If you can, get your hands on this compilation. Aside from being freaking brilliant, it’s made to raise awareness and prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Artists involved are…
The wonderful David Byrne of Talking Heads fame.
The Dirty Projectors.
Bon Iver.
Sufjan Stevens.
Grizzly Bear.
Feist.
The Decemberists.
The New Pornographers.
Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie.
Cat Power.
Arcade Fire.
Iron and Wine.
The National.
Jose Gonzalez.
And Stuart Murdoch, from Belle and Sebastian.

Prepare to be amazed. It makes me feel like I’m in a ‘Hansel and Gretel’ type wood (except without the psycho cannibalistic witch), surrounded by woodland creatures and doing cross stitch. It also makes me think of beards for some reason.

Listen to it.

It’s excellent.

Hyper Music, Muse.

1. pretty macaroons. i want to eat some so badly.

2. reading ‘the importance of being earnest’. it is the funniest thing i’ve read in ages.

it contains the rather hilarious quote…

Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

thank you oscar wilde.

3. the illustrator dallas clayton.
    

4. ‘wicked witch of the east’ socks.

5. kid sam’s song, ‘down to the cemetary’.

6. pumpkin. so delicious.

7. dress up parties.
 

do you like my molly ringwald outfit? i thought it looked like something she’d wear in ‘pretty in pink’.

8. hand painted speech bubbles.

this picture is of emily dressed as willow from ‘buffy the vampire slayer’.

9. cardboard.

10. feather hairpieces.
found on etsy by jade rose designs.

The weekend after Voices, I went to the Blueprint Festival. Which was, aside from the mud and the no toilet paper or no shower thing, excellent fun.

We camped in the middle of a paddock near Ararat and pretty much did nothing except for sit around and watch bands and drink coffee.

I saw bands like Claire Bowditch, Tim Rogers, Bertie Blackman, Ash Grunwald, Blue King Brown, The Panics, The Basics, Old Man River and a TON more.

Yeah…I had a good time.

Hmmm…a lot has been happening lately and I haven’t really known how to put it. So I will attempt to now – it’s a pretty slow day at work.

About a month ago I went to a conference called Voices for Justice which pretty much just involved me and 260 other people going into Parliament House and asking MP’s and Senators  to make an effort towards achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDG’s). Meaning, halving global poverty by 2015. This year (this conference has been happening for 4 years now) we were focusing on the goals for more aid, better aid, and climate change.

More aid refers to the target of raising our overseas aid budget .7% per Gross National Income (GNI). We’re currently on .34% and aiming at reaching .5% by 2015. Which, yeah it’s great that our government are trying to improve, but it’s still not good enough. Australia makes up 2% percent of the world’s global economy, so we should be striving to contribute our fair share which ends up being .7%.

Better aid means targeting aid for children and maternity health. Each year, 9.2 million children die before their 5th birthday. This is mainly from preventable diseases like malaria and diarrhoea.

When I say climate change, we weren’t just lobbying to keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees. We were also asking the government to give money to assist those in developing countries who, due to the change in climate, are struggling to survive where they live. Whether you believe climate change is  ”>man made or not, it’s still important for us to be assisting those who can’t eat or even live in their homes because of rising sea levels, drought  or more frequent monsoon seasons. The money we were asking is in addition to the .7% we were asking.

It was a really challenging and informative time. I learnt a lot about what is happening in the world, the way our country works and I also learnt a lot about myself. I felt more confident and more sure of myself. I am incredibly shy and self conscious, and meeting up with the people who are in charge of the country is a fairly scary prospect. But I did it. And I loved it.

I really want to encourage those who are passionate about this stuff to speak to your local MP. They’re not as scary as they seem and love to talk to the people in their electorate. It is not normal for people to lobby for someone else and it whether you realise it or not, it actually does make quite an impact.

We also presented K. Rudd with 5612 letters asking him to raise the aid budget to .7% by 2015.

Also, people all over Australia are holding 5th birthday parties to raise awareness of the millions of children who don’t make it their 5th birthday. They sign cards and send them to their MP (or hand it to them). If you want to get involved in something like this, check  the Micah Challenge website for info.

This has really been a pivotal moment for me in terms of learning more about what it means to follow Jesus. I am so excited about what the future holds for me. Regardless of the fact that at the moment I have absolutely no idea. Ha.

1. This picture…

Thanks Justin!

2. Seeing The Middle East live. So beautiful – I really recommend that you listen to them RIGHT NOW!

3. How winter is still going even though we are 1 and a half months into spring. :)

4. Wigs!

5. Emiliana Torrini is playing at the Forum on the 2nd of Jan. Tickets go on sale 23 Oct. I hope I get some!

6. B0000000m! So lovely.

7. Skins Night!

8. This picture…

9. Colour coordinated bookshelves. Don’t worry Kyla. I won’t do it…yet.

10.  My friend Lizy’s art. So good!

Look at this NOW!

It’s an art website, that posts projects that everyone can do.

The most recent was “Build your own fort”, and people sent in submissions of theirs.

So lovely. I think I’m going to do the next challenge.

Sigh.

1. Getting tickets to Big Day Out ‘10 even though they sold out in 10mins!

2. Re-reading 1984, by George Orwell.

P.S. I want this copy!

3. My Little Golden Book illustrators.

J.P. Miller

Alice & Martin Provensen

4. Winona Ryder

Does anyone else find it amusing that in Girl Interrupted (released in 1999), she plays a girl in a mental hospital who has Borderline Personality Disorder and asks the audience the question “Have you ever stolen something even though you have the money?” and then two years later she steals $5000 worth of cosmetics even though she had the money?

Ha. But I love her anyway…

5.  The song Talk Show Host, by Radiohead. I’d forgotten about it until I watched Romeo + Juliet again the other night and heard it on the soundtrack.

Last night I listened to it over 30 times in a row. It’s so calming.

6. This article, titled “Radiohead ‘definitely’ planning new album in 2010, says guitarist‎.”

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

7.  Talking to this lovely girl…

8. Getting to dress up as Molly Ringwald! I can’t wait Ana!

9. Air’s new album ‘Love 2′. So wonderful!

10. Taking photos of my and other peoples shoes…I do it a lot for some reason. Ha.

Starting top-left and going around clockwise: Blueprint Festival, Sound Relief, Lily Allen, Little Red.

They were taken at 4 separate gigs!…and I have a million more shoe pics on my computer.

I amuse myself.

I really do just love them.

Muse’s new album came out 2 weeks ago and I LOVE it.

It still has the epicness, it still has a few good solos, it has a few songs that make me want to dance like Anthony Michael Hall in ‘Sixteen Candles’, and then it has those beautifulsymphony tracks at the end. The progression they are making makes me think of Radiohead, which is a very good thing.

I was worried when they started playing tracks on Triple J. I love Muse dearly and didn’t want to have to deal with the unpleasantness of one of your favourite bands turning a bit crap.

But once you listen to the whole album, you get it.

And yes, I did cry when I listened to it. I am a little pathetic in that way. Okay, very pathetic.

I hope they come to Australia soon because I am simply dying to hear ‘Uprising’ and ‘Unnatural Selection’ live!

I give it two very enthusiatic thumbs up.