Twenty Fifth June, Two Thousand and Ten.

A lot to discuss in this post today. Well, only two major things really...
Firstly, something happy and exciting... I have finally finished my exams! I am done with school forver! Unless I don't get the grades I need for Roehampton, then I'm screwed. But, I'm not thinking like that. The exam was okay, I suppose, but this last week I have been breathing Spanish, so I'm having a little break from it. 

Michael Jackson

If you don't know what day it is today, then I, personally, am ashamed. Of course it is the anniversary of the death of the King of Pop. Yes, it has been a year to the day that I was in London for the first time ever (and now I'm going to be living there in September!) where we found out the dreaded, shocking and truly unbelievable news of MJ's death. It's true that I didn't believe it when a friend of mine received a text stating the horrible fact. 

A close friend of mine always says that the memory of MJ's death is my face the next morning watching the rerun of Jackson's videos on the news. Apparently, I looked like I was about to cry. The next day, I did. 

So, that was when he died. Since then, I have obtained the entire collection of his albums, admittedly not the various compilations of the top ten or top twenty, but I have every song he ever released. Also, my mum and dad bought me the classic 'This Is It' DVD that I (again admittedly) missed in the cinema. 

He has been so influencial in my life as an artist, that I got his song lyrics tattooed on my skin and I continually listen to his music every day. Most importantly, his song 'Keep the Faith' has been a mantra for my exams and it has calmed my nerves (just slightly) every time. For that, I thank him... for making a difference in my life.

A Bit of Spanish Flavour

As a student of Spanish (hoping to carry it on at university depending on the grades) I love finding new things like music, film, magazines etc. So, last year, at the end of AS Level, I was having to make a tough decision on whether to take Film for A2 or Media. I was voting for Media all the way through AS as I loved the class, the teacher, the course but as soon as my Film teacher said "We will be studying Mexican Cinema for the exam next year", my mind was set.

We started to watch Pan's Labyrinth, a film by Guillermo del Toro and I fell in love with the narrative. Then, I got told that I would be watching it in my Spanish lessons aswell. So, you can imagine, they would both overlap each other. A bit annoying. So, Pan's Labyrinth has ended up playing a double role in my A2 year: Film, a part, though not huge in my exam for Mexican Cinema and Spanish: a 400 word essay on (most likely) a theme in the film. A lot of marks/ points right there on just one film that is going to (hopefully/fingers crossed/hope to God) get me into Roehampton.

Also in the Film course for this year, half of the coursework was a 'Small Scale Research Project' on a topic of our choice. Keeping with the Spanish theme, I chose Penélope Cruz: 'La Encantadora'. I had to check with my teacher whether it was okay to do it and thank god he let me. The final draft of that is due in on Monday! Eek. I will do some later though, try and get it all done before tomorrow so I can hand it to him and have any last, final, final redraft to do over the weekend.

I love her, think she's a natural beauty and can act! Plus, she started teaching herself english at the age of eighteen and is basically fluent! I wish I was fluent at Spanish but I can only dream. Maybe when I've spent my third year of uni abroad and find a Spanish man to marry. That is the dream! Bilingual children. I would love that!

The thing that provoked my idea of this blog was the Latina version of 'We Are The World' for Haiti 25 aka Somos El Mundo. I fell in love with the American one and now, I have fell in love with the spanish version! It's true, as one of the girls was saying in Spanish the other day, that there is a kind of Spanish version of British people in the version e.g. the oldish guy with the poweful voice aka Tom Jones. I love Shakira's part, the chorus. I love her voice. It's different.

I'm such a Spanish fan/freak/swot, whichever way you look at it, that I have a tattoo in Spanish. Yes, I am only seventeen so yes, it was illegal but I can say that I got a tattoo when I was 17. I've always wanted one and originally I wanted one on the back of my neck, what was I thinking?? I cannot believe I wanted one there, then I wanted one on my hip, then on the inner of my wrist. I've always wanted something to do with the word 'Faith' as it is such a lovely word and means so much universally and it also means Faye so it was personal aswell. Then, I was listening to Michael Jackson, going through a phase and came across 'Keep the Faith' so then I wanted that but in Spanish. I was looking through tattooed celebs and saw that Hayden Panetierre had one down the side of her back and I fell in love. So, I had 'Mantenga la fe' which wasn't long enough in my opinion. In my mums opinion it was long enough but not mine. So, after staring at Hayden's picture of her tattoo for long enough I decided to nick her idea of 'live without regrets' - turn it into spanish and you have 'viva sin lamentos'. I made sure it was all spelt right with the right tense and everything before I went to the tattoo parlour and there we have it: Mantenga la fe y viva sin lamentos. It hurt, but, not as bad as people think. There was only one part which felt like a needle being dragged through my skin and that's what tattoos are really. The rest of it was fine, some parts even tickled the tiniest bit.

On the skin:


That was a couple of days after the initial tattooing. It's faded a tiny bit now though, but it's still there.

I'm a bit obsessed with anything Spanish if I'm honest.