue if they received no money whatsoever. Bands at Reading Festival survive on people buying their music and I don't know, the idea some people don't actually pay for music kinda disgusts me a bit. Maybe I'm old fashioned. I don't know.

Reading Festival made me appreciate bands in a whole different light and feel a love for music in a different way that I'd ever felt, and I think that's where this rant/pondering/thoughts/train of thought thing has come from - because music has done so much for me, as it has done so much for others, and the thought of not repaying those people who've helped me so much isn't something I can fully contemplate. I don't know.

Side note - if you love music and have never been to a gig then oh good god go. They just no words, gigs are unbelievable. 

Biffy Clyro at Main Stage at Reading Festival on the last night of the festival - they were unbelievably good

AS Results and thoughts from after

So today was the day I received my AS-Level grades. For me it was that bit more nerve-wracking because I'm actually currently on the Greek island of Corfu (as I sit here typing this, I am sat in almost 40 degree heat with a Sprite next to me, by a pool. Sat at a table with an umbrella over it so I can actually see my laptop screen but still, this is Greece for you) so whilst all my friends got their results by going into school and having each other with them, I got mine emailed to me. And not only that, but because Greece is 2 hours ahead of England, it felt like I was having to wait even longer because obviously, my body clock is running ahead of everyone else's.

That beautiful exam result sheet we all know and love...
LOL JK I HATE AND DESPISE IT

Eventually my results were emailed to me and they were as follows:
History - A
General Studies - B
Graphic Art - B
English Literature - C
Biology - E 
The only one of these I was upset about and yes, I will admit I cried at, was English. As I'm sure I've stated before, I want a career in English. I want to be a writer more than anything else, I always have, and reading isn't a chore to me, it's something I absolutely love doing. I did so many past papers, revised those poems and that play to death almost, and my grade was a C. I'm aware some people would kill for a C, but for me it just didn't feel good enough. Biology I couldn't give a crap about, I'm dropping, just pleased I managed to avoid a U! As for History don't even, a week before the exams I was sat on my bed having a crying breakdown to my mum about how I knew nothing.... um.

Anyway, those were my results that I received this morning, and then I was sat thinking and felt the need to write a blog post about it. But no, the point of this blog post is not "Sarah talks about her results YAY". The point is what I was starting to think about afterwards.

I am 17 years old. Me and my friends are 17. We are teenagers. When you're teenagers, very few decisions you make and very few things you want to do or do last a long time or have a huge deal of seriousness involved in them. Heck, I struggle with deciding what flavour ice cream to have (ice cream parlours abroad are hell for me because I'm like BUT I LIKE ALL THESE FLAVOURS WAAAH). The point I'm trying to make is as I get older and older I seem to understand less and less what I want to be doing with my life. A few weeks ago we started Personal Statements, and me and my friend Hannah were just like "WE WANT TO DO ENGLISH LIT, NO WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR FAVOURITE GENRE IS, GO AWAY". Obviously we didn't say this but this is how we felt at the time.

Being a teenager is tough and I don't think enough credit is given to that. We're not children anymore, but we're not adults either - and yet we're treated as both children and adults. We're told we aren't old enough to understand things, that we're "just kids", and yet we're having to do exams and make decisions about things that genuinely can and will impact our futures. Excuse me if I think that's an extremely adult thing to have to be dealing with. I personally want to spend my afternoons out on my skateboard, playing on the Playstation, eating whilst crying from feels in The Avengers and chatting/hanging out with friends, making the most of the time I have whilst I'm young. But no, I'm forced to spend hours revising for exams that at this moment in time I don't actually care about. In a few years, yes, I will care, but at this moment in time... I'm too young. I don't feel old enough to be making such life-changing decisions, or doing such life-impacting things.

I also hate the idea of exams moulding your future. I had a friend at Primary School who was smart as anything - we were 11 years old, and we had properly smart conversations together. We borrowed each others books, we were intellectually on the same level. We left Primary School, and I got 3 5s at SAT Level. She got 3 3s, and continuously throughout school has been smart but just has struggled with the exam system. Some people just aren't good with exams.

Exams seem to mould too much. But essentially exams show that you have a good memory. They do not test your smartness, they do not test how you interact as a person, your kindness etc etc, all of which I think are extremely important things when it comes to being employed! I don't know. I think I'm just sick to the back teeth of exams meaning so much and impacting our lives so much when we're just teenagers. Surely there's more to our futures than decisions we make and things we do aged 16, 17 and 18....