We Are Not What You Think We Are

"We Are Golden! We Are Golden!"

At least, that's what Mika says we are. (Or is that "We are Gawlden! We are Gawlden!" ...? You decide.)

The song came out in September and I absolutely adore it. I love the lyrics. I love how inspiring and uplifting it is.

At school I wasn't the most liked person, the prettiest person, the person with the best figure or the best hairstyle, or the most popular girl. In fact, I'm still not, but at school I did feel like a misfit because there were all these girls glamourising themselves and growing up too quickly, snogging boys (or possibly/probably more), getting drunk and just generally getting up to no good.
I was the complete opposite. I never wore make-up. I had no sense of style, my hair style didn't suit me, I was big, and I was bullied. If this song came out when I was at school, I may have stepped out of my shell more, but no, I had to wait until 2007 when I was in my last year studying A-Levels to hear of this man called MIKA.

And boy did my life change for the better!

Being a fan of Mika gave me the confidence to do weird and crazy things. I did this video for his MySpace competition in May 2007 (Oh, I won it, by the way) and no way would I have done this in school.



It was definitely a turning point. I decided that if there were things I wanted to do, I was going to do it, and the best way to do these things is to just dive in without giving it a second thought. If I second guessed doing this video I probably wouldn't have done it.

Since then I've done several things for Mika and gone to a lot of Mika events. I've travelled on my own a lot more and in London too, and for someone who grew up quite sheltered it was a pretty big step for me. There's a world outside these four walls that make a house, you know? It's there to be seen and I intend to do a lot of sight seeing and memory making.

Anyway I digress slightly. Year 2009 gave me a lot of good memories and all these Mika events helped give me a bit more independence. Mika threw yet another video competition, this time to his song "We Are Golden" and the (original) rules were that you had to dance around in your room in your underwear, like he does in his video. Having lost a lot of weight and feeling more confident about my appearence in general, plus being a performer (though you wouldn't have thought it in that Lollipop video), I thought "Why not?"

The song means a lot to me. It picks me up when I'm feeling down, it gives me that feeling of power. I've decided it's the song that will be played at my funeral, and I apologise if that's a bit morbid for people. I got it all planned out: NO-ONE wearing black, and a video of my best/happiest moments throughout all my years to the song. Looks brilliant in my head - I don't want my funeral to be depressing, I want people to celebrate my life and the things I have done. That's why I take so many pictures and videos, so it can be passed on. I also want to be Golden in my after-life and want to inspire others to live life to their fullest.

That's what the song's about really anyway; about living for yourself and not giving a toss about other people's opinions "Who gives a damn about the family you come from? No giving up when you're young and you want some" "I live for glitter, not you".

I love all the chanting that goes with it. It's so incredible, beautiful, astounding and amazing live. It's like we're all in a cult or something, hearing everyone shout "WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE, WE ARE GOLDEN! WE ARE GOLDEN!" It's so powerful.

So I put parts of this Mika gig I went to in my song. Even if I don't win the competition, I put my Mika friends in there and Mika himself because it's these people that helped me become who I am today. It's true, people do influence you and I'm glad I'm not the same person I was more than 4 years ago. This video kind of celebrates my "golden-ness", if you will, and the person I have to thank the most is Mika himself.

I made several versions and this is the final video. It took me about 21 hours editing alone.

Enjoy :-)

Mika - The Pub Experience

Just before the physical release of Mika's first single "We Are Golden" from his sophomore album "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", Mika went a tad crazy on Twitter and was telling his fans that he was going to throw a special event to celebrate the new song. I was very excited, but felt that I wouldn't be able to go on this particular day, so was praying that the day would get changed.

I have been a fan of Mika since late January/early February 2007, so basically right from the very beginning. He has helped improve my character and has made me a more confident person and it's also because of him that my art has improved. It is also because of him that I have become more independent. It took me two and a half years to meet him (Sadler's Wells, June 8th 2009) and although it was for a split second, it was one of the best split seconds ever. There aren't many other feelings better than when you meet your idol. If I went to the pub with Mika, it would mean time being spent with my Mika friends plus personal time with Mika himself. Precious.

Mika announced that the pub party would start at about 7pm and I found out two hours earlier that very day. I was free that day. I could go. I got dressed as quick as I could and hopped on that train to Fenchurch Street, and then onwards to the Underground.

I met my friend Danika outside Ladbroke Grove station (as it's near Portobello Road, where the pub was) and Danika had told me that Mika had already arrived. (I got there at about 8ish). I was excited yet calm, and as I arrived at the destination I saw a small crowd of people outside. I walked in and clocked Mika's mother and his younger sister. Danika led me to the MFC table which consisted of a small bunch, but with people from Essex (like me) London, Hertfordshire and Wiltshire. Apparently Mika had already gone up to the table and spoke to them before I arrived, and unfortunately he had already left by the time I got to London. Still, whilst sipping on my free alcoholic drink (thank you, Mika!) and mingling with the MFC, I was on the lookout for Mika in case he came back.

And of course he did!

He mingled around the pub for a little while, chatting to a few people, but then he strolled to the DJ booth area and started to choose a few songs and play them. I ofcourse took plenty of pictures.



I've never actually had a picture *with* Mika, and that night didn't seem like the right time to get one in my opinion. I don't really know why, I just didn't want to pester him plus it was a personal moment too. My time will come, but for now I had to make do with a picture of me with Mika in the background. LOL! I look pretty shocking with the random strands of hair on my forehead (it's meant to be a side fringe)...hmm, the left hand side is not my good side. Oh well!



Feeling brave, I approached Mika and asked him if he was going to play "We Are Golden". He leaned in near my face and explained that he didn't have the song with him, but if someone had it he'll play it. He was so close I could feel his breath my face. It was slightly surreal. I replied, saying that I knew someone who had it and went to fetch them. A few problems occured, but eventually the song was played and the whole pub got up and started to dance and sing the lyrics.



Thank God Mika started to DJ because the songs got a whole lot better, and the "pub turned into a club" -- Mika's words. I managed to wiggle myself down to the front of the booth and rave with the rest of the crowd, including an old man. Mika found this quite funny and ended up taking pictures on his phone, which I am actually in, but only by a fraction!

In this one you can see my eye next to the old man's ear on the right.



And the same place here.



Mika had Jemma's iPod and started to play songs from it. Jemma had his song "Rain" on there (which is to be his new single in Europe) and he played it! Everyone sang to it and raved to it, and as you can see from my video Mika's face is beaming!



Here are just a few random pictures that I took plus one last video.











Last but not least, I managed to get Mika to pose for my camera. That's a very proud moment of mine. Here it is!



It was not long after this that it started to get late and it was my time to leave. I spoke to Mika again to say thank you for an amazing night, to which he said "No problem" (I think. My brain had turned to mush by this point) and he placed his hand on my shoulder.

I turned to leave, when I heard another new song of his fill the pub. It was "Blame It On The Girls", so I decided to party to one last song and then I left...for good.

I was in a state of euphoria and bliss and couldn't stop thinking about what happened. I didn't just celebrate with friends and an idol, I celebrated with someone famous but the atmosphere was so casual. And it felt so normal, as well. Luckily the party came to end not long after I left so I don't have much to be jealous about!

I feel very privileged to have had such personal time with him and is definitely an experience I won't be forgetting.

Portraits for Pleasure - We Are Golden

I promised myself I would draw a picture inspired by the Mika song "We Are Golden" but struggled to conjure up any imagery. And I'm talking weeks here: figuring out how to interpret this song into a drawing took a mighty long time.

Just a few short days ago my house was filled with boredom, so I decided to stick on Mika's first concert DVD and also brought his second DVD into the living room so I could watch them both in order (Yeah, I really wasn't busy that day). I was flicking through the booklet that came with his second DVD and my eyes stopped at this picture.



I had always wanted to draw this picture but for some reason just never did. Now I had a reason to. "We Are Golden" is about giving yourself value and realising you have worth, and what I love about that picture is that Mika is wearing a golden mask, but on his head and not on his face. To me, it says that he doesn't really need to wear a mask to prove how golden he is, because that's what he really is.

So I started drawing! This is the first draft, and the mouth is completely dodgy lol.



I really like this next picture because of the intense shading. Of course there was still a lot more work to do, but it was also my first time using pencils of different thickness and it was turning out rather well.



It was at this stage where the picture began to look more like Mika! More detail plus the afro-fied hair which um...wasn't entirely meant to happen. Sorry Meeks.



I shouldn't brag, but I love the mouth detail. However, there's something about this picture that doesn't quite seem...Mika like. It just doesn't entirely look like him and I can't understand why. Sort of hated doing the shirt.



Starting to see a pattern yet? Greyscale face with a splash of colour. Looks more like Mika in this picture I think. I used charcoal for the hair. Still afro-fied though.



Okay, so the mask isn't great. What was difficult about the mask was that I had a gold colouring pencil, but it was light and wouldn't stand out well enough against the dark hair, and I had a gold permanent marker pen but was too bold, so I decided to mash them together to create light and shade. It could have gone a lot better if I had the right stuff. Oh well, it's done now. I also put gold glitter eyeliner over the top to add sparkle (No really, I did.)



By the time I got to this part I was really tired (it was late at night and I was doing this for 5-6 hours straight) and I couldn't bring myself to do the mask by his face. So, like a lazy person, I disguised it and wrote the word "Golden" inside it. So far this is the final piece. The shading doesn't look so intense next to all the colours and the charcoal, so I may have to work on that more when I have inspiration/when I can be bothered. But here it is so far and I'm quite proud of it.

Behold MIKA - The Golden Boy!