the Cure

So, everyone knows that my favourite band of all time is the Cure. I saw them live on the Wish Tour in 1995 in Montreal at the Molson Center (when it was still called that) and have been waiting for them to return to Montreal since then... they haven't. Last summer I heard that they were going on a world tour and they were actually going to come back to us in September. Being in South Korea at the time didn't make getting tickets easy, but I did (thanks S). And they were good seats too...

But then in August, they announced they were postponing our show until May. I held onto my tickets, but then I decided to move over here, and well, my dream of seeing the Cure again disappeared with the return of my tickets.

I knew they were playing London, but the gig was sold out. My friend had tickets, but they were all accounted for already (since they'd bought them months in advance). I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't see them this time. Unless, of course, I wanted to be gouged by a scalper - which there was no way I could afford.

BUT, thanks to a great friend, I was alerted to an ethical ticket exchange site where there were a couple of tickets for sale at face value. I sorted out my ticket (I only needed one) and was set to meet this guy at a pub before the show. It kind of sucked to be going on my own, but it was the CURE! A few minutes later my friend called me back and told me that one of her tickets actually opened up! It was fate telling me I had made the right decision. I canceled on the guy and took hers, so I could at least appreciate it with someone.

In '95 the set was great, Wish was new, so they played a lot of songs from it, which up to that point was not their best album. But they played for three hours and still played many of my favourite old-school songs. Last night, they upped the ante and played the most incredible set-list a true Cure fan could ever want to hear! In it's glory (except for the new ones I don't know) here it is... don't drool, don't be too jealous, just enjoy it, put it together on a playlist on your computer and pretend you were there.

Plainsong
Prayers for rain
Strange day
New *
A night like this
New *
Lovesong
To wish impossible things
Pictures of you
Lullaby
From the edge of the deep green sea
Hot hot hot
New *
The walk
Push
Friday I’m in love
Inbetween days
Just like heaven
Primary
New *
Shake dog shake
Never enough
Wrong number
100 years
Disintegration

Encore 1
At night
M
Play for today
A forest

Encore 2
Lovecats
Let’s go to bed
New*
Close to me
Why can’t I be you

Encore 3
Three imaginary boys
Fire in cairo
Boys don’t cry
Jumping someone else’s train
Grinding halt
10:15 on a Saturday night
Killing an arab

I couldn't believe they started with Plainsong. I went through a faze in my life where I couldn't sleep at night without listening to this song... amazing to see it live... They played almost all the songs that I would have wanted to hear, including Three Imaginary Boys, M, Disintegration, Primary, Push... anyway, you can read the list but those are some of my favourite songs of all time... it was truly amazing.

The only thing that could have made it any better would be to have the kind of seats that I had in Montreal... We were in the nosebleeds last night, but that was fine by me, because at least I was there. And it's probably a good thing that I was... who knows if/when they'll ever tour again... and with a set-list like that I can only think they've done it to appease all the old fans because they'll never do it again.

It was exactly what I needed to Cure ;) my winter blues...

change

is good, right?

I thought it was time for a little change on this little bit of the world wide web that I call home... I made a new header - you like? Thanks to elmobong for making me think about it and inspiring me to finally do it. It's more what I wanted the first time around, but I didn't have the picture at the time...

This is one that I took in Chambly, Quebec last fall on my bike trip there... read about it here... you can even see the image in its original form...

Anyway, I'll be working out the kinks over the next little while, but I just don't feel like dealing with all the little things right now... so this will have to do. I'm hoping for a complete overhaul, but blogger doesn't make it easy... if I completely change my template I'll lose all of my link and stuff in the sidebars... and who wants to re-type all of that?!? So, I'll see what I can sort out.

In the meantime, enjoy, at the least, the new masthead... I think it's pretty cool... what do you think?

The English language

When I moved to Korea I knew that I would have a whole new language to contend with. So, in preparation, I learned Hangul (the alphabet, or written Korean) and a few handy phrases. I learned a lot more when I was there.

I am discovering that anywhere you go language will be different, even among countries that speak the same language. I already knew that British and Canadian English had differences, as does American, Australian and South African, but I have been surprised at the number of different and new words I have learned.

These are words that I would never (or very rarely) use in Canada that have become a regular part of my vocabulary. I've been compiling this list for a few weeks with the help of a friend at work... He loves it - it makes him feel like he's teaching me English!!!

1. queue - we all know this means 'to line up', I just never used it before.

2. trousers - as opposed to 'pants', which in England means 'underwear'.

3. post - as in 'the mail'

4. handbag - no, it's not a 'purse', that's where you keep your money, not in a 'wallet'.

5. yob - the closest translation is 'thug', but they're much worse than that, google it.

6. loo - or sometimes lavatory, but not the 'bathroom'.

7. lorry - a 'truck'. ;)

8. hoover - not a 'vacuum'.

9. lift - as opposed to 'elevator'

10. crisps - mmm... my favourite 'chips', but not the french fried kind...

11. chav - closest translation 'white trash', google it.

12. whinge - kind of like 'whining' but more serious.

I have a few more, but they're kind of obvious... packet, corner shop, tube, football, courgette, mobile... I will share more as they come. In the meantime, you can google some of them and see what comes up... 'chav' is kind of fun, where 'yob' is kind of scary...enjoy!

**
On an aside, I still haven't sorted out what I will do about the visa situation. I am working on getting all the documents together so that if I want to get the other one I have the option. I'm starting to think about doing other things though... more on it when/if I sort it all out. Think Asia though... I'm not through with it yet...

visas

I've been having trouble of late. Nothing serious, maybe just a case of the winter blues, maybe a case of homesickness, and maybe it's some kind of mid (quarter) life crisis, though I thought I was done with those... I think it really comes down to me sorting out what I'm doing.

I have dreamed of living in England for as long as I can remember. I don't know why, I can't explain it, even to myself, so I won't try to explain it to you. But here I am, realizing a dream that has been simmering inside of me for half my life, and it just isn't satisfying that itch.

I came here, at this point in time, because the opportunity arose. I had some money, nothing going on back home and no idea what to do with myself... so I figured why the hell not? But now I'm starting to ask why?

I thought that I would have some great opportunities here to hone my craft and possibly (hopefully) get a job in journalism. To get some experience that I could take home (or wherever) with me when it was time. But I have discovered there is a huge wall between me and these dreams - my working holiday visa.

This is the easiest visa for a Common Wealth citizen to obtain. It only took me 36 hours to get it... and I got it because I was under the impression it was the only one I could get. Thing is, it's only good for two years and I'm only meant to be working for 12 months in those two years. Employers know this and they don't like it. Why employ someone who will have to leave the country in such a short time? Why take the chance on someone that we may have to do extra work and pay a lot of money to sponsor in the end?

They are right. If I were an employer I wouldn't want the hassle either. So, after being told by numerous companies that this was a problem for them, I started to dig, see if there wasn't something else I could do... maybe get a different visa. My grandmother, after all, was born in Scotland.

The only other visa that I knew of that I could potentially be eligible for is the ancestry visa. It gives you the right to live and work for 5 years with the option of applying for residency if you spend the (almost) whole time in the UK. Sounds like the perfect "in", doesn't it? I looked into it a few years ago and was told that I had to have my grandmothers original birth certificate in order to be accepted, so I never thought about it again. Since her birth certificate (which would be almost 100 years old) had long since been lost.

I found out this week that the document I have from the Office of the Registrar of Scotland is now accepted. What this means is that I can apply for an ancestry visa, which would make me the closest thing to being a resident, without actually being one.

Great, isn't it? There are, however, a few small problems with this that I'm not sure what to do about. The first being all the other documents I have to get to prove my lineage - marriage certificates for my parents and grandparents and my mother's birth certificate. Then there's the 200£ fee. And finally the problem of leaving the country for six weeks to go home and take care of it all. (I can't apply for it from here, I have to be in Canada.)

While all of this is do-able, if not an expensive and long process, do I really want to? After three months here, can I really say that I'll want to be here for the next year, or three, or ten? I don't know. I know that I'm not ready to go home and I'm not ready to leave either, but I just don't know more than that. I suppose that I should just go to the trouble so that I can give England the chance that it deserves... to give employers the chance to see what I can do...

It seems like a lot of hassle though... it will be like starting all over again when I come back. It will be expensive to live for however long it takes which could be as little as 3 days but as long as six weeks. And what if, after all of it, they say no? It's a big risk...

Right now I'm going to sit on it. Let it simmer in my head. Find out how hard it will be to get all the documents. See how expensive it will really be. But if anyone out there has any ideas, let me know, cause I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with it all.

I promise a more upbeat post next... I'm working on one all about the English language here... it should be pretty fun...