It's a Christmas miracle!

Gosh. It's been a while, but I always do come back.

I've been missing writing, and I want to pick it up again.

Right now it's tricky, because it's Christmas, and I'm listening to Cabin Pressure with my family. So I can't concentrate. Despite how often I multitask, I am not very good at it. Nor are you, actually. Multitasking is one of the great lies; we have finite resources for attention, and splitting that up between multiple tasks decimates the amount of energy we can dedicate to each. This is one of those times when the whole is truly less than the sum of its parts.

I would like to address my most recent post of a little over a year ago (making this, I think my longest hiatus yet). I was depressed! It kicked in again in November this year, and I couldn't work out what was wrong, until I brought my blog up. "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again," as the saying goes. It helps to remember that.

The doc's prescribed me a whole bunch of anti-allergy stuff, and I'm feeling in better health than I have done in a very long time. And feeling well in body has left me feeling well in mind! So that's been awesome! I'm getting a bit of the seasonal malaise, but (today aside) I've been eating far better lately. Let's try and work some exercise into that, and we'll be away.

Did you miss me?

Sometimes you don't know what you've been missing until you're in the middle of it.

Tonight I caught up with a lot of very good friends. Many of us apologised to everyone for 'being antisocial lately.' It happens so easily sometimes, doesn't it; you're busy for a bit, or fancy some alone time, and the next thing you know you haven't seen some of your favourite people for months.

I've been very lonely and I don't think I saw a way out of that until tonight.

A couple of weeks ago I went home to visit my family. We did the usual Cowes Week things - beach barbecue, fireworks, catching up with my oldest friends - while thinking about how it might be very different next year. Dad's retiring, so a lot of things might have changed when I next go back.

One moment stands out though: it was so wonderful to swim in the sea again. It was the first time I've been swimming since... maybe over a year ago? Could be two. A long time. As I squeaked about the cold and inched my way deeper in, my sister said the sea had missed me, that it had been waiting for me to come back.

The thing that surprised me, both tonight and back on the island, was being reminded that there are other people who think like me. Whether it's my friend Zaru encouraging me to perform my poetry soon, or my brother Michael chatting to me about quantum physics, it's been a blessed relief to be around people who are interested in things that interest me. I don't get that at work.

I work with good people, kind people, but I don't have much common ground with them. I know nothing about football or reality TV, and am too scared to go digging for something real to talk about. So I've felt alienated. At first I thought they were a bit weird, but in the absence of anyone with whom to talk about that, the thought gradually became "I am completely abnormal."

Well, normal is all in the context. These people, my family and friends, are the context in which I make sense. They are my normal. They are my home.

Time

I'm not good enough. The list of things I would change about myself are as long as the phone book, and decidedly less interesting to read (and to write. As a favour to both of us, I will not enumerate them here). Ultimately, it's the length of the list that proved the biggest obstacle to my self-improvment; I get paralysed by the indecision. What's the biggest problem? What's the most urgent one? What needs long-term improvement? I have no idea. I hate lists.

I've always thought the "kid in a candy store" analogy didn't really encompass that moment: the moment when the kid clutches onto mum's skirt and hides their face because this is too many everythings.

I have, however, made a huge leap forward: I've targeted the one area that I really need to work on, and it's time management.

I've always been terrible at it. For the past 15 years, it's been the reason that I got incredibly creative with my excuses for having not done my homework. Remember this blog post? Of course you don't; it was seven freaking years ago (almost to the day), but it was by no means an isolated incident. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?

Maybe it's hereditary. My own family was habitually late everywhere. Memories of school mornings are a blur of stress and hurrying, trying to remember where in the chaos my shoes were.

One of the side effects of this perpetual lateness was that I am extremely paranoid about travel time. I am currently getting to work about an hour early in the mornings, just because the journey home sometimes takes a couple of hours. It's hard to calm myself down enough to actually leave home later in the morning. I prefer being early anyway, I tell myself. I don't get told off for being too early. I go for walks instead; mentally calculating and recalculating that, since it took ten minutes to get this far, I should allow twenty to go back. It doesn't make a lot of sense, I know.

Oh yes, that's a new development: work. I work full time in a call centre now; 36 hours a week, or thereabouts. So far I've had two weeks of training in customer service. I won't get paid until a month from now, due to fluctuations in the mysterious forces that govern administration. That's sad. I wanted money for my birthday this coming Tuesday. I'm deferring my celebrations until I am ludicrously wealthy a month from now. (This is my first full-time job; it will feel like affluence beyond reason to me!)

So my job isn't paying me yet, but what it is doing is forcing me to think harder about how I'm spending my time. If I want to catch up with friends, I can meet up with them in town for a couple of hours in the evening, or we can plan something on the weekend. That's it. No more spending a couple of days at a mate's house just because we've gotten addicted to a new cartoon. No more spending all day on tumblr, unless I've actively decided that that is what I need to do that day. (Sometimes that is what I need. Sometimes I crave the mental space to bumblebee around the internet, alighting on a topic for only so long as it takes my fancy.)

In other exciting (to me) news, a short story I wrote has been accepted for publication by the UK Zombie Defense League! I'll let you all know when it's out. I'm planning to buy the paperback and show it to everyone I pass for a month or two.

Here follows a miniature list of things I have been doing lately, in what I'll generously call my "hiatus":

• visited my family on the beautiful Isle of Wight
• saw Frankie Boyle perform, thanks to my lovely twitter-friend Meryl
• went to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm again
• discovered Gravity Falls and decided that Mabel is my soul twin
• the other stuff that I've already told you.

A few photos I've taken recently:

Judi, my big sister, who is crazy pretty and doesn't even know it

I finally managed to reattempt this after losing an SD card a few years back!

A helium princess. Blurry, but just about perfect.

To round things off and reward you for reading my witterings, here is a story told by Neil Gaiman, in which his family are more terribly late than mine ever were:

The February Post of Shame

I got twenty roses for Valentine's day. And a box of chocolates. It started out much like the occasion three years ago - no clues, and no idea - but the culprit eventually came forward.

If you're wondering why I've been so quiet lately, it's because my laptop finally gave up the ghost. The casing is cracked, the power cord frayed, and to be honest I had seen it coming for some months. (Of course, backing up was something I 'kept meaning to do,' so I'm still trying to resurrect it briefly. My tech support is proving slow despite the chocolate-and-biscuits bribery.) In the meantime I'm relying on a laptop borrowed from university, and desperately trying to cobble together a working computer out of bits a friend has lent me.

Oh! Remember my photoshoot with Rob May? Well the pictures are up now, check them out on this page if you're curious (find 'January Portraits').

I read out Butterflies! Do you remember me going on about a poem I was working on? Well it took three months and I was still making adjustments minutes before I performed it - damn thing just won't settle - but it went SO well and I'm really quite proud of myself. It's here if you want to read it.

Let's see, what else... we're looking for a place to live next year. Different landlord, because we are, to put it bluntly, Sick of This Shit. Also, I have loads of uni deadlines coming up so expect the obligatory breakdown post in mid-March.

If you miss me inbetween blog posts, I can do formspring / email / twitter etc. on my mobile phone, so I'm not completely disconnected (which is good or you'd find me huddled in my room around a campfire with animal hides everywhere).

Hope you're all well, sorry again for prolonged absence!

Present

I know I ought to write something here, but I can't for the life of me think what. Um. How are you? I'm good.

I've had a very traditional Christmas with my family, received some lovely gifts including a Bill Bailey DVD and the first season of Being Erica (delighted), seen the Tron sequel in 3D twice (veh good), and done precious little of the catching-up-with-friends that I was so looking forward to. And not through lack of lack of trying. I really didn't try at all, I'm not sure why; it's just that when I got here, it didn't seem awfully important. Anyway, I spent a lot of time with my family and got to see my oldest friend a couple of times, so I'm happy.

This is my current favourite video. It makes me gleeful; I hope it does the same for you.



Welcome to 2011, by the way! I think it's safe to say that this will go down in history as the year after 2010.

Beep!

Did you miss me? Did you? Oh. Well I missed you, my lovely blog and my lovely blog people! The radio silence is due to me moving house, and then having no internet for a couple of weeks. I'm going home to the Isle of Wight for a long weekend, but hopefully I'll be able to write something a bit more substantial from there!

No spoilers: LOST

There will be reviews of the finale springing up all over the internet in the coming days. They will range from "It was AWFUL" to "it was AWESOME," but that's not what I want to cover here. I want to talk about the part it's played in my life.

One of the main reasons I'm sorry to see Lost go is that it has served as a very effective, if transparent, excuse for hanging out with people I like for many years now. My family got me into it, having decided after the first three episodes that they liked it. I'm sure that, for them, the novelty wore off several seasons ago; and perhaps I'd have lost interest too, if it weren't for Stephen.

Stephen Wills is my honorary big brother. I've known him for my whole life, and craved his approval for about as long; in fact I'd say he was pretty instrumental in inspiring my lifelong love of geeks. I knew him when he was a blond-haired little boy playing with marbles, when he discovered Sonic the Hedgehog, when he was learning to drum and getting girlfriends... I'm a couple of years younger than him, so there was quite a while when we didn't really talk, but then we found out we had Lost in common. For a couple of seasons, my brother and sister and I would go to his flat to watch it with him. Then when he moved back to Newport, and I started doing my gap year work there, I'd watch it alone with him (and believe me, if I'd known how to hit on guys when I was 19, I would have done).

I grew up and moved away, although possibly not in that order; first to Plymouth, where I was alone, and then to Cardiff. In Cardiff I met Dan X. I picked up more or less where I'd left off with Stephen; going round to see him on a weekly basis and watching the latest episode. That's continued, sometimes with more people and sometimes not, right up until tonight. It's one of the things that helped me get to know a few people in Cardiff, so I guess it's one of the reasons this feels like home now.

This obsession has fuelled many discussions with my friends, ranging from vapid soap-opera style drama conversations through to philosophy and metaphysics. I'm helping to indoctrinate my friend Ben into the world of Lost, through which he's getting to know Dan as well. It's good to know that it's still doing that.

So I suppose it's time I found something new to obsess over. Any suggestions?

Kawaii LOST - Hurley and Smokey, originally uploaded by Jerrod Maruyama.

Home

I feel oddly restless when I come online. There was a time I'd go to a forum, but I've more or less abandoned those. Or I'd log in to IRC, but I don't do that any more. And since I restarted my twitter account (foolish, foolish me), there aren't many people to talk to there either. So I fire up my laptop, open firefox, and feel...

Unsettled. Unhomed.

My dissertation is going to be about home, and what that means. As a student, I move from house to house every year, so that's not home. My parents' house isn't home, not any more. Home has become something a bit more elusive, a bit less defined.

So, I suppose part of me is looking for something to get obsessed about. A website or event or group of people I can relate to, connect with, belong with. Likeminded people. Ah well, I can keep dreaming. There may well be thousands of people with minds a lot like mine, but I wouldn't know where to find them.

A random memory

Occasionally, a memory completely unrelated to anything surfaces in my mind, and I realise that I never blogged about it.

Here's the thing. You know how in big cities, particularly where there are universities, it's not so unusual to see superman and a cowboy enjoying a pint in the evening? Well back on the Isle of Wight, that wasn't such a common occurrence. Which is why this event stood out so much at the time.

There was a man - probably a man, I couldn't tell. For the sake of argument, let's say 'man' - sat on a bus, upstairs, at the front, and wearing a chicken suit. He had a Sooty and a Sweep puppet on his hands, and was dancing to silent tunes with massive earphones on.

Like this but less aggy.

I was with a friend, (or possibly my sister, I don't remember now), and it made me braver than I would otherwise have been, so when the chicken man made Sweep talk to me - incomprehensible squeaks, for those who didn't have a childhood - I squeaked back. We had a brief and meaningful squeak conversation, and my day was made.

a burning thing

Earlier today, my dad was struggling to get the fire lit. He'd finally given up on it when I, never one to back away from a burny challenge, stepped up. "Don't worry, father!" I cried, cape possibly billowing behind me. "I'll take care of this!"

So, I knelt, and I poked, and I crumpled, and I blew, but the flame kept giving up. The twigs just weren't that enthusiastic about it all, and the paper - while enthusiastic - didn't have much in the way of stamina.

After some time (I don't know how long, time flies when you're setting light to things), I began to lose hope. That dying flame reminded me of so much about myself. Fire has long been a metaphor for spirituality, for me in particular (partly due to reading these wonderful books as a child), so to kneel there and watch it try and die over and over again was really quite depressing.

So I did something I don't often do these days: I prayed. Praying was the first thing I did to see in 2010 (the second being a massive balloon fight), as I'd wanted to see the new year in properly; so, being off to a good start, I thought I'd continue the trend. "God," I thought, "you know how hard I've tried to get set alight again - well I'm going to leave it to you now. Please make it burn." I sat and watched as the flame licked the wood, making paper die and twigs glow, but as the glow got softer and colder, I gradually gave up hope. I left. I didn't want to see that last spark go out, not after such a good start to the year.

A couple of hours later, as I wandered through to the kitchen to help dad with dinner, I saw that there was a roaring fire going. "Oh, you got it lit in the end" I said.

"No, you did!" he replied. Apparently after I'd given up and left, the fire had kept burning. It had taken hold.

It's going to be a good year.

Chrimblas-related stuff and things

Lately I've been staying up late. Like, five-in-the-morning late. I've got a pretty big family, and while Christmas at home is by no means as chaotic as it once was (running to wake up the parents at 6am to show them what Father Christmas brought us in the night), late evening / early morning is pretty much the only time I get to be alone right now.

I've been on the Isle of Wight with my family for three weeks or so now, so I'm missing Gavin like crazy - especially at night, when of course I can't call him and talk to him. Such is life. But if it's been hours since we spoke, it's been weeks since we saw each other, and it's been a month - maybe more - since we actually got much time together. I've had deadlines and he's had work, and a million other reasons, all culminating in a big idiotic missathon. Missathon should be a word. Although it kinda makes 'Jonathon' sound like it means an abundance of Jon, which is -

Where was I?

Yes, so, Christmas! That's where I have been. Not that Christmas is a place, or anything, oh lord why can't I think straight? I have had too much chocolate, done too little exercise, watched too much television, and generally upheld Britain's finest festive traditions. Believe me, I'm already planning to hit the gym in January (HA).

I've been feeling awfully uncreative lately, too. It's become quite apparent that I'm not going to be a comedian (I appreciate funny like you wouldn't believe, but am incapable of producing it), and am questioning my ability to write. It's all about hard work though, really. If I could discipline myself, I'd be able to write something special (or so I persist in believing, despite a complete dearth of evidence for this (Also, mini-hellyes: that may be the first time I've used dearth in a sentence. New word! Woo! (Never lose track of your parentheses, kids.))).

So, as I can't embed any photos or drawings from my illustrious self, you'll have to make do with this instead:

Head Trip is an awesome webcomic, I've been reading it since I discovered this strip. (Yes, I discovered the backlash long before I discovered the books. Possibly influencing my decision to read it, as we young 'uns say, 'for teh lulz.')

O hai!

Hello, hello! It's been over two months since I last updated my blog. That's a very odd feeling, you know. This blog is my baby, but I wasn't doing you lot justice by saying "I'll update properly later" every week or so.

Y'see, I do care what you think. Every new reader makes me smile, and every comment gives me something to think about. But even apart from that, I'd keep this just for me. You know I would! Just like I did four years ago when I began, and nobody read it but me and an American radio presenter called Les. (I liked Les. I wonder how he is now?)

It makes to begin this post, as I have done with so many others, with a recap of what I've been up to lately. Just over a month ago I went home to the Isle of Wight, my beautiful island that I'd been missing so much. It was exactly what I needed. Some valuable family time, including a family reunion with my gorgeous, newest cousin Josie. Doesn't seem like that long ago I was celebrating her birth (I know for a fact I wrote a post in honour of her arrival, but I can't seem to find it now), and now she looks like this!

Josie

So, yes, there was an element of "My Haven't You Grown" happening in my head. At least now, I know that when friends of the family said that to me, they were secretly thinking "Good Lord I'm old."

I was equally delighted to spend a fair bit of time catching up with old friends. We went bowling, hung out on a beach in the rain, went to the cinema - all the usual stuff we used to do back when we were 17-19! I'd particularly like to thank Lucy, on the off-chance that she reads this, for being my rock when I go a little bit crazy. She's like a big sister to me.

Oh, speaking of big sisters, my biggest (in spirit) sis just got engaged! I couldn't be more delighted for her. Very exciting times!

After that little refresher course in Reasons My Family Drive Me Crazy (But I Love 'Em), I went to Southampton and the cruise began... it was a Cunard cruise, which essentially meant that I was outclassed by everyone and everything right down to the tablecloths, but that I got treated like royalty. Here follow some pictures of what I got up to:

The pool at night

The stateroom

Danger in Italy

One sunset

Ape on Gibraltar

All dressed up

Jump

I'm back in Cardiff now, getting on with all the stuff that needs getting on with when you've been away for a month. And looking for a job. There's just no avoiding it any more, finances won't allow me to stick my head in the sand, so I need to get out there and do an honest day's work like everyone else! So you can look forward to lots of complaining about a) not having a job or b) how my job sucks. Those appear to be my only options. Bummer. I'm also trying very very hard not to bite my nails, but you know the saying - old habits die hard. And this is the Bruce Willis of old habits.

And, just to leave you with some Interesting Things, I've had two songs stuck in my head lately - Coin-Operated Boy by the Dresden Dolls:

and Surfin' Bird, which goes like this (yes, I curse Family Guy every time I get it playing on the mental gramophone.)

Nostalgia: the Bandstand

Well, I've been wanting to write this post for ages, but I really wanted to take my time with it. This post is about something very precious and important to me.

The church I went to growing up was boring. Dull, dull, dull. Don't get me wrong: I love it very much, and it will always feel like my home, but it was just impossible to get excited about singing those dirges from the 19th century. It was geared towards the older people, which made sense as there were loads of them, but for the kids... well, it failed to thrill us.

Which was why the Bandstand was so special.

That's what it was called, the Bandstand. It felt like a separate world. It happened in the summer, late on a Sunday night, and it was like nothing else I've ever experienced...

(I'm speaking, of course, with the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia perched on my nose. That's often how it goes with things that end before you grow up. I'm almost glad it did; doubtless it would never have been the same if I'd gone there as a teenager, sulking and scowling my way through the hymns...)

This is how it would happen: our mother, not wanting us to get tired while we were there, would insist that we take a nap beforehand. Let me tell you, never in my life was it harder to sleep than on a beautiful summer day before the Bandstand. Mum would close the heavy yellowy-gold curtains of our bedroom, and there in the yellow-gold light, we'd try (and often fail) to sleep.

Then we'd go to a little park in a little town on a little island. The birds in the aviary would chirp and sing as we passed, walking towards the river. Bright lights would illuminate the stepping stones, the beautiful plants, and the magical, elusive little fish that flitted through the water.

Most of my siblings fell in that river at one point! when it was my turn, it was a consequence of a selfless act... one of about three I committed before the age of 12. Maybe that's why I remember it. My brother was sailing a little leaf-boat past the stepping stones, reaching out to catch it as it floated past, until (inevitably) he let it go beyond the reach of his little boy arms. So, me being on Big Sister duty, I stretched to catch it... and fell in. The lights made everything so strange and beautiful, and I swear that in that half a second I saw the bright orange fishes swimming around me.

We weren't allowed to stay on the stepping stones, or to climb the trees, or to play in the park for long, though. Because over by the bandstand structure itself, in front of a little raised and covered platform near the trees, a tiny congregation would gather in the fading light as the night grew colder, singing from a little booklet of hymns. A friendly man with a goatee played the keyboard from the platform, playing the songs that we rarely sang outside of this one special occasion. I often wondered how the people who were so stiff and formal in a building on Sunday mornings, could be so at peace in the breathtaking wonder of nature?

Three or four minutes away from those harmonies that rose above the enthusiastic midges, was a playpark - a magical place for us kids. We'd go there every time, pretend the roundabout was taking us to places that only existed in our imaginations. And the swings! When you got them high enough, right at the top of the arc, you could see over the hedge to the edge of the world, where the sun set over neverending ocean, and nothing else. Just sea and sky. For those brief seconds, I could rise above all the world and be so completely free.

Even if there was never a God, that would be enough.

I know these songs will mean nothing to you, but to me, they mean so much. If you want to hear them, and you've got Spotify - I've only managed to remember / track down these three - click this link:
http://open.spotify.com/user/thiefree/playlist/4Yb0ZVGtOQGZNvwaHM4Cmq

This is a really long shot, but there was one song I remember the most. It was the one people would always be so eager to sing, another song that was unique to that time and that place - so much so that it's not online. Not anywhere. I've written what I remember of the lyrics below... if you can tell me anything about it, I'd be so grateful!

It's a new life, oh how He changed me
A new life, He rearranged me,
A new life, richer and fuller,
It's a wonderful, wonderful life!

Gone is the old life and gone are its chains,
Gone are the wrinkles and gone are the stains,
Gone is the darkness and gone is the night,
I have found Jesus, the truth and the life...

I went back once, years ago, and took these pictures. So although it wasn't the same - how could it be? - I at least have these reminders.

Volunteers and things in ears

Ever been 'volunteered' for something? As in, told that you were going to do it and then left to deal with that fact? Of course you have. Well, last Thursday was the date of a church party that my sister had volunteered me, my brother, and my youngest sister for.

We were all up visiting her for the week, and had been shopping a few times and watched a lot of movies by this point. When I got to the church on Thursday, I started blowing up balloons for the games. I'd been told what game I was going to run, and secretly I was delighted to return to something I knew that I was good at. I did a year of youth work for a Christian charity on the Isle of Wight (something I've blogged about on many previous occasions), so I have a huge repertoire of games. We played quite a few classics that night; Mafia, this is a tick, Splat, and of course musical chairs. We were catering for people aged 15 to 90. My previous experience with youth work had been a lot more... youthy, but I distracted myself by taking photos of everything in sight.

These were the lights in the kitchen of that church - look how pretty! Oooooh! (Photographers are much like magpies. Anythign that looks even vageuly interesting, and we're as good as hypnotised!)

While we were staying with my sister, I absolutely fell in love with a cat that had adopted her. The cat's called Lilcat Freesian, or Lily Freesia for short, and is a one-eyed beauty with a heart on her back. Sadly her real owners showed up towards the end of the week, but I absolutely loved having some kitty time anyway! Honestly, those of you with full-time cats are very lucky indeed, I have to borrow cats from my friends.

I'm back with my parents on the Isle of Wight now, after a beast of a train journey that was meant to be direct (but ended up with two changes and huge delays). I've been meeting up with old friends and relaxing (as relaxing as anything can be when you're once again surrounded by siblings) and I'm very much looking forward to getting home to Cardiff!

I got a phone call from my boyfriend this morning. He's - how much of this have I told you? - He's on a stag do for his best friend, and they successfully survived the mountain-climbing part. He hasn't been so lucky with the pubs and clubs part, however, as apparently he had to be taken to a medical centre to remove something from his ear with pliers! Now, I love and respect my boyfriend tremendously, but if I can't mock him relentlessly for that then there's just no point us being together, is there.

What I love most about rivers

Last night was an interesting one. I'm home on the Isle of Wight with my family, and I finally managed to get a visit home to coincide with Catalyst.

Catalyst is a Christian worship event for young people, run by a charity I used to work for. It's always had such an incredible atmosphere, and it's run by wonderful people that I was lucky enough to work with in my gap year. The kids at the event are people I've grown up with, some of whom I'm related to (part of living on quite a small island - you're guaranteed to keep meeting the same people over and over again!), so it was amazing to see them all. I got plenty of hugs and photos!

It's crazy to think that I haven't been a part of Catalyst for two years. Everyone's growing up! The quiet, shy kids who'd just started high school are turning into confident young adults, and I'm kind of sorry I wasn't there to see it happen. There were a lot of new faces and a lot of friends missing... I guess it's true what they say, that you can never really go back.

But despite the hard times in my life lately, I wouldn't want to go back. I'm happy in Cardiff, and very much in love with my wonderful man (wish him luck, by the way, he's climbing mountains for a mate's stag party and I'm suitably worried). There have been a lot of teething troubles in the past few months, but I'm getting stronger and bolder by the day. So today, surrounded by the people and places of my past, I'm looking to the future more than ever.

I'm going to visit my sister, so I might not get online this week (whimper!) but you can always follow my Twitter if you want to check that I'm not dead.

Interesting thing of the day: My Name is Sylar! Quick and funny.

And oh I do love Sylar. Why is it always the psychos that have the most appeal?! Psychos and vampires.

A thousand words

I'll admit, sometimes the news becomes background noise. Ok, often the news is just background noise, and although I've heard about the fires in Australia, I hadn't registered them consciously as a real event until I saw this series of photos from The Big Picture. The wheels of the cars melted. People have died. And those pictures made it real to me in a way that concerned voices on the radio just didn't. My thoughts go out to those affected by this tragedy (translated from news-speak: Australians, I am so sorry. For reals).

The Big Picture is a thoroughly wonderful blog, and I recommend it if you're even vaguely interested in photography.

I've had a good week; I finally feel like I'm getting things together a bit. Today I gave blood and signed up for the bone marrow donor thing, and they gave me some chocolate chip cookies. Done, and done!

I'm going home on Friday - Home home, Isle of Wight home - which will be lovely. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. And by everyone I mean the eleven people who haven't yet left.

Also, you know those maple and pecan plaits? They ROCK. I'm craving them hardcore these days, mostly because I'm trying to cut back on chocolate! Stupid substitute addictions.

Photographs and pachyderms

2 weeks between posts? Impossible! Unfathomable! Unheard-of!

Well, as it's the run-up to Christmas (sudden realisation: 3 DAYS?!), everyone's been very busy, myself included. I've made the should-have-been-so-simple journey home...

It was an interesting journey, actually. Our train broke down, so we had to board a second train that would take us two stops so that we could get on a THIRD train that would take us the route we were supposed to go in the first place. I was on the second train, wrestling my unwieldy bag into one of the less crowded corners, when I got talking to a girl called Amy. For once, it wasn't me who initiated the conversation, and I was grateful for someone to talk to.

It turned out that she had come from Cardiff too. She's studying maths at Cardiff uni, and plans to take teacher training. However I suspect that in the 20 minutes we were talking, she found out more about me than I did about her. She found out about my course, my depression, my boyfriend, and which church I'm going to. Apparently she lives just round the corner from me, and occasionally even goes to an event held at my church! Chalk that one down to coincidence, providence, fate, whatever. But it was interesting.

Last Friday was particularly lovely; Gavin always makes it very special when he gives me presents - candles, music, performing bears and the like - and this was no exception. He made a real song and dance out of giving me my present, and rightly so.

I am now the proud and excited owner of a Nikon D40!


The lens I've got is better than the one shown; 18-70mm instead of 18-55. The D40 is the camera everyone has recommended as a good entry-level DSLR. I've spent the past few days trying to familiarise myself with all the buttons. There are a lot of buttons.

It actually took me about a year to find all the functions on my little digital camera, mostly because I never intended to get as interested in it all as I did! I thought it would be fun, a toy; a way to make memories. Instead I ended up wishing I could fiddle with the depth of field... well, I can now.

I haven't taken many photos yet, and very few that are fit for the public to see, but you can always check out my flickr page if you want to see what I've taken recently.

Interesting thing of the day: Achievement Unlocked, a cute and quick little game in which you are an elephant.

On the importance of internet and family, and how they both kinda suck

When I'm having a bad day, and the depression seems to have a firm hold of my mind, pure escapism is the only way I can convince myself that things are ok.

When I was a child, fantasy books were my escape. I'd spend every breaktime, every lunchbreak, sat in the library huddled over some new mystery; some enthralling adventure that would take me away from real people for a while.

These days, I seem to have been struck with that curious perspective disorder that makes people further away seem more important. I could be talking to my family; the people I love, who I grew up with, and will miss when they're gone. But for some reason I need to escape them sometimes and talk to a chatroom full of Americans who don't know me. That's how I escape.

The escape has been going fairly well lately. A couple of people I really respect have acknowledged me, which validates my existence in some tiny, pathetic way; and makes me think that perhaps I matter. (Yes, I know this is a very emo post - I'm unhappy. Deal with it.)

That said, my 'internet friends' can't bring me comfort the same way as a phone call from my sister. Nobody on any of the forums I frequent know me and understand me as well as my brother (aside from, erm, my brother). And nobody will be there when it all goes tits-up the way my family will. So tonight I have to remind myself that, one day, I will regret every second I passed them over in favour of a faceless name on IRC.

That doesn't mean they don't drive me crazy sometimes, though, 'cuz they do.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

One of my youth leaders used to say that all the time. Whenever we'd gone a bit off-course or crazy, we'd be dragged back to this proverbial ranch in order to continue with the plan. So here I am, back with my family, on the Isle of Wight, hoping to get back on track.

Before I left Cardiff, Gavin and I were lucky enough to see Wales vs. New Zealand at the Millennium Stadium. I was very excitable, pointing everything out to G as if I'd never left my little island before. Sadly my camera's batteries died very early on so I only got two or three pictures, but here followeth an account.

We found our way through the crowds to the stadium, stopping to buy hotdogs and drinks on the way. When in Rome, as they say! After finding our seats without too much trouble, we sat down and waited for half an hour or so as I got increasingly excited by everything around me.

"Whoooaahhhh it's so BIG in here! It's like really big! Gav, look! There's a hole in the roof! Oooh look a brass band. Who do you reckon those men are? Oh my gosh listen to them sing, they're singing! It's so beautiful! Whooo!"

Gav: "You don't whoooo at a rugby match."

"Why not?"

"It's not the done thing. It's embarrassing."

"But I want to whoooo...."

The stadium got more and more filled up as we watched the All-Blacks warming up on the pitch. (The Welsh side having presumably gone for a pint.) Eventually the Welsh side put on a delightful little fashion show - posing in their red kit before changing into grey for reasons unbeknownst to me - and started warming up too.

Then, the BBC Sports personality of the year, Joe Calzaghe, walked out onto the pitch to frantic applause.

Gav (standing): "YEAHHHHH WHOOOOOO"

Me: *smug grin*

G: "Shut up."

Things began with national anthems, and shooting pillars of flame, and the All-Blacks doing their awesome warrior dance. Why don't any other teams have awesome dances? The English team could do Morris dancing. It would be ace.

The game itself was as thrilling as anything can be when you don't fully understand it. I don't know why the referee stops play 95% of the time, but that didn't stop me from gasping and cheering and applauding with everyone else when things got exciting. Wales were ahead at half time, as Gav and I got another hotdog each, but by the time we got back Wales had blown it.

To be fair, the better team won: they'd been neater, better organised, throughout. Still. I was very glad to have the opportunity to see that game.



I don't know what I'm going to be doing down here this week, but I'll keep you updated. I'm going out for a meal with ma famille now, so... I'll catch you later!

Smiths, Geeks and Furniture

Back home on the Isle of Wight, I knew a girl, D. Smith. Her mother's maiden name was Smith, and it amused me greatly that her parents could have hyphenated their surnames into Smith-Smith when they got married.

D got engaged to a young man by the name of T Smith, thus opening up the possibility of a Smith-Smith-Smith union... an opportunity passed up by D, but not by her brother, J. J married miss C Smith, so they could have been Mr J and Mrs C Smith-Smith-Smith. However, in the interest of minimising paperwork and avoiding ridicule, they all stuck as Smith. What a waste.

Back when I was doing my Theology course, the 2 hours of travel on a Monday morning left me with a lot of time to think. My friends and I once spent a happy hour working out who I'd have to marry and divorce in order to get the name Anna Rose-Smith-Smith-Rose. I will most likely never get that name, and this saddens me.

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I've recently been reading a lot by Wil Wheaton. Here's a sample of his style, as he recounts his take as an adult watching himself in Star Trek as a teenager.

Riker looks around the bridge, sees all the commissioned officers he has available to him, does a quick scan of the ship's manifest to see who's on duty . . . and decides to send Wesley Freakin' Crusher to "discreetly" sneak a peek at Data. Worf says, "Uh, excuse me, Commander, but since I'm kind of in the security department and all, and I'm a big old Klingon, shouldn't maybe I go check this out?"

Riker replies, "I'm not going to lie to you, Worf: we all know that if there's anything funky going on down there, you're just going to get your ass kicked. So I'm sending the Boy Wonder and his giant brain instead."

Wesley jumps up from his console and shouts, "Wheee! I'm in Starfleet!" as he skips to the turbolift.

Read more of his memories on the set of The Next Generation here, I thoroughly recommend it!

My recent journeys through his blog have convinced me that he's a remarkably intelligent, humble man with a keen sense of humour, so I've bought his book 'Just a Geek'. Expect a review on that soon, I'm certainly enjoying it so far!

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Today's interesting thing is WebUrbanist. I've been browsing for a bit being amazed at bookshelves - sounds dull, I know, but I'm very impressed with the originality and ingenuity of the designs. This one, for example, is built into a staircase:


There's plenty more on convertible furniture and recycled art, if you're into that sort of thing.

PS. I see from the poll that you guys are ALL ABOUT the button-clicking, so expect more polls whenever I can think of something!