It's Friday and I love [Five]

One would assume given the fact Tuesday was Valentines it would stand to reason that this week’s ‘Love’ would be based around this day...BUT I decided to defer from the subject. Although it is slightly related, see Valentine’s Night myself and my boyfriend ended up spending a rather large portion of our evening listening to old songs that remind us of our childhood/teen years (romantic right?) most of which came from what I have named the ‘America Pie’ era of music, you know the likes of Sum 41- In too Deep, Wheetus-Teenage Dirtbag. I was never really a skater rock girl but these songs instantly transported me to the blissful days of my youth, so this week I love

Nostalgia...

The movies- The late 90’s early 00’s was truly the era for teen movies for me (granted the 80’s and John Hughes paved the way for these). These days movies take themselves far too seriously and if it isn’t either going to get an Oscar nod, be so Indie and Hipster you’re not even meant to like it or mess with your head to the point you can’t figure out if you are awake or in a dream within a dream within a dream (Inception I’m looking at you) then a movie isn’t worth making, don’t get me wrong Movies today are great but there is a bit of me that yearns for the guilty pleases of a movie that does not require a degree to understand what the hell is going on. The aforementioned American Pie movies, Clueless, Cruel Intentions, 10 things I hate about you, She’s All That, Legally Blonde!! Hell even the old school slasher movies like Scream and I know what you did last summer are bloody brilliant (I could go on for years). These movies MADE my life. Yes I wanted to go to Harvard like Elle Woods, and have the standard ugly to pretty girl make over and have the most popular guy in school fall in love with me alas this never happened and I am still coming to terms with the fact I will never have a prom swiftly followed by Graduating from an American High School.  *sobs*

She's All That

The TV Shows- Ok this is similar to the above but come on now, who among us didn’t want to be Kelly Kapowski growing up watching Saved by the Bell, and if anyone ever asks you who loves Orange Soda you know the answer (if you do not know Kel loves orange soda... its true mmmhmmm he do he do he dooOOO, it’s probably best you just stop reading my blog...I kid...but seriously?!) Sabrina the Teenage Witch was my guide to life and taught me more about Science than my teachers ever did (Osmosis is?), I will admit to pointing at stuff and yearning for sparks to fly from my fingers and magic and mayhem to ensue way beyong the age in which that is acceptable behaviour. Nowadays if I have a little too much to drink, I will inevitably end up singing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune...Everybody now “Innnnnnnnnnnn west Philadelphia born and raised” (extra points if you know the extended version  from the first episode, that they play in the cheesy rooms of clubs, and there's that awkward apuse when everyone stops and looks confused for a sec). Saturday mornings were worth waking up for for the likes of SMTV and CDUK. I  work for a kids TV channel now and it saddens me how wrapped up in cotton wool so many shows are these days,  if I ever have kids they WILL sit down and watched my Saved by the Bell box set  *yes I really own this.


Kelly Kapowski



The Music- as well the above mentioned skater rock we were also blessed with the origins of grunge, hip hop before auto tune, we had Britney, we had Christina, and we had THE SPICE GIRLS!!! Music was great and even sometimes came with a message (albeit half the time it was the message of OMG I am so misunderstand, enter Emo 5 years later or Girl power but hey it meant the world to me at the time).

Spice Up Your Life

The fashion- oh dear god the fashion...let’s just say in year 7 and 8 I weighed about 4 and a half stone, had chicken legs wore my hair in a plait every day, a blazer two sizes too big (they didn’t make them small enough) and wore Huge clumpy Kickers?!  GHD’s were still to be invented, so frizzy hair was the look of the day, and even though you begged your mum for the ‘Rachel’ you still had hair that made you resemble the girl from the ring (my hair was dead down to my waist at this time). I wore denim on denim and little matching sometimes fluorescent outfits, crop tops, platforms. I yearned to rock the Cher socks and skirt look from Clueless but alas I was stuck in Tammy Girl and United colours on Benetton.

Oh to be Cher 

And the Rest- Pogs, Yo-Yo’s, Tamagotchi’s, Furbies, Pokemon cards!  Playing dream phone, being considered cool if you owned the newest gel pens first (I had all the scented ones), Goosebumps, Sunny D, hair glitter, Leonardo DiCaprio. I loved my Super Nintendo and Sega mega drive... and had no idea what an Xbox was and having a Playstation not only meant you were cool but probably rich. The Olsen twins were cute little girls with chubby cheeks in TV shows and straight to VHS movies that I watched religiously. And then we had the School Discos, will any boys want to dance with me? (no) will I ever be kissed? (not likely) sobbing in my room and writing in your diary about that boy at school I would ‘love4eva’. Playing with your friends meant leaving the house at 9am and running/ whizzing around on your bikes and rollerblades until it got dark and you had to be home, not sitting alone  on your Xbox shooting zombies and abusing eachother over headset! You formed girlbands in the playground and performed each lunch time, for me this continued into secondary school where me and my friends formed a band called 'Inspiration' we wrote our own songs and we all had little nicknames like faith or joy and we were convinced for a good 5 mintues that we would be the next big thing (yes I am cringing hard right now)

I had sleepovers in our PJ’s with Bacardi Breezers (with parental permission and adult supervision) and 8 of you shared about 4 bottles. There is still a video somewhere of my 15^th birthday sleepover with me and my friends, in our PJ’s singing and doing the routine to ‘Sound of the Underground’ and it was GLORIOUS!

Oh to be young again!

*I am fully aware if you were born anywhere after ’92 you probably understood about 4% of the above...look it up though it was really cool...I think.

What are your favourite nostalgic memories, what songs/movies/fads instantly bring you back to your youth?

XOXO


Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4