Here's a summary of the last few months:
1. I found a more exciting website than suicidegirls (shocking I know!). The place is www.zefrank.com where our little friend Ze presented a daily video blog relating to all sorts of things from politics and news to weird facts and fun little projects which we 'the sportsracers' discussed (among other things) in the forum. Sadly, Ze stopped making 'the show' in March, exactly a year after it had started because it was so time consuming for him.
Here is a link to one of his funniest episodes (I'm not joking, it even made my mother laugh):Scrabble
-Some of my little projects are visible in two shows: One is a video introduction to the show which Shanka helped me film in Paris ( bittersweet ), the other is a track composed by Ze for which I added lyrics and vocals and recorded with Shanka. You can hear 'Cerulean Winter' at the start of the show ( Melancholy ) or independently ( Cerulean Winter ).
2. So umm, I found out I had asthma - and more specifically exercise-induced asthma - to the great bewilderment of my doctor who doesn't understand how I could have lived this long without realizing it. Until I went to my professional dancing school and then started Jitsu, I had simply assumed I was just lazy when it came to endurance-based sports. Failing a Jitsu grading last year, during which I couldn't breath and felt like I had the lungs of an 80 year old smoker, made me realize that maybe I wasn't just being shit or lazy.
-The annoying thing is that I can't use the best medication I've tried because it causes permanent voice alterations after a while, which isn't really great for a vocalist. I only used the stuff for 2 weeks and noticed it. Bummer. I love how the National Health System here pretty much told me to fuck off and that I was fine when I went to see them about my suspicions that I was asthmatic. You gotta love the NHS...
3.I went to the London tattoo convention again last October. The best part of it was having blackbombay over with her boyfriend. Truly lovely people, some of the nicest I've ever met, so go say hello! During their stay, we went to the launch party for the SGvilla dvd (which I won) !
4. I participated to a conference in honour of author Marie Ndiaye organised by the French Institute and various academics. I presented 2 extracts from her plays which was quite terrifying given that she was in the audience! It went very well and she actually came to tell me how much she had liked my performance... pretty fucking sweet compliment coming from such a great writer... I then got invited to a dinner with her and other academics at the super fancy British museum restaurant. It was awesome.
Marie Ndiaye
5. I've felt a sudden surge of creativity since January which has culminated in a piece of performance art which I presented on my birthday last March on the theme of 'sleep'. Originally, I was doing some research on 'the real' onstage and that led me to bring in my duvet, pillow and nightwear in the studio and sleep in a corner of the stage for 2 hours while other people were performing. As ridiculous as it seems, it was actually a very interesting experience.
The actress Tilda Swinton, who slept in the Serpentine gallery before me
-Following that I spent 2 months doing research (part of which involved recording myself sleeping every night) after which I devised a piece around the theme of sleep disorders, particularly cataplexy, Sarah Kane's play 4.48 Psychosis and various other things. I have Bad dreams? on video but most of the performance happened with so little lighting (intentionally) that it hardly picked up anything. I'm now looking for other opportunities to present my piece and maybe develop it further.
6.A few months ago, I got kicked out of the Jitsu club I took care of . It upset me to talk about it for a while but now I'm better. It was a fairly complicated split so I'll try to resume it briefly. If you're interested in the drama, read on:
-Looking back I'm happy this happened, hypocrisy is just not something I do and today I can enjoy Jitsu with people who are as motivated as I am. I don't have to sort out nationals, payments, scream at people who haven't paid their fees despite me asking them to do so 5 billion times, go to boring meetings, spend 3 hours writing group e-mails which no one bothered to read or deal with any form of administrative crap. I can just enjoy training.
My New club
7. Speaking of which, I might be doing my light blue belt a the end of June (on the 23rd). I originally wanted to do it last March but different instructors had different views on whether or not I could get it and so I couldn't go for it. Unfortunately I'll be away in France for the first two weeks of June which means I've only got the next two weeks to get my shit into gear
Some pictures from the nationals
Part of the line-up at the 20 years of London Jitsu extravaganza (spot the Dicey..)
And Finally a link with a bunch of videos from my club. Here I am doing my favourite throw: Tsuri Komi Goshi
8.I decided not to apply to do a masters next year. Essentially because I should be focusing on music and that I can't do everything at the same time. Who knows though, maybe next year. I'd love to do a Ph.D. as well one day but there's no way I could devote three years of my life to such a task. For the moment academia will have to wait.
9.Bones and Hollywood had sets shot in my living room and on my bed last fall. I won't go into details for fear of my account being deleted but I'm fairly unhappy about the damages to my house this resulted in.
10. I urge you to go buy this excellent book which was written by someone very close to me! The book will allow you to sound like you know great works of philosophy and all of their complex details without actually spending months isolated in a hut reading them and most of all understanding them. No, really, this book rocks; Buy it, you'll thank me!
The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books
11.Here are pictures of some modelling I did last fall. The photographer was after weird angles or something like that... I might upload some more in my albums, it's pretty boring though.
12. Have you joined my newest group? European Politics? Go do that now! And while you're at it, why not also join The Lesser Played Instruments orAthletes !
13. We have split from our manager who turned out to be a flamboyant asshole, saying that he was doing all sorts of things to promote our record when really he'd just been sitting his lazy ass on it for the past year. Good news is it will come out on a label called 'Discographe', bad news is I still don't have a date (it will probably be october though)! Maybe we should re-title it Chinese democracy, what do you think? A tour is planned for January-February 08, I'm SO fucking excited!
14.So for the past couple of months I've been working 2 days a week as a vibrator specialist for Ann Summers. Working in sales suck but it covers my rent and is actually pretty fun for a little job on the side. People are seriously thankful that I can help them out with their sex lives, give them advice etc. It would appear that I'm good at it. If you ever need recommendations, I'll tell you what's awesome and what sucks!
15.My cat almost died!! Turns out he had a freakish tumor in his liver which was really bad considering he's only 5 years old... My parents, kindly, hid this from me until he survived the operation because of how upset they knew I would be.. I'm glad to report he's made a complete recovery 
Swann, being a whore
16. The flatmate situation in my house has been a disaster over the past few months I very nearly had to kick one out last November and will now be kicking out the biggest bitch I've ever met in my life in June. It's like all of London's nutters flock to me like sheep Admittedly, a 15 minute slot is really not enough to judge whether someone is an asshole or not (Any tips?). I've been living these past few months with someone who is loud (most notably in bed despite me telling her), doesn't clean, doesn't pay rent or bills on time, uses my stuff without asking, has had her boyfriend practically living here, has been verbally abusive towards me etc etc. It's not been fun and has lately made me feel very bummed out and isolated. I look forward to the end of June when I will be looking for two new flatmates!
Happier times with Toni and Deep-Ti, previous flatmates
17. I went to see 30 seconds to Mars in concert last month and it was one of the worst shows I'd ever seen. I went because I loved their first album and they only played 1 track off of it (and not even their single)!!They played 50 minutes (after a 3 hour wait) with a 15 minute opening band. Jared Leto and the audience completely ignored the rest of the band, he couldn't be bothered to sing half of the time and stand in front of the mic. He sang off-key half of the time he was actually singing. No encores. Pathetic.
Previous comments will be answered as soon as I can, but now tell me:
What have you done for the environment today?
I need more hours in a day... How can I stretch time?
Sorry, I saw you on the GGO group and wanted to say hi. =]
So, "Hi!" =]
How have you been as well??