Shut down

Good people...

I regret to inform you that I am shutting down Ball of Awkward (nee Girl in the purple trenchcoat).

I'll be moving my words to the wordpress site.

Its been real.

<3

Like crazy

I watched this movie today... Like Crazy.

I'm an Ingrid Michaelson junkie... And on her site I saw her put up a trailer that used one of her songs. The trailer looked amazeballs so I've been looking for the movie...

I found it. And watched it.

It was beautiful.



Bad idea right? Watching love stories and movies with happy people in my current state. Wrong. It was beautiful. I didn't understand how honest it was, why it was so honest, then I found out that they improv-ed most of the lines... It was raw, and unrehearsed and... beautiful.

Couch out <3

New Music

I know.. I keep pushing music on you guys but here you go anyway!

Daughter - This band is AMAZING! My favourites since Ingrid Michaelson. I recommend "Youth" heartily!

Here's the video:

"Love"

And "run"

I have also discovered a band called The weepies. Oh My Hat!

The Video for this song - The world spins  madly on is also just so cute

And an oldie but still amazing-ey

The Chain - Ingrid Michaelson <--- Favourite song of all time

Couch out 

<3

Alone in a crowd

You've often heard the phrase, "Alone in a crowd.". What makes this special? Why not just "I felt alone?" I hope you paid attention in English class (Thank you Mrs. Coetzer!) cos the answer is... A paradox. There are a hell of a lot of people here, yet you're alone. Circular reasoning and logic are defied.

There are 7 billion people on this planet. 7 billion. Do you know how much that is?

• To reach 7 billion seconds of life, you'd have to live to be 220 years old
• 7 billion m&ms fill 3 olympic sized swimming pools
• 7 billion ants weigh 23 tons
• 7 billion sheets of paper stacked one one the other, would be as high as the international space station - In space. Space. Outer space.

Now imagine 7 billion people. 

Can you see them? (Most of them Asians).

With Dreadlocks, and flowing flaxen hair, braids, pixie cuts, tattoos, dark skin, light skin, yellow skin, olive skin, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Bhuddists. 

All different types of people in the world.

And you don't feel like you fit in with any of them. 

Yeah, yeah, individuality and stuff but to just connect with another human being, even if its at a lame party, on a university campus 1779 kilometers from your family, with your next door neighbour in a residence with 400 people and very thin walls... Its important. To feel like someone's listening, like someone cares. Its one of the most basic human needs. 

And yet so many people ache for that everyday. They don't have it, they just need a smile, a kind gesture, to not feel alone.

But...

In a world with 7 billion people, why do we feel alone? Statistically, in this world, with all its microcultures, niches and types of people, there is at least ONE person whom you will fit in with. One person capable of providing you with (not necessarily romantic) love, love that is healthy, pure without any ulterior motives or agendas. 

Why are we alone?

We're alone because we don't know why we're here. There is a hole in all of us. Even those laughing with a beer in their hands at a party. We're all missing something. There's a hole. A God-shaped hole. 

We try to fill the hole with our idols, whatever they may be, video games, sex, alcohol, our partners, our career, our friends. 

We look at everything but what is good and what is pure and what is God.

I am SO far from perfect. I myself struggle with the concept of God, he's so perfect and good and alien... I feel as if he overpaid for me on that cross. I'm not worth being tortured, beaten, mocked and being so mutilated that you're unrecognisable... No. I'll just go and study my medical textbooks, I'll keep spending at least an hour a day on 9gag, I'll go draw, find good music and have no real hobbies, I'll go pretend to be happy and complete and full. This life is fine by me. Being good-ish, thats good enough.

But that loneliness. That fire that catches you when you stop moving, that thought you have before you slip into unconsciousness at night. That hole. That is your soul telling you "I'm empty.". "Fill me."

You were made for more, I was made for more, and even though I don't deserve the sacrifices made for me and I never can, I can never make up for that. I can accept it, daily, as a gift. A gift of love from My Lord. My Saviour. 

Then, you don't ever have to be alone, not even when you are by yourself, in your room, not in a hall with hundreds of people. You don't ever have to be alone ever again, you don't have to be lonely or empty, because you know true love, because you are full.

Because Jesus loves you.

Couch Out

Knowledge into Action

Yes folks... More of Marcia's musings...

I'm currently (theoretically) studying. The fact that Exams are looming in my face doesn't have half the motivating ability as one would think...  This is simply an example of the phenomenon where: we know, but we don't do.

Knowledge into action. 

Example:

I am a smoker (not actually), I read the warning labels on the pack. I hear horror stories on the news and see lung tumors being excised on television shows, my niece in medical school keeps telling me to stop, I have a daughter and obviously don't want to die in the near future (I am also, coincidentally an amazing aunt, and woman,and I am loved very dearly by the author of this blog). I know I should stop, but why don't I? Why??

I am a student. Who needs to study (this one is me), I know these exams count 60% of my course mark and yet I nap during the day, go for walks, and study very little. I know I should study, why don't I?

An Ingrid Michaelson song also stirred my interest in this phenom. The song is called Lady in Spain and the lyrics of which I speak go like this

"I am in love with a boy
Manufactured to destroy
So I shall Unravel my love
Like an old red woolen glove"

She knows. So she does. But in reality, we all know it didn't go down like that. She cried, and ate ice cream and watched Dirty Dancing a million times (Yes, I am addicted to New Girl, Zooey (Jess) is quite simply... A boss).

I wrote a song in my youth (Stop the judging now!) with the line,

"To know and to do
are two things far removed"

Nike would like us to believe that it as simple as 'Just do[ing] it'. But its not. We all know that.

We do things that are bad for us, while knowing we should stop. We sin, even though sin is a violation of the bond between us and God, we know exactly what we're doing. We love people we know we shouldn't. We seek approval from people we know shouldn't matter. We know! We know what we're doing when we destroy ourselves and sabotage our exam efforts by writing blog posts instead of studying. Why do we do it?

Maybe the answer is motivation. We need the motivation of a minor heart attack and the resulting concerned wife and family to lose weight and stop treating our bodies like playgrounds. We need to see the damage a person is doing to us to finally say enough is enough and take a (sometimes permanent) hiatus from the relationship. We need to see that the exam is tomorrow and so we need to pull an all nighter to get it all done.

This I'll-run-only-if-there-is-a-lion-chasing-me approach to life is self-destructive.

Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who can just say no. Those who stop smoking cold turkey  and the like. But they are the logical minority in this emotion driven world.

That's it. Emotion. It feels good to sin, so we do it. We are in toxic relationships because they do something for us, so we stay, we smoke because it relieves our stress and gives us something to do to break up the day, it feels good. But when the brain kicks in and has to fight a moerse battle with the rest of you to get control... It stops feeling good and all you feel is guilt and shame and "whats wrong with me? Why am I being stupid?". What then? Then...

Then we have to realise that its human nature to do stupid, self-destructive things...

And we must forgive ourselves...

To end off, I'd like to leave you with a portion of a very beautiful poem by Emily Bronté;

The prisoner

intense the agony--
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

In other words, it hurts like hell when you come to your senses, your ears, they hear again, your eyes, they see again, your brain finally kicks in, your soul wants change, but your flesh feels chains. 

Couch Out...

Ingrid Michaelsock

I know her name is Ingrid Michaelson... And why would I know this? Because she is my current obsession of  musical nature.  Hipster to the core, all the way to her very attractive spectacles (not that her specs are her core but you... yeah... you know what I mean).

She has a new album coming out... So brace yourselves... The Ingrid Posts are coming...

Hi5 all you game of throne-ers who understood that reference... For the rest of you...

Yes so... Here is video with Ingrid and her sock puppet... Yes, she has a sock puppet (named Ingrid Michaelsock), yes I know you want to name your children after her... Even your sons... Having a female name will only serve to make them stronger... Anywho, Couch must return to her studying... 

Fare thee well  

OH! Video! *Starts whistling....

Here is one of her older songs that is currently being butchered by yours truly:

Okay... Now I'll bounce... GOOB-eye

My friend, Phillip's blog: Cityhill Seeds - Planting for the future. Do it.

Refugee Mother and child

We did this poem in Matric and its been haunting me today...

No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother's tenderness
for a son she soon will have to forget.

The air was heavy with odors
of diarrhea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in labored
steps behind blown empty bellies.

Most mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother's
pride as she combed the rust-colored
hair left on his skull and then -
singing in her eyes - began carefully
to part it... In another life
this would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.

-Chinua Achebe