aMUSEd

Anticipation my lovelies is one of the most indescribable feelings in the world. For me personally it works as a motivation which keeps pulling me forward and gives me the much needed strength to face all the difficulties I might come across. Last week’s motivation for me has been, you won’t believe it, a concert. As a part of their world tour for their new album “The 2^nd law”  my favorite band MUSE finally made a stop in Austria for a concert in Vienna. Since I have been too young to go to one of their gigs in the previous years, it is really a dream come true.
So for all those who have never heard of this band before I’ll give you a few basic facts which everybody should know about them. MUSE is a rock band founded in 1994 in Great Britain and consists of the three insanely talented musicians Matthew Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard. So far they’ve published 6 studio albums and 3 live albums and I actually came across them for the very first time in a Twilight movie and instantly started to get interested in their music. Since that moment they never ceased to amaze me. Their bedazzling lyrics and the intense tunes and rhythms will always astonish me and have never let me down in any way. For that very reason I was really excited to go their concert and it was really worth it because they simply blew me away. I was overwhelmed by their live performance and how powerful just the voice of the lead vocalist was in a live gig. They had an amazing set list and an amazing show which made it even more incredible to be standing in the crowd and to cheer them on.
After two and a half hours of an intense performance it was over again, unfortunately. But I can only say that this experience has encouraged me to go to more concerts in the future and to go see them again whenever I can seize the chance. MUSE was and will always be the one reason why I started to get interested in music so much and therefore I can not be grateful enough.

My oddest passion

Okay, just to give you a heads-up: I am really into unicycling. It might sound like a really weird spare time activity, and you guys might wonder how that could possibly be entertaining at all but I started with this hobby because I am always up for a good competition. And learning how to unicycle was one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had to face. My dad was actually the one who came up with the idea of giving unicycling a try and asked me whether I would be ready to face such a challenge. We agreed to at least try it out and the first time we stood in front of a unicycle together I was really convinced that I could do it and I just sincerely hoped that my clumsiness wouldn’t be standing in my own way.  After we bought it, I was still really optimistic and didn’t worry about the possibility of either being unsuccessful or unable to learn it or of getting hurt, but when I first got to sit on the unicycle it felt like I was sitting on something that wasn’t made for being ridden. It practically scared the living daylights out of me and I refused to ever sit on it again unless I found my protectors from years ago. On wobbly legs I succeeded to mount the beast a second time but I was shaking so hard that I couldn’t even ride it for more than 10 centimeters without feeling the urge to hold on to something.
Now for all those reasons mentioned above, the following will most probably sound like a huge lie, but within 48 hours I succeeded in driving at least 25 meters without any help. That might sound relieving but I am very sorry to disappoint. Although it were only 48 hours that it took me to succeed, at least 90 % of the time were spent sitting on the unicycle driving  our drive way up and down for at least 300 times. Dedicating my time to it though wasn’t the biggest challenge because you won’t believe it: unicycling is pretty exhausting as well! When you ride a unicycle you don’t just need to make use of your legs and feet, you also need to be able to balance yourself with your arms and to brake or change directions with the help of your hips and lower abdomen. Furthermore the pedals of the unicycle are immobile and the bar the saddle is attached to on the other hand isn’t which means you can always fall forwards or backwards while sitting on the unicycle. So you don’t only need a lot of strength and coordination to do it, but also a great deal of balance.
Now you might ask yourself whether it is worth to dedicate so much of your time to a hobby that seems useless, but it really is. Not only your equilibrium but also your body posture really profit from this kind of “sport” and once you can really do it, you won’t believe how much fun it actually can be!