I’m seriously starting to panic about Christmas gifts! It’s an expensive enough time of year even without having to figure out what to get everyone. Coupon codes help (hey, any kind of a discount is good, right?!), and vouchers might work as gifts… but they can seem a little impersonal. Hmm.

(Of course, it’s so much easier to shop for yourself - I know exactly which ones I be using if it were just for me; I’d go straight for Apple and Aeropostale, haha!)

Things have come pretty far from the last time I did anything proper music-tech related (and by proper I mean anything more than recording voice and merging it with a pre-made backing track :P). I loved this stuff when I was at school, and I thought about going into music therapy. Who knows, maybe I still will, but it’ll always be a hobby anyway. And seriously, with software that does it all for you - from score input to music engraving - you’d never even need an orchestra.

It’s like the crazy drama teacher from Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen said, when conducting her orchestra. “Press your [space] bars, children!”

If you know me, you know I’m in love with New York. One of the things that’s DEFinitely on my list for while I’m living on the east coast is something like these New York Yankees Spring Training tickets. I’m so excited, I’m sure the atmosphere at those kinds of things - and the actual games, too - is amazing. I really want to experience that! And how cool to be able to watch a team you’re passionate about up-close as they progress! (Now that I think about it, this is another awesome stocking-filler. Too bad everyone I know who’d like it is in Europe!).

One of the things you can’t get through university without seeing (er - at least, I couldn’t!) is a stand, maybe at freshers’ fair or sometimes just completely randomly, with a couple of students dressed in combat gear (complete with cheek-streaks!) holding pretty impressive-looking guns.

These, it turned out, were paint ball guns, and their sole purpose was to convince you that paintballing was the best fun going! Whether as a social for a club or society, for a birthday party, whatever. Run round like a five-year-old (and believe me, you WILL run because those things can hurt!) and end up multicoloured! (Don’t forget the protective clothing, haha).

Of course, it makes sense that these reps had to get their paintball gun packages somewhere - I just never realized there was more than one kind! Check out the website for all the varieties, and HEY, actually, what a cool Chritmas gift - you’d be able to play paintball whenever you wanted, without having to book or plan and pay in advance!

So, with America getting closer and more and more definite, I can start to think about things I’d like to do while I’m living there. Something I think would be a blast would be to check out those motorhomes and drive cross-country, from New York to LA, taking in all the sights (possibly with a detour or two down the east coast). Get a couple of the girls, a LOT of music, and some junk food… it’d be amazing! I envision it a little like the end of that movie Elizabethtown, but I’d need someone to make me that amazing map of places to stop and see, hee!

Now, if I were to do it in Europe, I think I’d drive through France (with Paris - and Disneyland, because I am 4! - a definite stop) to Montreaux in Switzerland, a place I fell in love with like summer, to go to the jazz festival. That’d be another amazing road trip, a good long distance. And no need to worry about places to stay! (I think driving these would be amusing, too! :P). Someday I’ll go on a huge road trip like this, a good long distance.