This is becoming a catastrophe...

I’ll be the first to admit that I am great at procrastinating. As can be expected, I did not begin writing this list until about two days ago and it was at that moment that I realised that I’ve sort of fallen off bandwagon (I don’t even know if that’s the right word but it was the first thing that popped into my head) when it comes to music, even the stuff by bands/artists I really like. I had no idea when most albums were being released, who had released new music and so on. Needless to say, it proved rather difficult to actually work up the enthusiasm it required to listen (and re-listen) and mentally critique a decent number of albums so that my list wouldn’t appear so sparse. So here is my list that, for the first time in existence, is listed in order of preference!

Top Ten Albums of 2011: 

1. Soul Punk - Patrick Stump
2. Ceremonials - Florence + The Machine
3. Simple Math - Manchester Orchestra
4. Codes and Keys - Death Cab For Cutie
5. Taking Back Sunday - Taking Back Sunday
6. Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years
7. This Modern Glitch - The Wombats
8. You and I - The Pierces
9. People and Things - Jack’s Mannequin
10. Vices and Virtues - Panic! At The Disco

Honourable Mentions (albums I liked but not enough to make my list, EPs and otherwise):

• In Some Way, Shape or Form - Four Year Strong
• Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under - Amanda Palmer
• Dirty Work - All Time Low
• 21 - Adele
• Everything You Ever Wanted: The B-sides - The Friday Night Boys
• Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers - Dalton Academy Warblers/Glee Cast (It’s kind of embarrassing to have this in my list but this album was really damn catchy and I genuinely enjoyed it)
• Things Are Really Weird Right Now - You, Me and Everyone We Know
• Truant Wave EP - Patrick Stump
• You’ll Be Mine EP - The Pierces

*I would like to point out that somehow I did not get around to listening to albums by the following artists (or I just forgot they released an album and it was too late to listen to all of them): Blink 182 (I don’t know how that happened, I even downloaded the leak), Madina Lake, Mayday Parade, Bright Eyes, Every Avenue, Sum 41, Yellowcard (again, I’m lazy but I did listen to the acoustic version and it was heavenly), Eisley, The Kills, The Maine (I sort of lost interest in their music), Cobra Starship (I was too scared it was going to suck so I decided to save myself the disappointment by not listening to it all) and You Me At Six (the guest vocalists kind of put me off so I didn’t listen to it for the same reason as Cobra).

Well as you probably know (or maybe you don’t, I can’t remember if I’ve previously blogged about this) I finished university for the year quite some time ago. I promised that I’d post something the first chance I had but then things happened and I really just got super lazy so I’ve failed to come up with a legitimate excuse. Instead of posting an enormous, essay-like text post as I’ve been known to do, I’m going format this in much less painful bullet points.

Things that have been good:

• Receiving an HD (minus) on my final written assignment of the year - the essay I wrote for fashion on political power through dress comparing Marie Antoinette and Jackie Kennedy
• Being successful in my attempt to become a QUT Connect volunteer for next year
• Having endless amounts of free time and being able to sleep in
• Being (for the most part) able to stay up-to-date with TV shows (Gossip Girl and Glee - I’m no longer a month behind everyone else, yay!)
• Having the opportunity to start ~new TV shows like Pan Am (technically I started watching this when it premiered in September), Mad Men and the O.C. (other than that time I watched the series finale, I’ve never actually watched an episode of the O.C.)
• Downloading Edith Piaf’s 100 Greatest Hits
• Endless night of nothing but the utter perfection of Soul Punk and Ceremonials  
• Shopping at antique stores with my family on the weekends
• Reading books for fun rather than research (although I did end up reading that Marie Antoinette book for fun like the history nerd I truly am)
• Christmas music

Things that have been not so good:

• The heat/poor weather in general
• Not being able to find a job/having no one willing to hire me and therefore having no money to spare
• Having neighbours who like to party/drink/play (and sing to) terrible pop music
• Feeling unsure/anxious about the future
• The whole ‘Academic Dishonesty’ thing that went down this month (I promise to elaborate on this at a later time)
• My grandparents visiting this weekend (I don’t need a time machine to know that this already spells disaster)

Starting tomorrow, I will also be volunteering for the week as an assistant stylist/backstage dresser at the QUT fashion graduate show which means late nights and late morning sleep-ins. Before last Friday I’d pretty much given up hope of being selected since I’d assumed the selection process had been finalised at the beginning of the month but it appears I was wrong. I haven’t decided yet whether it’s going to be awesome or a complete disaster (I’m hoping, for the future of any career I might pursue, that this isn’t the case) so to be safe, I didn’t place it under either category. I do promise to keep you all updated as best I can during the week however.

Thank you to any of you who took the time to read my ridiculous ramblings, you’re absolute darlings. 
-Kirsty.XO.