Biffy Clyro (Late review)

So I went and saw Biffy Clyro at the O2 Arena in London at the beginning of April, and it was one of the best gigs I have been too. And I've been to quite a few.
As a band they have songs that just are anthems and need to be heard live and in a massive venue.
They also have so much energy and really choose their playlist carefully so there is no loss of pace.
They use lighting and pyrotechnics tastefully, some bands can really overdo it.
All in all I loved it and for once I didn't get squashed in the crowd, which was a nice change!
I would defiantly recommend going to see them as they are just outstanding live. 

The Name of the Wind - Sarah's Review

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss 

I randomly picked this book up in WHSmith last Summer before I headed out to Spain on a family holiday. I like to read a lot of different books, I'll read pretty much any genre - pretty much like my music tastes, so my reasoning for picking up the book was just that I needed to take a book away with me. 
Reading this blurb made me think it was something like Lord of the Rings. I was wrong. 

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. 

You may have heard of me.

The story is easy to get into from the first instance. Rothfuss has an easy style where he paints the scene without over complicating and running the risk of boring the reader. As a reader you instantly becoming engrossed in the story and want to know just what is going on. Why is there a strange spider like creature? Who is Kote and why does he seem to know things but hide that knowledge? 

As the story develops it is not hard to become attached to the young Kvothe (note before I referred to Kote, this is the same character) and the ordeal he goes through at such a young age, you want to be able to help him, even though that evidently will not happen. Each setback makes you willing something good to happen for him, and you mentally curse his enemy's and praise his friends. Rothfuss has such an easy way of engaging the reader and enabling you to develop that link. The switch between past and present is easy, and doesn't confuse the reader, as some books can easily do. The past and the reflection allows the reader to become acquainted with the main character and build that relationship up, the switch to the present makes you question just what has happened for Kvothe to get to where he is now. 

So what is The Name of the Wind all about? 
The main character is Kvothe. We are first introduced to him as an adult, and going by the name Kote running an inn in a sleepy little village full of superstitious and simple people.
An unexpected event occurs to a member of the village in which a strange creature attacks, the simpletons of the village immediately think that it is a Demon - although Kvothe knows otherwise. The wheels are set in motion and we begin to learn little snippets about whom exactly Kvothe is.
It is not until the arrival of Chronicler - a highly reputed recorder of events - that we get into the swing of things and learn about Kvothe's life. Chronicler wants to record Kvothe's life - which after reluctance Kvothe agree's too. 
And so the story becomes a reflection in where it is told through the view point of Kvothe himself. 
We learn about his young age, his family, his troupe, his thirst for knowledge, his ability to grasp concepts quickly. 
We learn of the traumatic event in which Kvothe ends up having to fend for himself, then his turn of luck as he takes the steps to achieving something that no one has achieved before - to get into the University - before he has even come of age! 
We travel with him on his journey through University, his eagerness to learn, the rivalries, the foolish pride and gullibility. 
He experiences his first love - at this stage in the story, it could be his only love. 
Along the way we also learn of the history of the world in which Kvothe lives in, of the Chandarin, Lanre, the Amyr, the reasoning behind the children's rhymes. 

All this information is given to us in perfect spoon sized snippets not overloading, thus creating a rich tapestry of Kvothe's life. As a reader you fly along with the highs, and dip with the lows as though the story was your own, at emotional points, you do feel genuinely choked up with either pity and pain or joy. At the same time Rothfuss pulls you out of the reminiscing and brings you to the here and now, switching from the first person to the third with ease. We then watch and see how Kvothe is acting now, and wonder even more how things have come to be, before we are thrown into the past again. 

The story has an excellent construction, it doesn't linger too long on insignificant details, but at the same time it gives you all the details you need in order to see the scene in your mind clearly. It flows easily, with even the changes in past and present fitting perfectly and not breaking up the story. 
At the end we are left thinking - what happens to Kvothe for him to become known as Kvothe the Kingkiller?
To which the answer is - we need to get our hands on the next book! 

Following the trip to London...

Today I went all the way up to London to "sign on" with 2 recruitment companies.
One was near Kings Cross and one was near Liverpool Street. I would say that the day started off a bit rubbish, I got plenty of sleep yet still managed to to the typical commuter thing an snooze on the train, that was a good 40 mins wasted, as well as being completely embarressing. What if I snore? Or do that thing where your head suddenly droops and I bang my head on the window or something?

When I got to my first destination I took the wrong turning and ended up a 10 min walk in the wrong direction, not good, and when I got there the lift was broken so I had to go all the way up to the 4th floor via the stairs. It wasn't too bad, but seeing as I don't do a 4 flight stair climb everyday, it did strain my slightly unfit body, and I ended up a bit hot, not like dripping with sweat hot, but one would say I had a "glow". I really should improve that... Anyway, the actual process I think went a little bad as I was required to do a "video CV" I'm kinda ok with the camera bit, but when there's no one actually standing there I get a little flustered. First of all, either the chair was on a slope, the camera was slightly tilted, or I happen to have a wonky face, but lining up my face with the points on the screen was quite challeneging and I actually spent about a min trying to sort that. Secondly I monumentally, for want of a better word, screwed up my actual answers, mainly because I kept forgetting to look at the camera rather than the screen. Bad times.

Second place, again I got lost, again took the wrong turning. Then when I got the the receptionist spelt my name wrong on the little tag thing they give you, my interviewer was late by 15 mins, then she told me to be honest, so I was. Then after about half an hour she said that maybe media sales isn't what I'm looking for. But the thing is, I've looked at it as an option, so I'm willing to go for it, I mean how am I to know that I won't be good at it unless I give it a go? Talk about making me all deflated :/

So I got bored of being in London after that and hopped on the train about an hour earlier than I had planned. And snoozed all the way back to Brighton. I seem to do alot of snoozing on the train. No more job have appeard that I'm capable of doing, coz apparently, if I don't have 300 UCAS points then I'm too retarded, so job apps today equal zero, I did however forward my CV to another recruiter.

Tomorrow is my last day of groupwork, then we're gonna hand the whole thing in, hurrah! I'm so sick of Topps Tiles, just like I'm now sick of shaving products, more specifically King of Shaves. Seriously, our lecturer - Paul Oakley, likes to torture us slowly, as well as beat our morale down to zero. Not to mention the fact that he's either lost our Topps marketing plan draft, or because he decided the leave them in the ever so safe and secure place of being tacked to his office door, someones pinched it, which is annoying coz we haven't had the feedback we wanted. We handed it in EXACTLY how he wanted it, and its dissappeared. When I politely asked him about it via e-mail, because he is never in when he says he's gonna be, he replied 5 days later, being as helpful as a chocolate teapot and insinuating that we hadn't done what we were supposed to do and bound everything together properly, which is stupid coz we damn well did. If I get a bad mark in that module I'm gonna challenge the hell out of it.

All in all today was a bit of a rubbish day D:

Signing Off

The search for a graduate job

So, I have decided to set up a blog, just for the fun of it, and coz it seems like a rad thing to do right now. I used to do similar "blogging" back in the day when I had a myspace account, but I got hacked, and everyone stopped using myspace anyway, so no more of that.

Moving on.

As I'm all set to graduate this summer I've started the long and arduouos process of job searching - hurrah!

So far this has yielded lots of rejections, and a couple of interviews, of which one I am still waiting for a reply, sad times.

Tomorrow I am gonna head up to London to go to two recruitment companies, who are gonna "put me on their books", I'm currently undecided on how this will yield me the results I want, but we'll see. Today I have applied for 4 jobs, each of which have required me to send cover letters. This means I have had to spend quite a bit of time tailoring each letter to the company I am applying to. Now my boyfriend, Dave, seems to think that this only takes 5 mins, however, I know from experience that actually it takes alot longer than this, because you CAN NOT send a generic letter. It doesn't show commintment or care and attention to the company you are appling for. So basically I have spent the past hour and a half writing cover letters.

And I'm starting top think that I might have some blocking cookie on my web browser, because for some obscene reason, I am unable to upload any documents to a website. I can attach documents to an e-mail, no problemo, but to try and upload to a site is proving impossible atm. This makes life difficult becuase earlier I tried to apply to a job with Seimens, but because I was unable to upload my CV I just gave up. For today.

Well that's all I have to rant about for the moment regarding my lacklustre results for grad job hunting *sigh*

Signing Off!