Fan-Idol relationship rant.

I have been thinking about this for a while and decided to make a blog out of it.

Most people look up to a famous person, especially 'young' people. I hope that everyone has the chance to meet their idol/muse/source of inspiration in their life. I have met one of my and it was an amazing experiences and I will treasure it forever.

What I find very strange and creepy is that meeting your idol (just going with this term to make it is easy) turns some people in greedy monsters. It terrifies me!  I always tell me friends that they should shoot me if I start acting like a fan girl in front of my idol. I don't want to make a fool of myself. I know I can be the biggest fan girl in the world (and my friends know that) but I will always compose myself. Some people just attack their idol and demand things from them. You have people who stalk their so called idols or try to get in the tour bus with them. What is wrong with these people? Why do they think that it is normal? Or maybe I am the one who is insane? Hell, I thought asking a hug from my idol would be too fan girlish.

And you also have these fans who treat their idol as some kind of God. Yes, I was a little nervous when I talked to mine, but as soon as he replied the nerves vanished like snow melts in front of the sun (no clue if this is correct English... hmm) . He is just a person like every one else (even though he is a little smaller, more cute,  more special and more birdlike then most people, ooh and I forget to say he has the most beautiful eyes in the entire universe, but he is still just a person like you and me) and I think I will never treat him as someone who is above me. Artists/famous person automatically get placed upon a pedestal and are harder to 'reach' than 'normal' people, depending on how famous they are, but that doesn't mean I have to treat them in a special way. If they want me to treat them like kings, they can go and find some other fan to do that.  I will never kiss the ground they walk on, I will never kiss the things they touched, not will I fight to get the water bottle or towel they used on stage.

What I find very annoying as well is that people want their idols for themselves and refuse to share them. What I mean is talking to them for a long time or take pictures with them numerous times while there are still other fans who didn't had a small chat or a picture with their idol.
Yes, I had my picture taken with my idol twice on the same day and yes I talked to him twice, but that was only because there was time and there were not so many people around. If there were loads of people after the concert, I would not have stayed to have a chat and another picture taken. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person in the world who was been taught to have respect and let everyone have a 'turn.' (damn that sounds so wrong in this context).  

It's insane how super famous people have to protected themselves from their fans and the media, but I do understand it. If you see how insane fans can be... Pushing and pushing so they can get a centimetre closer by their idol, crushing the people in front of them. It's almost feels like the artist that is on stage will marry the fan closest to him/her.

I'm so incredible lucky that my idols play in a relative 'unknown' band and can play a small club show on a 20 minutes walk from my door and make time to talk to their fans. Some of my dear friends are not so lucky and have fallen in love with monster bands who play in large venues crowded with desperate fan girls.

I think fans should respect their idols and idols their fans, even though that's easier said than done.  

Now I have a question for my readers: have you ever met your idol in person? And how was it? 
 

Looking back and looking forward

2012 is close to ending so I decided to look back on it. It has been a pretty cool year but nothing extraordinary. I certainly have some highlights:

- Cologne and seeing The Rasmus for the 4th time together with my boyfriend.
- Got to know some awesome people and one of them became one of my dearest friends.
- I decided to go to university instead of going to work
- Saw The Rasmus for the 5th time in Antwerp and managed to have a chat and a picture taken with Lauri! (one life goal accomplished!) and this experience was shared with my boyfriend and one of my best friends :D

All by all a pretty good year without too many downs. I hope 2013 will be the same or perhaps even better! I'm not going to make any resolutions since there is no way I'm going to do them anyway. instead I will list some realistic things I want to do this year, some plans:

- Go on vacation. preferably Norway with my aunt and uncle, else London.
- See The Rasmus or Lauri live, it would probably include travelling to Germany/Finland/... so maybe I can make this my vacation!
- Write more. I'm already doing a fair bit of writing, thanks to my and my friend's little project.
- Spend more time with my horse. It will be much easier when the sun sets later;
- Save up money to stalk The Rasmus on their next tour. Yes, I'm addicted.

It's not much, but I think it would be difficulty enough to complete every single plan. I am looking forward to the new year, even though I'm not tired of the wonderful 2012.

So what are your plans for 2013?

The Hobbit: very brief review

About a week a go I saw this film and I absolutely loved it. It was better than The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was funny, heart warming and excited. It didn't bore me for a second. I was a little afraid that i was going to miss Aragon and the other members of the fellowship, but I didn't. The dwarves were so amazing! And I loved Bilbo. In The Lord of the Rings I didn't like him... he was kind of creepy.

I was surprised that they put some (parts) of the songs in the film! My favourite moment was when they sang Misty Mountains. This would be the perfect song to listen to when you are sitting inside, with something warm to drink while it's snowing outside :D

Pledge

Today the Tour dvd of The Rasmus was officially released (they made it by collecting money using 'pledge' Check out the site if you don't know it!

It was possible to buy various exclusive items of the band so they could reach their pledge. I bought the Live DVD (there were a lot of other cool things, like a poster, shirt, goody bag etc). I received a mail that I could download my remixes today and that The Rasmus would contact me personally concerning the personalization of the DVD. I think that it is very cool but of course I suspect it to be a standerd e-mail they send to every fan who bought something that was going to be personalized.

Well I'm actually writing this blog to say how nice some of the remixes are! There are four songs that are being played on the piano by Aynsley Green and song by Lauri. Nothing else. It's really beautiful and relaxing!

New books!

Yesterday I went to visit one of my best friends who lies in a hospital in Ghent and I've combined it with a visit to Het Boekenfestijn (lots and lots of cheap books.

When I complete my around, I had over 70 Euro of books in my trolley. After mercilessly cutting in the books, I ended up with seven books that costed about 40 euro's
I bought:
 

- The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare, illustrated by Harold Copping
- Wolfbreed by S.A. Swann
- The Legend of Sigurd and Gundrun by J.R.R Tolkien (deluxe edition)
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Garheme

 - Utopia  by Sir Thomas More

- The Last Dickens by Matthew W. Pearl

There are two others I had received last week, after ordering them from The Book Depository:

- Dragon Champion by E.E. Knight

- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Georgy 

So again I have a lot books to read and unfortunately not enough times, since I have to study for the exams.

Project: Story World

For a while my friend and I told each other we should write something together for we both like to write. On Monday we started and ended up with a fanfiction. a mash-up featuring Amy Lee (Evanescence), Jared Leto (30 Seconds to Mars) and Lauri Ylönen ( The Rasmus) and other might still be introduced.
The fun thing about this little project is that we don't make plans for it. We just write. It's actually very funny and excited since we both have our own ideas on where we want to go with the story! Right now they are 19 small chapters and we update very frequently.

Feel free to check it out:

http://a-storyworld.blogspot.be

Rant: feeling a little lost

I feel a bit like ranting. if this bores you, don't read it then!  So here we go!

I always try to find something to look forward to in the near future, but now I'm finding it very difficult. For the last couple of months I counted the weeks and the days until the The Rasmus gig but since that's over I started looking for something else. The problem is that I can't find anything to look forward to! Of course I can't wait 'till I have my bachelor and master(s), or to study/work for a while in a foreign country, but that's still so far away.

Right now In feel I don't have a purpose and it annoyed me. It seems everyone around me knows what they want and they are working hard to make their dreams come true. I don't even have a clue what I want to do when I graduate. I know I still have a long way to go and perhaps I will discover what I want to do along that journey. I just feel as if I'm stuck in a void.

 My dream is to publish a novel and everyone keeps saying that I have to practise writing or just write a damn novel but it requires so much time and dedication. I scarcely have time to write fanfiction, so how can I write complete novel? And what if  I managed to publish a book some time in the future, what would happened than?

I don't feel like making this an extremely long blog and I still have to read 30 pages of Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by by Aphra Behn (I might even read the whole thing, since the story seems to be really interesting, according to the introduction).

So what are you looking forward to? What are your goals and dreams?

Still feels like the first day of my life.

I can't believe that tow days have past already. Time flies by so incredible fast.

Two days ago I went to the concert of The Rasmus. I looked forward to it for months. I love this band so much and they meant so much to me when I was growing up. They were the only ones that were actually always there for me. I just have to press a button and I could hear them. They can brighten up my darkest day.

We arrived first at the venue. it was about half past nine. The tour bus was already there. We were there about ten minutes when two German girls arrived. they were really friendly. Apparently they were doing the whole tour except Russia. I was quite jealous since I'd love to that as well if I had the money and time. I think it's a very cool experience! We were really glad that we could didn't have to sit outside the whole day because the weather was horrible. Lauri (the singer) was glad we didn't have to wait in the rain and snow all day long!

We managed to give them our feathery art (Lauri was surprised that we made it for them.. like why else will I drag it all the way to the venue?) and I think they really liked it because they posted a pic of it on their facebook page! We had a picture with them and if you look very closely, you can see that Lauri is standing on his toes so he doesn't look so small! They were so incredibly sweet! And deep inside I knew that it was going to be a great day!

 I was a bit afraid to go to the club itself, since we had to do some stairs and from experience I know how horrible pushy Belgium people can be! When the doors opened, I was the first one to climb the stairs. When I looked behind me I noticed no one else was allowed through until the pushing stopped. While I rushed upstairs and almost threw my ticket at the person checking it, it was not necessary since I easily secured my place in the middle.

The support act was very good! I had heard one song of the Dirty Youth on youtube and I really liked it but live they were even better! There was a lot of energy in their performance and I enjoyed myself. Not once I wished it would end soon.
I do think that they have great potential and when they come back I might go watch them again!

Then after await of about 11 hours it was finally time for The Rasmus. They were amazing. they played a lot song of their famous Dead Letters albums. Every one was singing along! With the second last song, Mysteria, a lot less people were singing along, even thought the lyrics were rather easy. I had the feeling not much people liked or knew the song.

I always like an acoustic set in the show. Before they started to play It's Your Night acoustic, Lauri told us that he went looking for waffles (Belgium speciality) for about three hours but that they couldn't find them. Obviously they were looking in the wrong part of the city. After the gig we offered to help find them waffles if they were still in town the next day but unfortunately they had to be at the airport at six in the morning to leave for Russia and Lauri didn't liked the thought of waffles as breakfast.

It was an amazing day. Finally, after being a fan for about 8 years, I managed to thank them personally for making music. I really liked that they made time for their fans and I wonder if they know how much they mean to their fans. As memories of that incredible day I have a drumstick (My BF caught it for me... I love it that he is so tall), my Finnish flag got signed by Pauli and Lauri and a new, beautiful T-shirt. Now I have 4 The Rasmus shirt! Wish they sold sweaters though and a lot of picture!  Can't wait to see them again!

I'm so excited

Do you ever have the incredible feeling of excitement? Butterfly that fly around in your stomach and you just want to scream and jump around like a lunatic? That you want to go/have/see someone/thing so badly that you just can't stop thinking about it? That you feel like nothing will ever stop you to get/have/see it?

Well I feel like that for a several weeks already, perhaps months. Wednesday I'm going to see The Rasmus live again after half a year and it will probably be the last time for a couple of years (since they are taking a break... again). Also because it's the ultimate relaxation before the nightmare that is called exams.

Is there anything that you are looking forward to so badly? Or for what do you feel very excited? Please, share! 

Braiding

For a change I did something special with my hair. Normally I only wear my hair in a tail or every once in a while loose but lately I started to braid (well, my mother does it, since I am so clumsy I can't even braid my own hair). Yesterday my sister was visiting and she uses her skills to braid my hair and this was the result:

Bad cellphone quality

I really like it and I wished I could braid my own hair like this...