Songs of 2015

That title is a little misleading, I apologise.

After creating my Top 20 Nostalgia playlist, I realised how much I wanted to share the songs I love today with you guys. I have quite a few that I absolutely LOVE and can play over and over without tiring of them. So without further ado, here is my Top 20 of 2015!

1. Holes in the Sky (ft. HAIM) - M83 (oh my god, words cannot express how much I love this song)
2. Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding
3. Beating Heart - Ellie Goulding
4. Hooligan's Holiday - Albannach (if you're open to bagpipes, seriously, go listen to Albannach. It will change your life)
5. Slam - Pendulum
6. I Believe - Christina Perri
7. Smoke - PVRIS
8. Pictavia's Pride - Albannach
9. Take Me To Church - Hozier
10. Circle - Flyleaf (I still love Flyleaf)
11. Ran Off in the Night - Echosmith
12. We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel (you will feel like an absolute legend when you master singing along to this)
13. Radioaktivitat - Das Atom
14. Lights (McKayla Maroney mix) - Ellie Goulding (this is not an official mix. It's a fanmade mix accompanying a video of American gymnast McKayla Maroney, so I have dubbed the McKayla Maroney mix)
15. Underclocked - Eric Skiff (anyone who watches Dark5 on YouTube will have heard this song)
16. One They Fear - Jeremy Soule
17. Dragonborn - Jeremy Soule
18. Forging A New Light - Position Music
19. Warriors - Imagine Dragons
20. Caliban's Dream - Underworld

As evident by this list, I have a HUGELY diverse taste in music. I will literally listen to anything that sounds catchy to my ear. I discovered a couple of years ago that I love foreign music. Indian, Iranian, and Persian music has such beautiful backing music and you feel like a legend if you can sing along to the foreign vocals. Instrumentals/techno/house/electropop are also things I frequently enjoy, as well as the amazing tribal Celtic sounds of Albannach.

I honestly can recommend every song on this list. Even if you think it's not something you'll enjoy, or it's not your taste/style/type...give it a listen. You might surprise yourself.

Xo.

Nostalgia

Now, I'm only 18, so this post is hardly relevant. I've been listening to my iTunes library of 921 songs on shuffle all night and I've been trying to resist the urge to skip the songs and see how I feel about them (I find this is also the fastest way to refine my library; if I absolutely have to skip a song, it clearly grinds my nerves and has to go).

Tonight, iTunes decided to play a heap of songs that I used to listen to constantly between the ages of 12 and 14. That's not that long ago, honestly, but it feels like so long ago because I wasn't even in senior high school back then. These songs evoked a serious feeling of nostalgia in me, and I wanted to share them with you.

Here's my top 20 '2010's nostalgia' pack (even though some of these came out before 2010, I listened to them mostly after 2010):

1. We Run the Nite - Tonite Only
2. Battleflag - Lo Fidelity Allstars
3. Explosive - Bond
4. Take It Off - Ke$ha
5. Reel Around the Sun - Bill Whelan (a must for lovers of Irish/Scottish music!)  **
6. Enemy - Flyleaf
7. D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. - Ke$ha
8. Fully Alive - Flyleaf
9. Victory of Life - Future World Music  **
10. Arise [Ben Moody Mix] - Flyleaf
11. Bad Boy - Cascada  **
12. So Cold - Nikisha Reyes-Piles  **
13. May I Have This Dance - Tommy Lucas  **
14. Someday We'll Move to A Small Farm (And Sit and Watch the Snow Fall) - Linford Detweiler
15. Backstabber - Ke$ha
16. We Run the Night - Havana Brown
17. Beautiful Bride - Flyleaf
18. If Today Was Your Last Day - Nickelback
19. She Got the Honey - Mat Kearney **
20. Viktoria - Maria Mena**

Yes Ke$ha makes quite an appearance. I still enjoy her songs, they're catchy and easy to listen to.

And I will not justify my enjoyment of Nickelback. No-one is allowed to give me flak for that because I listen to whatever music I like, ok?

Enjoy this, and I hope some of you might find some new songs from this list to enjoy! I've put a star next to the less heard of songs, so go check them out! They can all be found on YouTube!

Peace out!

Xo.

Stupid people everywhere...

This post has been begging to be written for months, but I always put it off because I thought I didn't have enough material.

I came to the realisation tonight that I have never not had enough material for this post.

I work in a Video Ezy store, which is a dying business, but it does for now. I've worked there since October 2010 and in the last four and a half years, I have been constantly astounded by the sheer stupidity presented by some of our customers.

Like honestly.

Many of these gripes apply to general retail situations, so I'm sure many of you can sympathise with me.

First up, the stupid questions.

Q: Is a 3 day hire classed as weekly?

What I say: No, it's classed as a new release.

What I want to say: How many bloody days are in a week?


Q: *when signing up for a membership* Do I have to put my phone number on the account?

What I say: Yes, as it's under your name, we need to be able to contact you.

What I want to say: Are you f***ing kidding me?


Q: *brings up an Interstellar case from the wall, which is marked COMING SOON* Do you have any copies of this in store?

What I say: Unfortunately, no, we haven't received our delivery yet.

What I want to say: Read the case.


Q: *while reading poster which says TUESDAY, ALL MOVIES $2* So all movies are $2 on Tuesday?

What I say: Yes.

What I want to say: I don't even have any words.


Q: *after I have put through a transaction for the customer* So those Blu-rays will play on my PlayStation 2, won't they?

What I say: ...No. They only play on Blu-ray players, PlayStation 3 and on, and Xbox One.*proceeds to refund transaction and get the correct copies*

What I want to say: Are you actually as dense as you make yourself seem?


Q: Do you have any copies of Fast and Furious 7?

What I say: That just got released at the cinema, so it won't be on DVD for at least three months following its final showing.

What I want to say: OH MY FOR GOD'S SAKE THE STUPID.


Retail customers are the bane of any retail employee's existence. I get shouted at least twice a shift over someone's late fees. It's not my fault. If they brought the bloody movie back in time, we wouldn't have a problem. And someone asking me whether Interstellar is in store (it's not, our delivery hasn't been invoiced yet) is the DVD equivalent of someone asking if you have those shoes in a size 6.

I do like my job. Some days. Some days are just nightmares. Like the day when the other girl and I got the full set of annoying customers. Some customers just set out to make your life difficult. Some act like entitled little...pieces of work. Middle aged women are the worst for threatening to speak to the manager because I'm rude and a bitch for not deleting their late fees (jokes on them, the manager is my mother).

It's crazy town in there. Some days you just know that if one more customer asks for that movie which has just been released at the cinema (*cough cough* Fast 7), you're going to fly across the counter and strangle them. Or if one more person argues with you over late fees, you're going to commit a felony. Like the woman who insists she isn't paying her late fees because her son was in hospital. Lady, I'm not saying your son wasn't in hospital, but if we wiped late fees every time someone fed us that excuse or something of the like, no-one would pay their late fees.

That's got me knackered. I'm sure there'll be more gripes where that came from later.

Xo.

Twitter - @godofbacon
Instagram - @raducanyoucan

14 tips for first time Skyrim players

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or reads my latest fanfiction knows just how much I love The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, simply called Skyrim by many.

Skyrim is a medieval/fantasy RPG game that follows a line of successful RPG games produced by Bethesda. It is the fifth in the series, following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Skyrim boasts one of the largest game worlds and never fails to provide something to do. It follows the story of the Last Dragonborn, a person born of dragonkind who is destined to save Tamriel from the Dragon Crisis.

However, even with it's 'tutorial' missions, which basically consists of the quests up until you kill Mulmunir, the first dragon, Skyrim has many quirks and it can be easily get you into some tricky spots. I have found myself in tight yet hilarious situations quite regularly while playing Skyrim, and would like to share some of the solutions I have come up with.

1. When you level up, you get to choose an attribute to advance. I advise sinking a lot of these level ups into Stamina. It eases the burden when you really can't decide which valuable item you need to drop in the middle of nowhere.
2. Always carry at least two different types of weapons - ranged and melee. Picking off enemies from a distance first makes the closeup fighting tons easier.
3. If you're strolling through the landscape and the calming beautiful music stops and gives way to something fast paced and intense, run like hell because it means a dragon has just spotted you.
4. If you get ambushed by a dragon called 'Blood Dragon' and you're less than level 25, I advise running because those things are NASTY.
5. Don't go on a frenzy and attempt murder on everyone in town. Just don't do it. And if you absolutely must...save beforehand.
6. Whiterun will always feel like home and you will feel terrible attacking it if you join the Stormcloaks during the Civil War. It's a fact.
7. Don't do the main quest where you have to travel to Alftand until you are sufficiently leveled. I recommend about Level 30, because some of the enemies you will encounter in Alftand and Blackreach are bloody difficult. Especially the Dwarven Centurions. Far out.
8. Don't attempt to battle Alduin until you're leveled. If you follow my earlier advice, this won't be a problem.
9. Don't kill the Riverwood chicken.
10. Shouting in a village or town 'makes people nervous'.
11. Get a house as early as you can. You can stash all your stuff until you're ready to use it.
12. Save your dragon bones and scales. You can make some pretty sweet armor out of them if you level your Blacksmithing.
13. Watch out for Slaughterfish when swimming in cold areas. They're pretty creepy.
14. Go for your life on that eagle in Solitude. It's not an unkillable creature. You will nail it.

There is a collection of some of my tips. I'm sure I'll come up with more.

Peace.

Xo.

Life gets in the way...

I've been a tad absent. And that is mainly because of life. That and I've had many ideas for a new blog post but haven't had the motivation to actually write them.

Not much has happened in my online world over the past couple of weeks, apart from me falling in love with Tyger Drew-Honey, tweeting him, and getting a reply. That was nice!

A fair amount has happened in my real world though. Again, my relationship with TransPerth has verged back on hilarity. The other day I had to go into the city for a university field trip. After that was over, my friend and I made our way to the Perth Underground entrance on Murray Street. Anyone who has been to the Perth Underground knows it's like...crazy town down there. Even I, a Perth born and raised girl who frequently uses the train system, always gets a bit confused in the Underground.

Anyway, I was taking the Joondalup line to Warwick, which is 4 stops from the city, and my friend was taking the same line to Currambine which is 9 stops from the city. As we were coming down the escalator to the platforms, my friend said 'There's a Whitfords train (6 stops from the city) about to leave, you can grab that one'. I looked up and saw that indeed, the board was flashing to say the Whitfords pattern was leaving 1 minute.

I started leaping down the escalator two steps at a time, shrieking 'SEE YOU AFTER THE BREAK' to my friend, took a flying leap off the last step, legged it across the platform and got onto the train about 2 seconds before the doors started to close.

It's probably one of my finest moments using the train.

As well as that, it's now Easter break, mid semester break, and school holidays, which means for the next week, I have no uni and no dancing. I actually have two weeks off of dancing. And so begins a week of me trying to decide what I'm going to do to keep myself occupied.

One of those things will be to plan my future trip to Scotland, i.e. the reason I created this blog. It's not even a definite thing yet and I'm already excited. Later in the year, however, I am going to Bali, and I will be flying there by myself, as my family are flying up a few days later. It will be my first time travelling solo, and it's an international flight, so I'm a little nervous and a lot excited. Nervous because I have no idea how to fill out immigration forms and excited because I'll feel like a proper adult. Haha.

Well, I've forgotten what the point of this post was. If I think of anything else to say, I will post again.

Peace.

Xo

Crack out the party poppers!

I warned you when I started this blog that the chances of me staying on topic are about on par with my chances of becoming the Queen of England. So I hope you enjoy having something entirely different to read every time I post! I like to keep it fresh.

Anyway, this is a special post, for today, it's a special somebody's birthday!

Aoife! (collaredjumpers.wordpress.com)

This amazing girl is somebody who I met through the ever psychotic hot mess that we call the Criminal Minds fandom on Twitter. Today she is 15, and I hope when she turns 16, we are still the amazing friends we are today!

I'm not 100 percent sure how Aoife and I started talking, but I'm pretty sure it was the day I nearly fell on the train tracks at Warwick train station (which she subsequently has not let me forget). The story behind that: Aoife, myself, and another girl called Kara were all joking about slipping aphrodisiacs in a certain couple's (anyone who knows me will know who they are) food to entice them to have another baby (low and behold, they announced they're expecting another baby just two weeks ago). Aoife tagged Nathan in one of the tweets just to be silly, and HE RESPONDED. And I promptly tripped over my shoes in surprise and nearly fell off the platform because I had my back to the tracks and my backpack was probably heavier than I am. By some stroke of luck, I caught my balance in time to step away and catch the train that pulled in about three seconds after I almost fell.

Ah, the memories.

We've been through a LOT. We had a HUGE blowout in like...October. It was really stupid and I'm glad we got over it. We trust each other a lot and we tell each other everything. We discovered we do a lot of the same weird things, which I will not list for the sake of both of our dignity. We love to share our story ideas with each other and we have our own repertoire of inside jokes (*cough cough* frog squats) which never fail to make me laugh. Although I think my near death experience with a train makes the top of that list.

Aoife never fails to make me laugh. She always brings a smile to my face if I'm having a bad day, even if it is in the middle of a lecture and I have to duck under a table when I start laughing.

We also have the stupid things that make us laugh. Like the time I emailed her a story outline and realised afterwards that I had sent her the longest run-on sentence EVER. That got a laugh. And the day AJ announced her pregnancy, Aoife was FREAKING out and I was sitting on a public bus grinning like an absolute idiot. What a contrast.

She's a beautiful, stunning, kind hearted girl (who looks just like Chloe Grace Moretz, I s*** you not) who I hope remains one of my friends for a long time to come.

One day, we will meet and it will be joyous, hilarious, and wonderful.

Have an awesome day beautiful! Love you!

Xoxo.

TMI Tag

Emma Blackery answered these questions on her YouTube channel, and never specified who answers next, so I decided to do them myself. Enjoy!

1: What are you wearing? 

A green Bintang shirt and a pair of pyjama shorts that have donuts on them (I just had to check and make sure they were donuts).

2: Ever been in love? 

I don't think so...does being in love with your computer count?

3: Ever had a terrible breakup?

Never had a relationship, so no, I've never had a terrible breakup.

4: How tall are you?

About 5'8-5'9. I'm actually not 100 percent sure, I just know I'm tall.

5: How much do you weigh?

Again, I really don't know. Somewhere around the 65kg mark I would guess.

6: Any tattoos?

Nope

7: Any piercings?

I have my ears pierced once.

8: OTP?

WILLIFER FOREVER!

9: Favourite show?

Criminal Minds. If you have to ask me that question, you obviously don't know me very well.

10: Favourite bands?

I have a lot of favourite singers rather than bands, so I'll throw them in the mix too. PVRIS, Ellie Goulding (love love LOVE!), Echosmith, Albannach, Ben Howard, anyone who composed the soundtracks to any of my favourite movies...

11: Something you miss?

I had a great big list of stuff I miss the other day, and now I can't remember a single thing off of it. Probably the days when I didn't have homework to worry about, and Chelsea and I would have a sleepover pretty much every weekend. The days when the original The Sims game was the absolute shit, the days when I had a functional trampoline (I'll have those days back shortly), the days when my life didn't revolve around actresses and TV shows.

12: Favourite song?

Right now, it's 'Love Me Like You Do' by Ellie Goulding, but it could change in a week or so.

13: How old are you?

I am 18, a legal adult in Australia and the United Kingdom.

14: Zodiac sign?

Virgo

15: Quality you look for in a partner?

Kind, loving, not a cocky arrogant bastard, must be reasonably attractive to me, taller than me, apply within.

16: Favourite Quote? 

"Ssh, the adults are talking. When it's your turn to speak, I'll give you permission" - Jennifer Jareau, a.k.a most badass woman that the world ever did see.

17: Favourite actor?

AJ FREAKING COOK LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

18: Favourite color?

Any shade of blue that reminds me of places like the Maldives and Fji.

19: Loud music or soft?

Depends.

20: Where do you go when you're sad?

To my room to write.

21: How long does it take you to shower?

Freaking ages. Dad has to bang on the door to get me out.

22: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

I can get ready in 10 minutes if I'm really desperate for some extra sleep.

23: Ever been in a physical fight?

Only with my sisters.

24: Turn on?

If you like my shows.

25: Turn off?

BO, bad breath, hair that looks like it hasn't been washed (seriously guys, wash your hair).

26: The reason I joined Youtube?

So I could comment on videos I like.

27: Fears?

Terrified of cockroaches. Pretty much every one of my friends has witnessed me run in fear at the sight of a cockroach. And something happening to any one of my Internet friends that I don't know about.

28: Last thing that made you cry?

Chloe's 7 News piece.

29: Last time you said you loved someone?

Pretty sure I said I love William LaMontagne at work today and Sarah laughed at me.

30: Meaning behind your Youtube Name?

xxcourtneyjareauxx

(kiss kiss) first name, surname of favourite character (kiss kiss)

31: Last book you read?

Confessions of a Qantas Flight Attendant

32: The book you're currently reading?

I am going to read 'And The Mountains Echoed' by Khaled Hossaini. Pretty sure I got that either this Christmas or last and I still haven't read it.

33: Last show you watched?

Modern Family

34: Last person you talked to?

My dad.

35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted?

Emily is a really close friend from high school, we were discussing what movie she should watch.

36: Favourite food?

I really, really love microwave popcorn.

37: Place you want to visit?

You should all know that; Scotland.

38: Last place you were?

Other than here in my bed, I was at work.

39: Do you have a crush?

Yes.

40: Last time you kissed someone?

I have never been kissed.

41: Last time you were insulted?

Some arrogant customer at work told me I was a rude bitch because I wouldn't do them a deal on their $10 late fees, which I'm not allowed to do anyway, so I asked them politely to leave the store.

42: Favourite flavour of sweet?

Apple. Watermelon. Grape.

43: What instruments do you play?

I used to play the clarinet, and I still sometimes play the recorder super badly to annoy my mum.

44: Favourite piece of jewellery?

I don't really wear jewellery, but I have a Deathly Hallows necklace.

45: Last sport you played?

Gymnastics is a sport. I don't care what anyone says. Some guy I went to school said it's not a sport because athletes don't wear leotards and makeup. Gymnastics is a freaking sport, the amount of training and dedication you have to have more than qualifies it. Gymnasts probably train more than half of the other sports at the Olympics!

46: Last song you sang?

St Patrick by PVRIS.

47: Favourite chat up line?

Wouldn't know one, never used one.

48: Have you ever used it?

Read above.

49: Last time you hung out with anyone?

I had to seriously think about that. Probably with Kathryn on Wednesday.

50: Who should answer these questions next?

Everyone who wants to.