Music that I got lately

This post used to be called "Things that I got lately", but since the only things I get is music I decided to change it.

Music that I bought lately


This month has been my birthday and this means a couple of things: my friends know I want music but don't know what to get me so they give me an iTunes gift card, and my grandma gives me money (which goes directly to music).

So here's what I got:

Never Seen the Light of  Day (Deluxe Version) - Mando Diao 

Which fascinates me since you have songs like Misty Mountains or Never Seen the Light of Day, but also One Blood, which I completely love. I've been wanting to buy it for a long time already, but the last time I decided to buy music I didn't have enough money and it had to wait.

The Malevolence of Mando Diao - Mando Diao

Some will say that they are only B-sides, but... b-sides are never only b-sides, they are AMAZING songs. I'm particularly addicted to The Quarry.

Poetry of the Deed (Deluxe Version) - Frank Turner

Do I really need to say why I wanted it? Well I guess only Sons of Liberty would be a reason good enough, but also there is The Road, The Fastest Way Back Home and Isabel.

Free downloads I got lately


Frank Turner at The Triple Rock Social Club Minneapolis

Ok people, this is f**king awesome. He really does feel it and he gives EVERYTHING on stage. Whether you know him or not you need to download this. I can't wait for seeing him in Wembley next year.

Young Science EP

Are you up for new music? Try this out, they are really really good and really uplifting. I can guarantee you that you won't fall asleep again during your commute if you're playing it.

All the Young

You can download a free live song from the link above (Facebook) and you can also get another one in their website. I saw them this weekend in Razzmatazz and they TOTALLY rocked it! And I'm serious check them, they are going to be great.

MySpoonful

If you don't know this website you're LATE, they do this amazing thing that is sending you three times a week some new bands (some of them are not so new). Some amazing bands I discovered thanks to them are The Soft White Sixties, Release the Sunbird, My Goodness, Moon Duo, Mister Loveless, Mister Heavenly, Little Deadman and James Apollo. But there are many more, so just make sure you check this out!

Well that's it for the moment! I hope I'll get more music for Christmas so I can do another one of this. I'm also hoping to get some books so I can do a "Books that I got lately". Let me know if you like any of this music!

This last week

This is going to be a long and, maybe, boring post, but I need to reflect on how the things have changed this same week and on other stuff. But first I want to state something, which will make sense further on, I'm a catalan atheist scientist, but on top of all that I'm a woman.

As everyone knows yesterday it was the International Day Against Gender Violence, as a woman it affects me. Luckily I've never found myself on a situation like this, but every time I see women that are beaten by their partners or worse I feel there's something really wrong in this world, what makes a man have the right to beat or abuse psychologically a woman? The other day I was reading the newspaper and there was this story of a young afghanese girl who had been raped and became pregnant, they wanted to judge her for adultery as the man who had raped her was a married man! The other option she had was getting married to her agressor and then the family would kill her... This is only one story but the world is FULL of this, girls who have to get marry at a really young age only to find that when they don't serve the purpose of their husbands they are killed or mutilated or else, girls who are sold as prostitutes, women who think that being beaten is normal, girls that think that in a normal relationship they have to do what their boyfriend pleases (this happens in this same country). I'm not one of those feminists who thinks that without men we would live better, but I do think that we need to equiparate ourselves to men, in here we don't have to get married to whoever our parents want, but women still are abused by their partners and we still get less important positions in the companies than men. If we don't claim for gender equality who will?

On the other hand, and as also everyone must know, last Sunday was general elections day in Spain (I actually talked about it) and as everyone knew it would happen the right winged party won the elections. As you know the economy in Spain is not in its best and people thinks that maybe the new government will be able to fix it. In Catalunya we've had a new government for about a year and the solution they have had to fix the economy is cuts: health cuts, public schools cuts, etc. The other thing they are doing is raise prices: gas, university, public transport and medicines. Funny thing is that Catalunya is the region of Spain that is getting more cuts on everything, yet is the one that gets less from the state regarding what it gives (the data is something like we give €22,000 million and get back 1,000 million, maybe the figures are not right but I know it's something like this). I guess that know the new Spanish government are going to cut even more, and I'm scared mainly because being a PhD student means that we need public funding to keep on with our research and given the situation I wonder how long the public funding is going to last, I mean they are only cutting down the budgets, but what about stimulating the economy? What are they doing to do that?

Finally, this week the Catalan government announced that they want to tighten their bonds with the Vatican. The party that is now in the government is formed by two smaller parties, one of them being christian democrats, I don't care what they believe in, but for me the Vatican represents the Catholic Church and ALSO pederast priests. So being an atheist and being against children's abuse I do not agree with this. And taking into account they are only doing this because the Vatican is about to beatify Gaudí, so that's for interest. Still, I'm supposed to be represented in the government and they only care about what catholics think? I know that then they'll say that the majority of Catalan population is a catholic or something, but still...

I don't know if I can't make any conclusion of all this, but I can tell you all that in the years to come there will be more posts like this one...

Spanish politics

This Sunday it's general elections day in Spain and I still don't know which party I am going to vote.

I've been kinda apolitical lately mainly because I don't trust politics anymore. This is because there are two main parties in Spain, one is "left" winged (PSOE, the one that is in the government now) and the other is right winged (PP, the one that has more probabilities of winning the elections). As I have said already in this blog, I live in Catalunya which means that if PP wins we get less things and our privileges are cut down, but anyways PSOE has usually promised a lot but done much less, I understand that you cannot always do what you want when you're in the government but electoral promises make me sick.

Why is that? Easy, most of the parties spend the months previous to the elections day promising lots of things that they know they'll never be able to fulfill, like now when all of them seem to have the solution for the crisis, but none of them did propose it when they were able to do something. Also I'm not interested in politics anymore because they keep fighting about stupid things and about important things instead of agreeing in important things that are meant to help the country.

Finally I don't like politicians because when I see them I cannot see their connection with me, like seriously most of the politicians in the parliament wouldn't even be able to read this, they need translators for everything, and still they get to represent me: a PhD student who speaks 4 languages. In real life if you don't know at least English you won't get a job, and yet they're there getting paid with our money when some are under-qualified for the job.

All this doesn't mean that I won't vote, on Sunday I'll go to the polling station and I'll vote for some party, I still don't know which, but I hope that, whichever it is, it will give solutions instead of problems.

On the verge of 24

Today is the day before my birthday and as I've been doing for a couple of years I want to reflect on what has happened in my life this last year.

This year I've finished my MSc and started my PhD, I've learnt what working really means and what real responsibility is like and I've made a decision for the following 4 years of my life, which at this age is not that usual. I've had only a month of holidays and I believe I didn't actually enjoy them as much as I should. I've learned what it means to be out of college and that sometimes there is no answer for the problems you face and you've to find it. 

Also I've learnt some things in my personal life, mainly because of thinking too much and also from such a big change in my routine. I've learned what it does mean to grow up: not having time to read as much as you would like to, not remembering to reply to emails because your head is so full of things that you just keep forgetting about small things, realizing that not everyone will like you because, let's face it, everyone is kind of a dick sometimes, including yourself. I've also realized that I've kinda been old all my life, being responsible since I was a kid because it was the good thing to do, but now that I would like to do things a bit differently I just can't change. I guess it's just that I'm different somehow.

Unfortunately, this year I haven't done any big trip or gone anywhere out of the usual (well after Montréal two years ago and Turkey and Japan last year it was difficult), but I can tell you that I'm already thinking about next year and actually I know for sure that I'll be going to London the week after Easter. But just because I haven't gone anywhere it doesn't mean that I haven't had fun! I realized that you don't need to see people everyday to be attached to them and that it's really fun to meet college friends after a month or so of not seeing each other because there are always exciting news. On the other hand I've also started to appreciate quiet moments with my friends, though sometimes we're too quiet and acting way too old for our age (we need an energy fix or something, guess the apathy will pass). Finally this year I got to go to a Mando Diao's concert and I completely fell in love with it, I know it's stupid but this will be one of the best memories of this year, the concert under the rain singing and jumping with the people, almost crying and having this feeling in my stomach as if I had fallen in love.

To sum up it has been a year where I've grown older and more responsible, but it has also been a stressful year.