Will blog for music

Anyone who knows me would be well aware that I am going to England in a few months time. For me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip. My brother currently lives in London with his fiancée and I will be staying with them. I am going to England to get to know my soon-to-be sister-in-law before she leaves all her family and friends behind to start a new life in Australia. I will also be helping to arrange the wedding and help make preparations for her to make her big move. In reality, this trip is not something I can really afford. I work for a charity and as expected, I really don't earn a great wage. You may already know that I am raising much of my funds on Ebay, selling anything I can get my hands on. I have become a hermit and anything that costs money and does not help to get me to England has been effectively banned.

Regular readers would also know that I am a big lover of music. I collect records - scouring second hand shops for 50c treasures that I proudly display in a cabinet. I lament that I was not able to grow up in the 70s and see that pinnacle period in the evolution of music for myself.

Well this may surprise you but as much as I love live music, I don 't own an iPod. But I desperately want one for my trip. I am terrified of flying and music is my biggest distraction. I have so much music I would love to listen to but no way to bring it with me.

So I have turned to you - my dear and loyal readers; people I have shared myself and my soul with implicitly. From the feedback I have received, I have made you laugh, I have made you cry and I have made you think. And now I am asking you to give something back.

Now I am not the kind of person who expects something for nothing. I was raised by a single dad, I have been gainfully employed since I was 10 (that is not a typo) and have cleaned hotel rooms rather than accept government handouts. I also like to think I can make the world a better place. So I would like to present my campaign...

* Will blog for music *

I am officially raising funds for an iPod and have chosen to also collect money to donate to the charity Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD). I have chosen MMAD because it's a charity that helps emotionally and socially traumatised children express their pain in lyrics, find their voice in singing and escape the world through music to help them survive. I have had my fair share of pain and I understand the escape music can provide.

So here's the deal.

A 160GB iPod classic is $279. I will donate 10% of my earnings to MMAD until I raise $279 at which point every cent over that amount will be donated. My going away party is on August 25 so that will be the last day of my fundraising campaign.

What I am asking is for you to donate a minimum of $2.79 - 1/100th of the cost of an iPod. But as I said, I do not expect something for nothing and I have promised, I Will blog for music so in exchange for your donation, this is what you will get.

• 500 words published on my blog about absolutely anything. Challenge me. Make me work for your donation. Pick a topic you love. Pick something controversial. Ask me to review your website, blog, Twitter account, etc. Pick a topic you think I know absolutely nothing about. Be vague or be specific. If you donate the minimum of $2.79, that's $0.00558 cents per word, so get your money's worth!
• 10% of your donation will be donated to MMAD and to changing the lives of kids who have had an unfair start to life. You can help share the power of music and enrich their lives through song - or smashing the heck out of a drum kit!
• If you email me your favourite song & a photo, I will put that song on my new iPod with your photo as the album art (whatever photo you choose - it can be you, your Twitter avatar, your favourite picture - anything!) I will make your name the album name so every single time that song plays, I will think of you and smile! I promise I will keep this on my new iPod for the life of the device.

Ladies and gentleman, all that can be yours for as little as $2.79. Like I said, that is the minimum amount to get all this and you are of course, more than welcome to donate more! Remember, the more you donate, the more I will donate to charity and help children through the power of music. Wow. If 100 people donate $2.79 I will raise enough for my iPod but I will have written 50,000 words in the name of my cause. That... is kind of daunting. But none the less, I promise here and now, I Will blog for music.

So how do you donate to these fantastic causes and get your 500 words and name / photo on my iPod? Simply donate through PayPal, using the 'Donate' button on the right hand side of this blog or by sending your donation to my PayPal account samantha.mawdsley@hotmail.com through the PayPal website - if you don't have PayPal, simply send me an email & I can provide you with my bank account details. Then let me know (by commenting or emailing me) what you would like me to blog about, what song you want to add to my iPod and what photo you are setting as the album art.

This has been quite hard for me to write as I am not the type to ask for help. An amazingly kind Twitter friend once offered to donate money to help me get to the recent Pink Floyd concert but I could not bring myself to accept the charity. If you can't afford to click the donate button to your right, know that I still love you and would be very appreciative if you could share the link to this blog post through Facebook, Twitter, email or hiring a mobile billboard to drive around your city. So thank you for playing along and I look forward to hopefully having some fun with you!

Miss SAMawdsley xx


PayPal: samantha.mawdsley@hotmail.com
Email: Miss.SAMawdsley@gmail.com

Ts & Cs
One blog post / song per person (unless an amount is negotiated - I may be swayed! :P )
No porn or inappropriate photos. I will happily be sharing the iPod with younger cousins.
Blog post topics must be appropriate for all ages as I have younger readers too.
I will endeavour to post your blog ASAP. I'm too broke for a life, so it's not like I'll be too busy!
I will post the final amount raised in a blog post & include a receipt for the amount donated from MMAD.

My tea party funeral

I went to a funeral today. If you've ever read my blog, you'll know I have thanatophobia (fear of death). My aunty expected me not to come but I always feel I should honour the life of someone I knew & loved, even if it makes me terribly uneasy.

On the way to the funeral, I had a chat to Dad about our funerals. The funny thing is we would be the one to organise the other's funeral if we died any time soon. I have ideas about what I would do for Dad & I shared those with him. His idea for his own funeral was a big football game that all attendees have to play! But I was also curious what he would do for me.

He said he would bury me dressed like Alice in Wonderland. That made me so happy! I'd never considered what I would wear, I guess I just thought a pretty dress but with this idea, I imagined, rather than being buried, I would be tumbling down a rabbit hole & this thought made me smile. I actually find this thought comforts me!

Goodbye...

Music wise, he would play 'You'll never walk alone' by Gerry & The Pacemakers. It's the Liverpool anthem, it was sung at my grandfather's funeral & it will be sung at my dad's, my brother's and my funeral too. I don't know what other songs Dad would pick.

Dad told me he would, rather than have a traditional wake, have everyone attend a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. I could just imagine all the people I love best gathered together eating scones & drinking tea from mismatched tea cups - sharing (hopefully fond) memories of me.

I asked Dad if he could invite my Twitter followers. That may sound weird, but when ever I feel alone, I remember I have a stack of people who enjoy my "company" - even if it is on the Internet. And if they felt they would like to attend to say goodbye to me, I would love them to do so.

One thing I did say was I don't know who would speak at my funeral. I am the public speaker in the family & none of my friends are enthusiastic public speakers. I would like to know who would step up & do it. I would love to know who would share stories & what their favourite stories would be. Would they write a script or poem like I would or would they tell stories, off the cuff?

Isn't it funny that the occasion that supposedly represents your entire existence is arranged by people other than you. It will not be my party, it will be the party my loved ones have for me. Firstly I hope it's a long way off & secondly, I hope it is a happy occasion full of people who love me but smile because they knew me!

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• What thoughts or plans do you have for your own funeral?
• Who would plan your funeral & what do you think they would arrange for you?

Check your emotional baggage!

Emotional baggage is something we all have. Sometimes we have so much we struggle and other times it feels like nothing more than a cute glo-mesh sling purse.

I'm one of those people that takes on so much emotional baggage, my own and others'. If somebody has a problem, I add it to my long list of things to worry about. My mind can race so fast that in all actuality, I sometimes can't recognise what it is in particular that I am worried about, just that I am worried. Sometimes if you could see all of my emotional baggage, I would resemble a Clyde Valley donkey...

There are other people, weird Zen-like creatures who, like miniature Buddhas consider emotional baggage and either deal with it or discard it. They hold onto nothing. I once read a story by a stressed out man who told of a conversation with his young daughter.

"Daddy, why are you sad?"
"I'm just worrying about some things."
"Well, if you can change it, change it and don't worry. If you can't change it there's nothing you can do, so don't worry."

That is an amazing attitude and I get that, I honestly do! But really, I just can't put it into practise. I can't quite explain why but I just can't. A sentiment I do understand is 'A problem shared is a problem halved'.

Well I stumbled across this site today. Emotional Bag Check. It's a site for everyone - as long as you love music, but really, who doesn't? When you click the link it will take you to a site with two options.

For the worriers, the donkeys, the stressed out, highly strung jack-in-the-boxes just waiting to unravel in an explosive and teary meltdown, there is this section. Once you can admit you have baggage, you check it here. It's a simple text box and you just rant. That part alone is a catharsis. I poured out everything. I just let it all out. I felt like crying as I wrote it but I kept going. Some things, as I wrote them down, I felt like there was no escape from - that I will be tethered to these problems forever. Others, seemed trivial. I imagined a stranger reading them and thinking to themselves, 'so what?' Perspective, you know? So after unloading as many problems as I could in what is probably a non-sensical rambling diatribe, I felt marginally better. I also gave them my email address. Nobody will see my email and I wasn't asked for my name or any other information. That is all I, the emotionally crippled, have to do. Easy and freeing.

For those peaceful free-thinkers with all the headspace in the world, there is this section. This person does something really wonderful and amazing. They read - the internet equvilant of listening - the problems of another. This person will be a perfect stranger and they will know nothing more about them than their problem. Now these individuals who live in their own personal Zen garden are usually great with helpful advice so it wouldn't be fair to deny them the chance to offer it. They do so in the form of a song. They think of a song that would cheer, uplift, inpsire or sympathtise with the emotional cripple. There's a database of songs on the site, you type in the song you've thought of and it will find it and you send it to the emotional cripple (without seeing their email address). You can add a short message if you like but that person will receive this song and message in their email inbox.

The exchange of baggage is now complete.

I tried out both. Quid pro quo. I checked my baggage in the hopes that someone will read it and send me a song - maybe every time I hear this song I can remember to be Zen-like and take two minutes to be calm and still. (I actually received two! See the songs I received below!) And to balance the Karma, I also sent a song. The baggage I am now sharing was from somebody who has had medical problems and now has another problem added to it. I sent them 'Beautiful Day' by U2 with the following message:

"The world is a beautiful place. It is even more so because you are in it. Be strong. xx"

Perhaps I should take my own advice sometimes, huh?

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• Did you 'check your baggage'? What song did you receive?
• Did you carry someone else's baggage? What was the problem and what song did you send them?
• How do you deal with emotional baggage?

"Strong Enough" - Stacie Orrico

"As I rest against this cold hard wall, will you pass me by? 

Will you criticize me as I sit and cry? 

I had fought so hard and thought that all my battles had been won 

Only to find the war had just begun"

"When I'm gone" - Eminem

"Have you ever loved someone so much, you'd give an arm for?

Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for?

When they know they're your heart

And you know you were their armour

And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm her

But what happens when karma, turns right around and bites you?"