The Cutest Anime Ever: Sanrio Danshi ☆彡

There are a few anime series on my immediate to watch list at the moment. The ones that come to mind first are Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (a brand new Cardcaptor Sakura series), Pokémon Sun & Moon (I need to catch up with this one), and Sanrio Danshi ('Sanrio Boys').

As of writing this post, I am three episodes into Sanrio Danshi, so here are my thoughts on it.

I'd seen a few people talking about Sanrio Danshi, and I was intrigued by the general concept of a series about some boys who each like a different Sanrio character, so given that I'm a big Sanrio fan myself, I decided to prioritise this series and check it out.

I wasn't expecting much. I figured it would be some light fluff that would encourage watchers to go and buy some Sanrio stuff after watching all its cuteness, but what I got was a lot more than that. I have a feeling this could be a new favourite anime series of mine.

The show centres around a boy who is secretive about his love for Sanrio character Pompompurin - a dog who wears a beret, and coincidentally my own personal favourite Sanrio character. I was obviously instantly hooked by this alone, but alongside the cuteness and the showing off of Pompompurin, Hello Kitty, and My Melody initially within the series, Sanrio Danshi takes a really interesting stance with its themes and isn't afraid to get pretty serious with it.

It has some pretty sombre scenes concerning bullying, the relationship between trauma and rebellion, and grief, so amongst the adorable character merchandise we have a truly heartfelt and in places quite dark tone and narrative to contend with. The message might seem like a simple one - don't be ashamed to be different, or passionate about something others don't understand - but it's illustrated in a very honest and real way that I think is genuinely touching. I think this series has the capacity to be a great comfort to those of us who have experienced being judged or othered in some way, especially by socio-cultural norms and expectations, and to see that in an anime ostensibly about some cute boys who like cute things is just lovely.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go and impulse buy a Pompompurin right now.

Star Wars Fan Art Episode I: The Offended Porg

I've fallen in love with the shiny new Star Wars movies in recent times, and so I thought I would paint some things to do with it. Of course, when I'm attempting to paint a very recognisable character or property, I immediately realise I can't paint. I've never been able to paint. It was all a lie fuelled by cider, baby cheese, and the encouraging drum beat of a Fall Out Boy song.

Still, I feel compelled to paint BB-8s, and thala-sirens, and porgs making shocked faces - because porgs expressing any emotion is deeply funny.

And yes, I couldn't resist painting a little advert for thala-siren milk. Luke Skywalker is in marketing now. Buy his artisanal green milk and post pictures of it on Instagram, or get attacked in the night by a lightsaber-wielding maniac. It's your choice.

Additionally, here are some nice abstract shapes I made with leftover paint from my BB-8 palette:

Some Things: Redecorating (Bedroom & Mind)

It's almost the end of January, but I'm still feeling very goal-oriented. I still feel purposeful and excited to do things, whether art projects, unwieldy large improvements of my deeply-ingrained personality, or the small things.

One thing I'd like to do is spruce up my space a bit. I'd like to get some new furniture. My chest of drawers is looking a bit tired, and I'd really like a lighter coloured one. I'd like to get rid of my large white unit that has a sort of chest of drawers + cupboard + dressing table feel to it (this is a bit tatty from years of use and is a bit of an unwieldy thing). I'd like a new bed too because the frame doesn't feel very "me" anymore - and my mattress has a noticeable dip in it, so it would be nice to get a new one of those, too. That said, I'm fond of all these things and it would seem like a shame to replace them in some ways.

Otherwise, I'm quite interested in getting a few sets of fairy lights to bring a bit of warmth and homeliness to different areas, and I've been dreaming of a full length mirror for a long time too. A repainting would be lovely, but I tend to get about two minutes into a painting job and immediately need to lie down for a long time. At the moment I do like to redecorate every so often with a lot of paintings acting as a substitute for wallpaper. It's a childhood throwback, but I love it because it's so customisable and it keeps me feeling inspired. If after a while I crave white space, it's easy to take them down as well.

My room (with a newly decorated wall).

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I'm thinking about my hair again - well, I've had it pink for a little bit (it's very much fading out by now), and that was fun, but I like my natural hair colour a lot more than I used to now so hair dye doesn't really excite me too much these days. It fits me to do very simple things when it comes to hair, so I'm not planning to dye it again, but I still want to figure out some easy styling tips. I'm not used to using heat or product in my hair, so maybe I should attempt to use some sprays or serums - or even just dry shampoo (I've tried it, but just once I think). I'm skeptical of hair products though. I fear them. Hair tips and advice never seem to work for me - except for letting my hair dry in a bun or braids to get all nice and curly overnight. That works amazingly, and I want more things like that to happen to my hair and make sense. I need the Stephen Fry of hair to explain everything to me.

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I kind of also want to keep up with new movies more. I get caught up quite easily in watching old movies. This is how I find things, of all types of media really - I delve into a particular genre or decade or actor and I go through lists and I watch things and take myself into a spiralling rabbit hole of media. It's great, it's expansive, and it's quite insular. I love it, but I have also seen a lot of movie talk recently - about 'Ladybird' and 'The Shape of Water' and 'Moonlight' and all sorts of films. I've not been a huge up-to-date follower of film in the past, but since watching 'Get Out' some time after everyone was talking about it and absolutely loving it, I've been a lot more interested in the current culture and landscape of film-making. Also, Star Wars. Rogue One and The Last Jedi made me want to shove my whole self right into the Star Wars. Just right into it. God, I love it.

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I guess there are a bunch of things I feel inspired to do right now, or at least to look at and think about and make plans for. Well, I should go paint a picture and watch a movie - and put my hair in an experimental hairstyle.

My Top 5 Comedy Series of the '90s & '00s

Comedy was everything to me when I was growing up. I watched Have I Got News For You feverishly from a young age. If you asked me what my favourite things were at around the age of eight, I would have probably told you they were Have I Got News For You and Jaffa Cakes. Those were my most precious jewels, and I still treasure them.

I've been missing a few of my favourite comedy series from way back when, and since it's now been eight years since 2010, I think it's an appropriate enough time to feel nostalgic about things that happened in the early to mid 2000s, when I was still but a child. So let me take you through a list of my favourite (British, inebitably) comedies from the two decades of my childhood and adolescence.

1. Black Books (2000 - 2004)

You can't get much better than this. The combination of three brilliant comic actors (Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, and Tamsin Greig), and the setting/premise of a book shop run by a cantankerous, prolific wine drinker with consistently messy hair and extreme misanthropy is a complete delight. There are so many good lines in this, but it's the outlandish scenarios that showcase how great this show is, such as the very first episode which has a character swallowing The Little Book of Calm and becoming possessed by its wisdom.

2. Goodness Gracious Me (1998 - 2001)

This show was brilliant and had some really good writing & sketches, doing particularly well with all sorts of domestic scenarios and incorporating a lot of very funny stuff dealing with race and making observations of British-Indian culture. Here's a good clip playing with reversal of ethnic stereotyping in TV.

3. The Day Today (1994)

There have been quite a few shows that lampoon news broadcasts, but nothing else on this level. The Day Today takes an almost absurdist approach to satire, mimicking the punchy excess of TV news graphics and reporting styles, as well as drawing on public concerns to create a beautifully warped and hyperbolic version of '90s news bulletins that feels more and more relevant every day in the current news climate. One of my favourite moments has to be the "paedophile disguised as a school" line. It has me in tears.

4. Peep Show (2003 - 2015)

Peep Show caught the attention of many due to its unusual POV filming style, but what really made it special was its perfect portrayal of the endless misfortunes and terrible actions of its protagonists. This show was a sort of comfort blanket for me as a teenager - a vessel through which I could relate my own awkwardness to the world somehow through the painful experiences of Mark and Jeremy. Peep Show has a special place in my heart because I grew up in a big way alongside it, and watching it back now is a completely different experience that I enjoy on a different level. There is something bizarrely therapeutic and simultaneously painfully cringeworthy about watching it, and I love it dearly.

5. Still Game (2002 - 2007)

Still Game is a series that has such intensely well written dialogue that I can sit down to watch it and end up doubled over in hysterics. The characterisation is very well done, and that's often something that's lacking in comedy, so it's really nice to see and lends itself to some genuinely touching moments as well.

♡♡♡

Honourable mentions:

The Mighty Boosh - some of the best in '00s comedy with its fantastical element grounded in just enough reality to be relatable, also great fun for music fans

Bottom - pathetic men hit each other with frying pans a lot

Never Mind The Buzzcocks - still one of my favourite panel shows

Smack the Pony - fantastic female-led sketch show that did some really interesting & weird things

Is It Legal? - a lesser known but fantastic sitcom set in a solicitor's office and featuring the wonderful Imelda Staunton and Jeremy Clyde

Spaced - a very student-y take on '90s culture that has some really smart referencing and a great sense of playfulness

Red Dwarf - everybody's dead, Dave

The Thick of It - a fly on the wall look at the shadow cabinet as they flounder about in the most incredible, ridiculous, and far too real ways - also, Peter Capaldi is amazing

Sean's Show - this show had a running joke about Robert Smith from The Cure bean Sean's mum - I don't think I need to say any more than that

Small Hearts

It's time for some more scanner adventures, and this time there are some hearts. How delightful. It's always nice to have some hearts lying around, sprinkled on your psyche, etc.

A quick and easy skincare tip is just to apply some heart directly to your face, which is what I've done here, so technically this is a beauty post. Hope it helps!

Outfit Post Gone Wrong

Sometimes when blogging, a disaster happens. I was attempting an outfit post - or rather, the photo taking portion that I was doing before the writing of the post itself - and it just didn't work. This is the thing with outfit shots. Sometimes you're having a bad hair day, and sometimes you just completely forget how to pose and end up looking like a confused fashion walrus. I was going to scrap this post, but then I thought, no - let's post this, and explain the ways I failed, and have a good laugh at blogging.

I think everyone who has been blogging for a while will have a post (or several posts) that they're not particularly proud of. It's very easy to look back on old posts and see all the things you've improved on since, which is great, but it does bring with it a certain kind of embarrassment. In all honestly, I'm quite fond of the vast majority of old posts on this blog, but there are some old pictures that crack me up to look back on.

For this post, a few things went wrong. Let me set the scene. I wanted to do a simple outfit shot with a new UNIQLO skirt (the furry one in the image below), but however I photographed it just didn't work. Something about the skirt combined with the other outfit elements I chose, my environment, and my face apparently not knowing what it's doing, meant that it just didn't look quite right. So I changed skirts.

I think I also thought the ribbon would add a bit of cuteness to the outfit, but in these pictures it just looks a bit odd. Maybe it's the placing, or that it all looks a bit too random together, or that I'm not situated in a Disney castle. The outfit as a whole needed something different going on, the shadow in the room really wasn't helping me, and I guess my face was in a distant land thinking about dinner or something.

I switched to my lovely pink velvet skirt (from Tesco), as it added a nice colour matching element with the ribbon, making the outfit look less discordant, but still things did not go very well and I think my posing became steadily worse as I kept trying. The sun probably went behind the clouds out of embarrassment. Holding my teddy bear didn't help me, and my hair started trying to crawl away from my body (a futile attempt at escape).

It was a wonderfully awkward attempt. But please enjoy the outfit anyway, featuring a teddy bear who is absolutely judging me (fair enough).

bow - Primark

polo shirt - gift

skirt 1 - UNIQLO

skirt 2 - Tesco

complete lack of shame - model's own

Journal: I LOVE TO BE EMBARRASSING

I've been very much enjoying journaling recently. I decided to think of this journal as a true outlet for whatever goes on in my head, and just to ignore that part of my brain that wants to give some kind of thought to what I'm drawing - not today brain, you're not needed!

I often have it in the back of my mind when I'm drawing something that I'm going to probably post it online somewhere, and whilst that generally just makes me try to be a bit neater than I might be otherwise, I think it's always good to make yourself take a step back and do something that is just for you and very direct. I wrote myself a little list of thoughts I had about this.

JOURNAL RULES

• journal honestly + chaotically
• collage weird + random stuff
• sleep well
• take pictures + paint over them + make a new memory
• the journal is your brain
• LOVE THAT MESS OF DREAMS + COLOURS IN YOUR HEAD
• take screenshots of everything good
• everything is fog FOG FOG FOG

I'm going to try and keep one messy journal like this for a while. Full of my thoughts and miscellaneous shapes and stuff. It's a nice antidote or counterpart to other paintings/drawings that are a bit more controlled.

Rosegal Valentine's Day Sale Wishlist: 10 Rosy Items & 2 Romantic Outfits

✶✵ This is a post made in partnership with Rosegal and includes affiliate links. ✵✶

Since Rosegal have asked me to write a wishlist post to celebrate and promote their Valentine's Day sale, I thought I would try to create two different romantic outfits based on items available on their site. I guess the name 'Rosegal' is especially fitting for a Valentine's Day theme, so let's see if we can find something that features a rose to start off the first outfit...

Outfit #1

Rose Pendant Chain Necklace - $3.16

This is the perfect thing to start off the wishlist with - a cute hanging rose! This would be a really nice touch to add to a romantic outfit. The necklace comes in gold, silver, or this rose gold colour. Personally, I chose the rose gold option because it has a nice softness to it that I like.

Vintage Floral Midi Flare Dress - $20.38

Now onto the clothing itself. I found this super interesting floral dress, and I love the vintage cut and style of it. It looks nice and elegant, but playful too. Wear this with the rose necklace to really hammer in that thematic imagery (don't worry, I have a plan for this outfit).

Low Heel Pointy Toe Pumps - $26.42

Now we need some shoes, so what about these? I like looking for a good, solid flat shoe to wear with more formal outfits (I'm an avid heel-avoider), so I think these are a really cool option. I like the pinstripe detail and I think the pointed toe would look great with a 1950s style dress.

Long Sleeve Cropped Blazer - $22.75

I thought a short, white blazer would be a nice contrast to the rest of the outfit and accentuate the shape of the dress skirt. The white would stand out against the black really nicely. Just don't forget to take it off if you're about to eat spaghetti Bolognese - you don't want spaghetti to ruin your outfit.

Rhinestone Leaf/Branch Earrings - $5.66

Finally, to finish off our first outfit, I found these beautiful little leaf branch earrings. I love this design. It's in keeping with the rose theme without being too much (i.e. a nice leaf detail rather than another rose), and the colour is also rose gold, so it matches nicely with the rose necklace further above.

Outfit #2

Casual Rose Embroidered Striped Hoodie - $20.14

For this outfit, I wanted to create a much more casual, chilled out, and modern look - so here's a cute hoodie. Yes, I'm sticking with the rose theme for this outfit too. The rose patch here is a nice detail, and I like the sporty white stripes on the elbow. This comes in quite a few colours, but I went for the baby pink (because I love baby pink).

Fishnet Panel Ripped Leggings - $12.21

Continuing with the casual yet cool look, I found these simple black leggings, with an extra element to them with the rips and fishnet panelling underneath. I wanted to once again include some black in the base of the outfit (you can never go wrong with black).

Low Anti-Skid Shoes - $26.00

I added these shoes because they look really comfy and cute. I like their earthy colour and the cut. Really simple, but a really nice design. For some reason they remind me of being on Tumblr in 2009/2010. Were those years real? Y'know, when people really liked triangles? Those were the days.

Pearl Butterfly Earrings - $2.62

These are the cutest, so I had to include them just for fun. Look at them! They're colourful, they're playful, they're sparkly - and also I just love butterflies. Butterflies help to pollinate flowers, so it's also vaguely related to my rose theme (it is, don't deny it).

Fluffy Charm Bag - $10.02

Let's finish with a bag this time. You need a bag to put all your millions of hairbands in, right? Well, I wanted to find a super fun bag, so I found this adorable black fuzzy bag. I love fuzzy things, so I couldn't resist. You can also cuddle it when no one is looking (or when everyone is looking, because you do what you want and aren't ashamed).

☆☆☆

Well, that was fun. I hope you enjoyed my two very different outfits. Let me know which individual items you liked best, and which outfit you'd choose - outfit #1 or outfit #2?

I think my favourites are outfit #1 and the leaf/branch earrings, but I don't know, that fluffy bag is calling my name.

Animal Crossing Journal #33: Aurora Borealis

When was the last time I popped into my Animal Crossing: New Leaf town to visit all my villagers? Seems like it must've been almost a year, but luckily the villagers are understanding. I decided to say hello to everyone and wander around weeding a bit, and when I loaded the game I was greeted by the Northern Lights shining down on me. Nice.

It's nice to see my familiar house and the peach trees behind it again. There's something about the warm light emanating from inside. Honestly, it's not just the villager friends and the sense of belonging in this game that makes it's such a lovely experience and a boost to your mental health, but it's all the little things - the letter sending, the seasons and weather, and the coloured lights left on in your houses.

Here's me outside Berry's house too. All the different customisation options for houses help to make the town look so lived in. I need to get back into decorating and rearranging the different houses we have here, but I've enjoyed the way I've differentiated them from each other so far.

Our heart light looks lovely under the Northern Lights, and Eloise here has just asked me if she can move away from the town. I figured I'd say yes, as it could be nice to have someone else move in in her place. I feel like as I've played this game more and more I've become less precious about villagers moving out. I mean, there are always villagers here regardless, and all of them are fun to talk to. I do miss Hamphrey though, he was one of my favourites.

And finally, here I am in the plaza. I do like this area as it's nice to have a kind of hub, and the tree acts as a nice symbol of town growth and the time and effort you've put into the game. I may have big gaps between visits sometimes, but I still love this town and all its characters and environments.

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5 Bands/Artists I Feel Nostalgic About

I was listening to a band the other day that I first discovered and fell in love with around ten years ago, and I thought it might be fun to write a post about the bands and musical artists in general that have this heavy nostalgic feeling for me, either because I had an intense period of listening to them during a particular year, or they became embedded with specific memories in my head, or they just remind me of the time a certain song or album was released. Let's dive into some of my nostalgic favourites.

1. Delays

Delays - Lost in a Melody (from the album 'You See Colours', released in 2004)

Let's start with the band who inspired this post. When I was still a teen, I found this band by searching for my own first name in Limewire and listening to all the songs that came up. The Delays song was easily the best one, and I promptly bought all their albums and they became one of my most beloved bands. They were a hot band around the late '00s and they were obscure enough that any time I saw them mentioned in a magazine or heard them talked about I would get really excited as if they were my relatives. Greg's beautiful high voice and the evocative lyrics full of tenderness and adventure ("let's go swimming in the morning, let's go swimming in the morning" from Jet Lag makes me feel so touched and happy) create such a lovely, unique sound. I highly recommend the video linked above because I remember watching it aged 17 and feeling like there was so much magic to it. It's the blue light - it's hypnotic.

2. Molly Nilsson

Molly Nilsson - 8000 Days (from the album 'These Things Take Time', released in 2008)

There is such a particular type of melancholy to Molly's songs that they draw you into their strange world and cadence. Listening to them can feel like you're inside a spooky music box somehow. These songs make me nostalgic for around the early '10s (2011 and 2012 most prominently), when John Maus was a big new thing, and of course John Maus and Molly Nilsson share something of their sound and notably worked together. I ended up seeing Molly perform at The Shacklewell Arms accidentally one night after going to a zine fair held there, and it was one of the best gigs I have ever been to. She sang along to a cassette player backing track, and that might sound like it would be awful, but it was seriously the best thing I've ever witnessed. The fuzzy sound worked perfectly. So intimate and so lovely.

3. The Damned

The Damned - Eloise (from the album 'Anything', released in 1986)

The Damned are the band I've gone to see live most often. They put on an incredible show, and have so much personality, as well as a bunch of cracking good songs. They do send me back to my childhood though. I was very into them starting when I was around 16 and in my last year of high school. I even bonded with one of the head of years over our mutual love of both The Damned and The Doors. There are quite a few bands who always evoke high school for me, but there is something about The Damned. It's like their songs cut through to the core of who I was as a person, and the part of me who was a teenage fanatic of The Damned is the same person. It's strange, it just feels really positive for me. They uplift me so much and only good things and fun are associated with them in my mind. I'm really glad of that, since fun is what they exude onstage and in their songs more than anything.

4. HIM

HIM - The Funeral of Hearts (from the album 'Love Metal', released in 2003)

Ahhh, now this is the band I was obsessively into is a teenager. As you'll likely know already if you're a fan of this band, most people who are into them seem to be very heavily invested. I'm not sure quite what it is that lures people in such a devotional manner into HIM, but yes, they ruled my life for a while. I still remember the feeling I had when I first encountered them. It must have been 2004/2005. I was watching a music video channel, as I did quite a lot back then, and the video for The Funeral of Hearts came on. I was mesmerised, in total awe and wonder at this audio visual experience. Something the snowy forest setting, Ville Valo's voice and particular enunciation, and the peculiar sort of muddiness in the way the song was mixed - all of that combined had me utterly captivated. I remember this moment so clearly, and listening to the song can take me right back to that moment as if I was watching a video of myself.

5. Taking Back Sunday

Taking Back Sunday - MakeDamnSure (from the album 'Louder Now', released in 2006)

I had to include some kind of proper emo band on here, and Taking Back Sunday fit well because their album Louder Now is so intrinsically linked to my teenage experience that it can never be extricated, unlike the big Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance albums from around that time, which aren't quite so evocative of the time they came out to me as I still listen to them to this day. Louder Now is unbearably filled with anguish, and I think post-2009 I found it very hard to listen to. There's now been enough time that I feel the angst calling to me, and I have to listen to this album again. Man, it's great.

Hair Goals

Hair. Hair hair hair. My nemesis. I have to stop thinking of it that way. I definitely give too much thought to my hair (I treat it the same way you might treat an irritating younger brother - with disdain and plentiful eye rolling). I'm hoping to engineer a bit of a change in attitude to my hair, so let's talk about some goals I have regarding it.

Me during a brief bout of pink hair. That makes it sound like a disease. It's not a disease, it's hair dye ('Crazy Color - Fire' directly on dark blonde if you're curious).

The Hair Goals

I'm looking forward to seeing my hair get longer again. I have a tendency to reach a certain length and become sick of its limpness, but when I look back it never seems so bad. I'm a big fan of the ponytail, and having an all one length situation, so I think I should learn to appreciate the limp, straight look more. I mean, it looks fine on all those people in 1960s photographs, so why not me?

I'm definitely hyper-critical of my hair at times, and I need to focus on sticking to a few styles and tricks for variation and then just chilling out about the whole thing. Your hair just can't look good all the time, and that's okay. I recently found a nice little video about some cute hairstyles (Three Brigitte Bardot Hairstyles by Loepsie) and I want to try committing something like this to a small repertoire of hair awareness whilst maintaining a generally clean/neat hair level. That's the goal. A simple one that hopefully any fool, such as me, can achieve.

Most of all though, my goal is to fully realise that brushing my hair is the best thing for it. I see nice, tousled hairstyles and I think I can be cool by allowing my hair to be a big, unbrushed mess, but whilst that can sometimes work, it's good to remember that my hair generally just wants to be relatively flat - and flat, straight hair existing on my head looks so much neater and nicer when it's brushed. I don't know why I fear and avoid the hairbrush, but I need to conquer that and just brush my hair.

Cool Things

One part of improving my approach to hair has to be appreciating hair-related things more, so I'm going to detail some hair things I've been enjoying lately.

I've been wearing elasticated headbands recently to hold back hair as my fringe grows out, and I really like them. They're very comfortable and weirdly seem to actually look quite good, even though my entire forehead is out there declaring my chicken pox scar to the world. There's a neatness to it that just seems to improve my look, especially with the rest of my hair being allowed to flow freely. I really want to get some elasticated headbands with bows on them for added cuteness (examples below).

Burgundy Faux Suede Headwrap / Tartan Style Headwrap / Pink Knot Headwrap all from Claire's.

Another thing I'm really appreciating is the good old bobby pin (or kirby grip as we tend to say in the UK for reasons I am not privy to - although I've taken to calling them bobby pins because I like that name). It's a complete basic, but there are so many uses for one. I never seem to lose them either, so that's nice. Despite being a blonde person, I don't have any blonde ones, but I think the brown ones actually might be a better fit for my (dark blonde - I once heard it called 'the colour of dishwater' which is very flattering and will make me laugh forever) hair colour anyway.

I also sometimes feel very pleased and delighted to use a nice hair clip with a good proper hinge to it. It just feels really satisfying to open them and slide them into my hair, and I have some with Hello Kitty's face on them. Yes, my life is deeply exciting.