Ask Me Anything: The Answer Post, Part 1

The blog birthday is here! I'm so excited to share my answers to the Ask Me Anything questions that some of you readers sent me. In fact, there were so many more questions than last year and I ended up giving such lengthy answers to some of them that I thought it might be a good idea to do the Answer Post in two parts. Today's post will include the questions from Hannah and Siiri L. – thank you both, for coming up with such interesting questions and for being such great blog friends all this time!


Hannah asked...

If you could play any character in a musical and/or play, who would it be and why?

I'm going to pick one character from a musical and one from a straight play. My musical character choice would be Éponine, without a doubt. "On My Own" and "A Little Fall of Rain" are among my favourite songs from Les Misérables, and although the character in the musical is often criticized for lacking the complexities of her Victor Hugo counterpart, I think there would be plenty of chances for an actress to explore more of the derangement and instability that characterize Éponine in the novel. Everyone loves a good stage death, and Éponine departs singing a beautiful duet and fills the remaining rebels with new resolution to keep fighting. Plus, I really love that hat.

August: Osage County is my favourite modern play so far, and Ivy – the middle one of Violet Weston's three grown-up daughters – is one of the most interesting characters in it. She makes her sisters uncomfortable with her blunt and apparently cynical comments, but with Little Charles around she becomes a completely different person, which just adds up to the devastation that the romance ultimately brings her way. She shows deliberate indifference to what are often perceived as commonplace feminine values; her mother nags at her for not caring about her looks, and she appears completely fine with the fact that she can't ever have children. Like Éponine, Ivy has a wonderful last scene in the play, involving emotional breakdown and finally breaking away from the mother whose problems she was forced to deal with as her sisters moved away. All the different layers in Ivy's personality and that heart-wrenching character arc would be just wonderful to play.


Can you rank the Dickens novels that you've read so far?

I'll be more than happy to do that! I have only read three and a half of his novels so far, plus A Christmas Carol which I'll also include in the ranking even though it's a novella. I'm seriously working on my Dickens education, though – just look at my Classics Club list! I would like to point out that I have loved every Dickens novel I have read so far, they are all brilliant in different ways. Therefore, even the works that I have placed low on this ranking are not bad – just less amazing than the ones above them.

1. A Tale of Two Cities
This one bounced straight up to my list of "all-time favourite books of literary magic which will affect me for the rest of my life" – as soon as I was finished with despairing over the cruelty of the human race and crying about that bloody guillotine. Dickens does something very different than his usual thing here; the setting is in the late 1700s exploring the devastating effects of the Revolution and the Terror on the French society, there is none of Dickens' trademark satirical humour, and the page count is just over 400. The result is an absolutely heartbreaking account on how humanity's struggle for "justice" leads to tragedy both nation-wide and in the lives of ordinary men and women. I don't think any other book ever has sent my mind reeling so wildly, both during and after reading it.

2. Nicholas Nickleby
This was my first Dickens experience and it will most likely stay high in my esteem no matter how many Dickens novels I will read after it. It is a big book in terms of length and story, covering diverse layers of Victorian society in their various pursuits. However, the focus stays on young Nicholas Nickleby of idealistic values, as he develops one of literature's loveliest bromances with poor Smike, and learns to stand his ground against his miserly uncle Ralph. Nicholas Nickleby is many things, which makes it such an engaging read – it's viciously funny and unflinchingly tragic, a broad social commentary as well as an eventful coming-of-age adventure.

3. A Christmas Carol
I'm a complete junkie for fantasy, character development and the Christmas spirit, so if there exists a story about a sore old miser finding redemption through supernatural intervention at Christmastime, written in brilliant Dickensian prose, is there anything else for me to do but adore it? As always, Dickens' masterful pen creates literary images so awe-inspiring that it is best described as pure magic.

4. Little Dorrit
I'm exactly halfway through this one while I'm writing this blog post so I won't say much right now, but I'm fairly certain that Little Dorrit will rank somewhere hereabouts once I'm finished with it. The book is very slow-paced at times, but the good parts are very good. It explores themes such as the effects of institutionalisation (in this case, in a debtors' prison), the vapid constructions of high society, and the importance of a fulfilling life in great depth. Arthur Clennam is an interestingly atypical literary hero and the reader gets to really delve into how his past experiences have shaped his personality and current views of life.

5. Oliver Twist
As I discussed in my review about a year ago, this book has some structural flaws and Oliver Twist himself is not the most interesting or realistic of child heroes, but there is still more than a fair share of brilliant bits to be found here.


Would you rather J.K. Rowling wrote a series about the Hogwarts Founders, a series about the Marauders or a series about the next generation at Hogwarts?

Each of these ideas holds its own element of intrigue, but being such a history person, I would most like to hear about how Hogwarts came to be. I just happened to do some reading on the Anglo-Saxon period in British history, and how amazing would it be to know what that era was like for witches and wizards? And even compared to all the countless magical people that came from Rowling's imagination, the four who founded Hogwarts must be terrifically interesting characters!


If you could put various Doctor Who Doctors and companions together for a one-off episode, who would you pair up?

Oh, I was hoping Hannah might come up with a Doctor Who question, and this is a wonderfully interesting one! (Hannah, I want your answer on this in the comments.)

First of all, I would pair up the Twelfth Doctor with Donna simply because, as this article points out, it would be hilarious. Donna would first ask what the hell "Caecilius" was doing in the TARDIS and why he was even bothering to do such a lousy impersonation of the Doctor – the accent? being all grumpy? WHAT?!

Now, the Doctor that Donna knows – the Tenth – would have to go with one of the Eleventh's companions, and I would pick post-marriage Amy and Rory – I love them best when they're together, so that's a package deal. I don't really know what we might expect to happen with these three. The Doctor might notice that Amy has succeeded in being ginger, unlike him. He would also, for once, get to meet a pretty young woman who doesn't fall for him, and that young woman's husband whom he can't call an idiot, unlike the "companions' boyfriends" that he met. He would also witness two companions whose lives don't revolve entirely around TARDIS traveling.

Because Martha is my favourite companion right after Amy and Rory, I would definitely want to see her somewhere in this mix-up. She and Nine would make up a very interesting, business-like TARDIS team, wouldn't they? Nine might also appreciate her talents more than Ten did, and I think Martha would lecture the Doctor on how he's not allowed to label all humans as "stupid apes".

Martha and Donna being taken, the only regular companion left for the Eleventh Doctor would be Rose, and I can't really see anything interesting coming out of this. Maybe I'm just biased against Rose. Anyway, I had another idea... Captain Jack Harkness. He's not one of "the" companions, but think about it, seriously! The "Captain of the Innuendo Squad" paired up with the Doctor who doesn't understand why a married couple doesn't want bunk beds – endless hilarity! Also, my favourite Doctor + my favourite supporting character from series 1-4 would mean an extra birthday for me...


What are your top 5 Disney films?

A Disney question, yay! First of all, I did some thinking on what sorts of things make my personal favourite Disney films stand out from all the good Disney films. Here is a list of things that really matter to me regarding this question. All of my Top Five don't have all of these qualities, but mostly they do.

• Well-rounded main characters whose background, motivations and hopes are properly explored
• Great music
• Beautiful animation
• An interesting setting
• A well-paced, eventful story that has equal measures of touching and funny moments
• A good voice cast – I watched most Disney films with Finnish dubbing first, and I still think many of the Finnish voice actors are better than the original ones, no matter how objective I try to be.

So, getting to the point, my Top 5 Disney films are...

1. The Lion King

This was an easy choice to make; there has never been and never will be a competitor to how much I adore just about everything in this film. The music is wonderful, the animation is gorgeous, I love every single character (including that classic, awesome Disney villain Scar) and no matter how many times I watch it, I'm always completely heart-broken about how Mufasa's death affects Simba way into adulthood. No other movie in the world makes me cry three times in one viewing. The story is truly inspiring and I wish I could have Timon and Pumbaa as my best friends – the Finnish voice actor for Timon, Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, really stands out. Let me give all of you non-Finns a piece of him:

2. The Princess and the Frog
This film carries none of the childhood nostalgia that I get from The Lion King and Pocahontas and the likes, because it came out as late as 2009 and in fact I only saw it a year ago – so I was quite surprised at how high it jumped (frog-like) into my favourites list, I simply loved it straight away! New Orleans makes a wonderfully imaginative setting and I love how the "Disney Princess" concept gets a modern update in Tiana, who is one of my favourite Disney heroines ever. She knows wishing and dreaming won't get her anywhere – she's gonna work for it! She's also got Anika Noni Rose's voice, which is such a perfect fit for a Disney princess. I'm very happy with how her relationship with Naveen develops throughout the film; they go through a lot together and actually make each other better people, so when they (spoilers, sort of) fall in love and start a life together, it feels like they have truly earned it. I really enjoy the music in this film and Charlotte, Louis and Ray (sniffles!) are some of my favourite Disney supporting characters! This is the only film on my list that I haven't heard the Finnish version of, but Tiana's voice actress (including the singing) is Laura Voutilainen, whom I liked very much as Megara in Hercules. 

3. Mulan
Mulan is another wonderful heroine! She is such a great role model for anyone out there who feels like they don't fit in. She's smart, selfless and butt-kicking! She might even have actually existed! Again, the film looks beautiful and I really like the Chinese setting. It's possibly one of the funniest Disney films ever and makes me literally roar with laughter, but among the things I love most about it is the lovely relationship Mulan has with her father. "The greatest gift and honour... is having you for a daughter." Almost all of the earlier Disney heroines' relationships with their fathers were built on the fact that their mothers just weren't there, but I don't think any of their Disney Dads can top that line by Mulan's father. The soundtrack is amazing. The singing voices for both the original and the Finnish Mulan (Lea Salonga and Heidi Kyrö respectively) are very good, the scene where Mulan leaves her parents gives me the chills every single time, and this one below is one of my favourite work-out songs! (Shang's Finnish voice actor, Santeri Kinnunen, also voiced John Smith.)

4. Aladdin
Just hearing the first beats of "Arabian Nights" gets me all excited. By the time I finish watching, I think "Wow, this was even more awesome than I remembered", every single time! The setting in Agraba is full of mystery and excitement and Jafar is damn impressive as the villain. Jasmine is definitely on the smarter side of the Disney Princess line-up as she sees right through "Prince Ali's" pretense and fools Jafar into thinking she's suddenly smitten by him (I never stop giggling at that scene). Like Tiana, she gets to have adventures with Aladdin and learn things about him before she decides he's the man. The Finnish voice cast actually received some sort of a Disney award for best dubbing, with special recognition to the Finnish Genie, Vesa-Matti Loiri. He's a long-time household name over here and a man of many talents, and the energy and character that he brings to the Genie is spectacular. I do appreciate Robin Williams' portrayal as well.

5. Pocahontas
I wonder what people might think about me placing Pocahontas in my top favourites, because it seems that nobody particularly likes it. However, for me it was one of the most important films of my childhood. In all honesty, I can say that the importance I place on anti-racist and environmental values originates from how profoundly affected Little Me was by Pocahontas. Years later, when I had to give a presentation of a hero for a school assignment, I chose the real-life Pocahontas. I love the look of the film, the character designs and the colours (of the wind). Watching Pocahontas is also one of those times when being a Finn is a vast advantage, because you get to hear Arja Koriseva and Santeri Kinnunen as the leads. I don't really like Judy Kuhn's singing, whereas Arja Koriseva's voice seems to vibrate with the forces of the wind, the earth and the river that she sings about. I also find John Smith much more believable when he doesn't speak with the voice (and the American accent) of Mel Gibson. Now listen to Arja Koriseva sing like a goddess.

Honourable mentions: Fantasia because of its amazingly imaginative re-interpretation of some of the greatest compositions of classical music, and The Great Mouse Detective because it's such a fun tribute to Sherlock Holmes.


Have you seen any Jane Austen adaptations? If so, which did you like best?

I haven't seen many Jane Austen adaptations and, to be honest, I'm not terribly enthusiastic about them. In my opinion, Jane Austen's strongest asset is her distinctive, sharp and witty narrative voice – when that gets inevitably eliminated in the process of adapting to screen, the result is mostly leisurely-paced relationship dramas with very predictable endings. Therefore, I often get a little bored when watching Austen on screen. I have seen the Pride and Prejudice film from 2005, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries web series, the 1995 film and part of the 2008 miniseries of Sense and Sensibility, and the 2009 miniseries of Emma. My favourite of these would be The Lizzie Bennet Diaries because the modern update is very cleverly done! Out of the actual period dramas, the film version of Sense and Sensibility is my top pick because it has a good cast, a couple of additional scenes that really advance the characters, and beautiful directing by Ang Lee.

You're a polyglot: what's your favourite word in Finnish, Swedish, English, French and Spanish?

What an interesting question – and what a challenge! It's impossible to give definite answers to this one, but I tried to come up with something.

• Finnish: possibly valo, which means light (the noun). I'm not even remotely sure about this, though – it's really hard to evaluate my first language in this way! Eino Leino, one of the greatest Finnish poets (1878-1926), liked to use words with the back vowels a, o and u, and I really like the Finnish sound of them as well. 
• Swedish: Swedish words are almost always cluttered with sounds like d, j, ä, g, and r (seriously, there are so many r's!) which don't make the pleasantest combinations if you ask my ears. There is also an abundance of weird phonemes which involve s in the front and a variety of other consonants right after it. Himmel is a nice, soft exception, and it means sky.
• English: Damn, this isn't any easier than the two previous ones! English is my favourite language and I'm constantly impressed by the scope and variety of its vocabulary. If I had to pick one, I might go with dramatic. It sounds exactly like what it means – dramatic!
• French: Oh, everything sounds beautiful in French, even vulgarities and words like trash ("Oh là là, this pubelle is rotting!"). Avenir is a particularly nice one, I think – future. It's rather clever too, as it's constructed from à venir, which means upcoming. 
• Spanish: On my last visit to Spain, I stayed near to a village that has the word arroyo (brook) in its name, and I realized that even though the rhotic r is one of my least favourite sounds in Finnish and Swedish, in Spanish it sounds passionate and vivacious. 

What's your favourite pizza topping?

Pineapple! It's one of the best fruits ever, not just in pizza – when it's fresh, actual pineapple, that is. The sickly-whiteish bits that swim around in tin cans do not deserve to be called pineapple.


Siiri L. wanted to know my Hogwarts house, wand and Patronus.

I am a Ravenclaw according to every single Hogwarts test I've ever found on the Internet, including Pottermore's, and I completely agree with the results. I have always identified with the bookish, knowledge-valuing Ravenclaw crowd, and when Pottermore revealed that the house also values creativity and originality (to the point where others call it being just plain weird), it sounded exactly like my old high school which specializes in performance arts and is locally famous as the "artsy weirdoes' school". (Note that I use the phrase as a term of endearment.)

According to Pottermore, my wand is of maple and unicorn hair, 10 inches and surprisingly swishy. Unicorns are my favourite mythological creatures and maple wands are supposed to fit for travelers and explorers who don't like to stay in one place, so I think it fits pretty well! The Patronus question is a tricky one because I don't think it's something you can choose, but I would love a wolf Patronus. Fear and hate of wolves is a deeply-rooted mindset in the Finnish population, but I've always thought they're beautiful and mysterious (though I do understand how people who live in the heavily wolf-populated areas where children are sometimes afraid to walk to school might find it hard to agree with me). The Starks' direwolves are one of my absolute favourite things in A Song of Ice and Fire!

The Ask Me Anything event finishes tomorrow with my answers to Hamlette's and Olivia's questions! :) Please feel free to share your own thoughts on the questions above!

Time for another blog birthday: Ask Me Anything!

My recent Blogger Recognition Award post gave me the chance to look back on how my blog came to be. Now, dear readers, April 15th – my blog birthday – is approaching again, and I had so much fun celebrating the occasion last year that I'm going to do it again, and in similar fashion – by hosting an Ask Me Anything event.

Ask Me Anything is quite self-explanatory – if there's any question under the Sun to which you would be interested to know my answer, here's your chance! While coming up with words of advice to new bloggers for the Blogger Recognition Award, I discussed how I think it considerably ups a blog's readability if you get the feeling that there's a real person behind the blog posts. So, this is a chance for my readers to maybe get to know me a little better, and to ask any questions that don't really fit into our normal means of blogger-reader communication – the comments section, that is.

So does Anything really mean... Anything? Basically, yes! While I'm always happy to discuss anything related to my usual blog content – books, fictional characters, trends in the culture scene, and some more books, etc. – you don't necessarily have to stick to these. The only real limits I can think of are 1) I obviously won't be giving out any personal information such as my phone number or my whereabouts and I still don't want to share any pictures of myself, 2) everything concerning my family members and friends is strictly off the Internet. Now I can't really see why anyone would have a burning desire to ask anything that oversteps these two rules, but there they are, properly worded, for clarity's sake. Obviously, I reserve the right to ignore any questions that I don't feel comfortable answering for one reason or another, but it's more a precaution than an actual worry. Honestly, the more creative and thought-provoking questions you come up with, the more excitement it will bring to me as a blogger!

I hosted my first Ask Me Anything event last year, you can see here what my readers asked back then. This year, I will give the Answer Post on the proper anniversary date, April 15th. So, you have a little over three weeks to submit your questions to the comments section of this post. Don't be shy, we'll have fun celebrating! It makes no difference whether you are a regular guest or a new visitor, an active commentator or a quiet reader – everyone is sincerely invited to celebrate the second anniversary of Music & My Mind!

Oh, in case anyone was wondering why there haven't been that many blog posts lately (because I was) – honestly, I've just got too many great blogging ideas zooming around my head and I can't decide in which order to deal with them! And as if my already-existing projects (such as all the various reading lists you can see on the top bar) weren't enough, some ungovernable part of my mind decided that now was the good time to start re-watching Doctor Who from the 2005 Series One onwards, with a notebook – yes, I really do that when I want to review something properly. So, expect crazy-long reviews of the eight series of "new" Doctor Who; I really hope to finish them by the time Series Nine arrives!

That will be the end of this not-so-short announcement – let's get ready to party!

Replies to Ask Me Anything

It's been quite a long while since I announced the "Ask Me Anything" event, so let's give you some answers! Apparently only two of my readers were curious enough to Ask Me Anything, but their questions were very interesting and numerous enough to make this post, so thank you very much for that!

Siiri L asked me about my best, worst and most baffling theatrical experiences ever. 

My best theatrical experience could be pretty much everything I've seen in London – there's the glorious West End musicals and Shakespeare's Globe, both of which are, in my opinion, the very best offerings of the world of theatre. However, I want to be more specific than that, so I'll name Richard III which I saw at Shakespeare's Globe on September 2nd, 2012. It was my second Globe experience and I was rapidly succumbing to the charm of this very special theatre. This performance was made to look as much as possible like it might have been in Shakespeare's times, with period costumes and an all-male cast. The iconic title role was played by Mark Rylance, and of course it was an absolute treat to see one of the most famous current Shakespearean actors doing his thing.

The worst piece of theatre in my life was no doubt that time when I was 14 or 15 and went to see a new Finnish play called Kohti kylmempää (literal translation would be "Towards colder" which sounds bizarre). It was supposed to be a play about some people trying to establish the world's northernmost community, but there was such a lack of plot and such an abundance of pointless characters that I ran out of the theatre as soon as the intermission came.

"Most baffling" would be another Shakespeare experience. The Bard wrote, among other things, a play  about King John, which is very rarely performed. Well, having seen it once in Stratford-upon-Avon's Swan Theatre, I can completely understand why. That script is definitely not Shakespeare at the height of his genius – but then again, that might have been the very thing that enabled the director and creative team of the Stratford production to go a little wild with it. There was an abundance of creative choices that perfectly correspond to the word "baffling". For example, try to imagine King John's death-by-poisoning scene as a psychedelic drug high that drives the dying king into a blurry '70s dance routine. Not joking one bit.

Hannah asked:

What is your favourite Sherlock episode from each series?

Hannah was worried that a question like this might be too cruel, but actually I do have very strong favourites from each series – Sherlock is brilliant through and through, but there are some episodes that I re-watch more often than others. These would be A Study in Pink, The Hounds of Baskerville and The Sign of Three. 

In A Study in Pink, I love how brilliantly the two main characters are introduced and how they gradually drop into their co-habitating life. The Hounds of Baskerville I can especially respect as a great, inventive modern update of the original novel – also, Sherlock's rant about the rabbit in the beginning has me laughing my head off no matter how many times I watch it. I have to admit though, it was a tiny bit hard choosing a Series Two favourite between this and A Scandal in Belgravia, which is also awesome in indefinitely many ways. My Series Three favourite has to be The Sign of Three, mostly because it's so damn hilarious!

I just realized that my three favourite episodes have one thing in common, something which I like to call "John Watson's awesome-military-badassery moments". I bet it's not a coincidence. Dr. John Watson just doesn't get any better than this.

Is there any book that you would love to see adapted into a film?

While I agree wholeheartedly with Hannah that someone should really get a move on with a film adaptation of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, I'm going to drop in a new idea. You know Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, right? Yes, that bone-chillingly haunting murder mystery where ten people are shut off on an island and they start dying one by one, resulting in mounting paranoia and claustrophobia for both the characters and the reader. Now the question is, why are all the (surprisingly few) film adaptations of this tale either not faithful to the original plot, or at least 20 years old? So there's a brilliant idea for some team of movie-makers, here you go.

What is your favourite place in Finland?

Not that I want to boast or anything, but I think the best place in Finland is my family's summer cottage by Lake Näsijärvi. (A piece of cultural tidbit to non-Finns: many Finns like to have a little cottage getaway, or mökki, where we can escape from the noise and everyday life of the actually rather small and quiet towns where we normally live in.) The most hardcore mökki owners swear by a complete no-electricity, no-running-water, no-modern-comforts-whatsoever policy, while a small minority build their summer places so modern that it kind of loses the countryside feel. I think our family's mökki is quite nicely in the middle. It's nice and cosy during all seasons, but also very close to nature (a colony of shrews living under the patio and lynx paw prints appearing now and then in the winter months) and it's really just a beautiful piece of land all over. 

What is/are the film(s) that you are most looking forward to seeing in 2014?

I actually had to take a look at the list of films coming up in 2014 and came to the conclusion that last year was much better movie-wise. 2012 was even better, with Les Misérables and the first Hobbit. This year, though... Well, it's nice to have another musical film on Christmas Day, but Into The Woods has never really been on my top list of musicals and while some of the casting choices are great (Meryl Streep! Christine Baranski! Daniel Huttlestone!!!), some are rather... interesting. I didn't even know these people could sing on a musical performer level... or can they?

I would love to be more excited about the conclusion to the Hobbit trilogy, but I just can't. The first film was good, the second went into way too many subplots and turned most of my favourite Bilbo moments from the book into overlong fight scenes, and now the third one will probably be a three-hour-account of the Battle of the Five Armies, which only takes a couple of chapters in the book.

What would you like your superpower to be?

It would be awesome to be able to fly. Transportation would be such a breeze (literally), and things would look gorgeous from a bird's perspective.

If you could travel to any point in time where would you go?

I would time-travel to Victorian London, there's no doubt about that. If I had to be precise (the Victorian era was quite long after all), I would probably land somewhere in the 1880s. That period contains some of my favourite "old stuff" along the lines of ball rooms, horse-drawn carriages and ridiculously-impractical-but-still-oh-so-gorgeous women's fashion, but then there is also the definite atmosphere of innovation and moving forwards. For example, the gramophone was invented in 1887 – how cool is that? Also, I have a fixated curiosity for British Imperialism, which was still going pretty strong at this point.

Beautiful 1880s dresses...

British Empire in red

What is next on your to-read list?

I really should think about this question, because I'll soon be finished with my current read which is Zadie Smith's White Teeth. I seriously need to broaden my appallingly narrow knowledge of French literature and have pretty much settled on trying Émile Zola next. I would gladly take suggestions as to which one of Zola's works I should start with.

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I had tons of fun answering these questions, and I hope my readers found something interesting there as well. The idea for this event came pretty much from Miss Laurie's lovely period drama blog Old-Fashioned Charm, go and check it out. Who knows, maybe there will be more of these as Music & My Mind hopefully celebrates future anniversaries... 

One year of blogging

On April 15th, 2013, I did something that quite surprised me. I started a blog; this blog. Why was I so surprised at myself? Because for many years, I was under the impression that "blogging" meant "writing down all the boring, everyday stuff you do and whining about all your problems, as if you were keeping a diary, but instead putting it in the Internet under the impression that someone would be interested." I had absolutely no interest in doing that.

However, I now have a blog that just celebrated its first anniversary, and I'm very happy about it. So far I've produced 61 blog posts and gained ten followers. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of these ten wonderful bloggers (most of whom I follow myself and others should take a look at too) for keeping such high-quality blogs and bringing up such interesting things that I always want to learn more about. The best example of this is my to-read list, which will never end thanks to all the wonderful reviews from other bloggers that catch my interest.

As well as my fellow bloggers, I want to thank everyone who has ever spared so much as a glance to my blog, and everyone who has given me an idea for a post. Comments from readers are always such a delight as well, no matter how long or short they are.

As this anniversary came by, I started wondering if the past year of being a blogger had brought any substantial changes to my life. It wasn't very hard to make these observations about myself:

• I've become much more active a follower of all the happenings in the arts. I feel like I have to be on the lookout for new things to blog about, so I'm constantly adding new things to follow on Facebook, new websites to look up, and so on.
• I feel like whenever I'm having a conversation with anyone, no matter what subject we end up talking about, I say "I'm planning a blog post about [subject]" sooner or later.
• Whenever I feel annoyed, frustrated or something of that kind, I think "Let's go to the blog, it will help."
• I find myself endlessly baffled by the question of how exactly someone from Brazil or South Korea found their way into my blog. 
• I have to admit it – I feel ridiculously intellectual when I get to tell someone "I'm a blogger, I do reviews on books and theatre and other sorts of arts." I know, it's completely hilarious.
• I've become more and more convinced about where I want my future career to be. I'm no longer content to be simply a spectator for the works of theatre; I want to be a part of that world, a part of the system that brings theatre productions to audiences. I've noticed that I talk about theatre very differently than most of the people around me, often resulting in the other one asking "How on Earth did you pay attention to that?"
• This isn't really a consequence of my blogging habit, but worth mentioning because it is a change that happened in the past year and has altered somewhat the way that I perceive the things I blog about. I recall saying in one or two of my blog posts that I'm not easily moved by things that happen in books and movies and such, that if something makes me cry it must be noteworthy. Well, that isn't true anymore. I've seen the most definite change in the way I experience characters' deaths on page, stage or screen – it holds a whole new level of intensity for me now. But even things less tragic than deaths do make me emotional nowadays. 

Now, after musing about the effects of my blogging, I would like to try something with you readers. In celebration of the first anniversary of Music & My Mind, I'll host an "Ask Me Anything" event! It means, quite simply, that you can ask me any questions you can think of, they don't have to be related to the subjects I usually blog about, and if there are enough questions asked, I'll do a separate blog post where I post my answers! You can get as imaginative as you like with your questions and ask as many as you want, but I do reserve the right not to answer questions that I think are too personal. 

So come on, join the blog celebration and surprise me! :)

Let's celebrate – that means reviewing!

Well hello there! I did mention something about my blog's six-month anniversary coming up, didn't I? Actually, that day was yesterday – I didn't have time to blog then, but no worries, I have something special for today. If you read my Announcement post a few weeks ago, you'll know what it is: Yes, dear readers, I'm kindly asking you to consider all the (hopefully numerous) times you've visited my blog and to review Music & My Mind! It won't take you an awful lot of time because I've prepared some questions for you, and you can post your review whenever you like – if you're reading this a year from now, you're still welcome to participate! And it doesn't matter if you've been commenting regularly or if you've never said anything at all, everyone's reviews are welcome! I'm only asking you to do this because I want to improve as a blogger :)

So if you just answer these questions and drop in a comment, thank you very much!

How did you find out about this blog? (You don't have to answer if I asked you for a visit myself)

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best score), how would you rate this blog's language? (Additional comments would be nice)

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best score again), how would you rate this blog's content? (Same thing about additional comments as in the previous question)

What has been the most interesting post in your opinion?

Choose three words to describe my blog.

Any suggestions what I could write about next?

Anything else you want to say?

THANK YOU! 

Announcements!! Celebrate Musicals Week & Six Months Anniversary!

Today, I'll go off-topic from what I usually blog about to make some important announcements. Read on so you'll know what will be happening in Music & My Mind!

Item one (à la Julie Andrews' Mary Poppins): I will be participating in the Celebrate Musicals Week blog party, hosted by Miss Dashwood. You can use the link or the blog button in the sidebar to see all the details, but basically it means that from September 23rd to 28th I'll be devoting my blog to one musical, which will be... Miss Saigon! Because it is one of the most beautiful stories ever, has some amazing songs and it's coming back to the West End next year! I can't review a stage version or a movie version because the first I didn't get to see on its first West End run, and the second doesn't exist yet. I haven't quite decided what my Miss Saigon posts will be, but it's safe to say I'll be sharing my favourite songs and some videos, and Ms Lea Salonga simply has to be mentioned where Miss Saigon is concerned.

Item two: The six months anniversary of Music & My Mind is approaching! The fact that the number of page views has increased by a thousand at an astonishing speed has convinced me that some people in the world actually read this blog, so I want to celebrate in a way that you readers can participate! And better yet, you'll be able to help me improve my blog, because I'm going to ask you really nicely to make a review of it. However, you don't have to start worrying about that just now. The six months anniversary takes place on the 15th of October (I'm counting from the day I published my first post, about Nicholas Nickleby) so somewhere about a week in advance, I'll be making another post and giving you some review questions to answer. I hope you'll take the tiny little trouble of completing the review, it would mean really much to me to know how readers feel about Music & My Mind. And remember, even if you've never ever written a comment here before, you are still more than welcome to review!

Bye for now! I'm off to prepare my Miss Saigon posts...