31 days and counting...

To be honest, that's 30 more days than I'd like, but such is the disadvantage of 3 month job notice periods... I was expecting this week at work to be pretty rubbish - partly because last week at work was *really* rubbish, and partly because my sanity (otherwise known as Sara) is off work due to the company's over the top policy on making people stay at home for a week if they have had contact with someone who considered that they might have swine flu, despite it turning out that they probably didn't and have already returned to work.

Ahem.

However this week has been pretty good. I mean, the work bit is still sucking (kind of inevitably), but it's been made a whole lot more bearable thanks to seeing lots of my friends, doing a fair bit of exciting cooking (char siu bao, baked alaska, seafood gumbo amongst others), finding a bit of time to do some writing and generally listening to a lot of really good music.

I've really noticed over the past 6 months or so how much joy I get from music - if I'm having a bad day (especially the type of day when I'm just being grumpy for no real reason), listening to the right music can really lighten my mood (sadly the "right" music varies and it often takes me a while to find it). There are certains songs, for example "Little Plastic Castle" by Ani Di Franco and "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver, that just make me smile every time I hear them. I even have a playlist especially for songs that make me smile. If I can't sleep, I listen to music ("Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap is a favourite), if I'm driving a long distance I listen to music ("Plans" by Death Cab for Cutie is the current late night driving favourite), if I'm walking more than 10 minutes away, the mp3 player goes with me... Plus I listen to music all day at work, which tends to make it much more bearable (it's hard to be grumpy when you're listening to Ella Fitzgerald!).

So this week, as usual, Mumford and Sons, City and Colour and Laura Marling have featured on the mp3 player a fair amount. A new addition to the list is Johnny Flynn. Awesome. I definately need to get some more of his music. I've also been rediscovering a bunch of things I haven't listened to in a while - Frank Turner, Brendan Benson and Neutral Milk Hotel. The first time you discover a band or an album, there's the excitement of the unknown, but the second time round there's an element of comfortable intimacy to it, balanced by the gentle unfamiliarity of not having heard it in a while.

However, I've realised that I have a lot of stuff on my mp3 player that I've not listened to in a very very long time. Or ever. I genuinely have no idea where some of it came from. Erm... I tend to fall into the habit of listening to things that are familiar and therefore easy. But potentially this means I'm missing out on some great stuff. So next week I'm going to try and listen my way through those albums, hopefully discovering some new music along the way...