May 2005 Archives

... read this I felt very grown up and very scared!

It's hard to write about Ian and I thesedays. We read each other's shit. We disagree on some things. I know he knows it's true and I know that this is okay to blog about because all our really really serious shit gets settled off camera.

It's been a learning experience, to say the very least. After one extreme disagreement, fuelled (as they do seem to be) by my strange tendancy to want to discuss things after spending quality time with premium beer (and the complicating not drunk/drunk rule), I sent him a message the next day. It said something akin to the following: To go from being apart for a year at a time for 3 years and then go to living with each other in close quarters is an enormous step, and to have arguments like this one is completely natural.
I truly truly believe this.

I have to share everything. Things that a stranger can't do, he can - he can finish the caramel chocloate digestives and I can't be really angry. I don't WANT to be angry about biscuits. That shit is inconsequential with him. But if I ain't dating you and you eat the last McVities prepare to die.

Tonight he's out with some friends, and I have stayed home. Because I wanted to. And I know he wasn't happy about it. But I know it'll pass because we love each other. That is incredibly empowering. We aren't petty. I sometimes fall into the petty zone and find that as soon as I think about how happy he makes me, biscuits and evenings out and all of the stupid other things are just so damn secondary.

His is the face I see every morning, and he's the one I think about every time I shop for dinner, buy a new top, make plans to do things.

The biggest change has been to go from being by myself to being with someone.
On the one hand, I'm going from completely independant to having to consider someone else at least 50% of the time.
And on the other hand, I'm going from being lonely to having someone who considers me at least 50% of the time.
And I don't do anything by half measures :)

Strange!

oo Frikkin' Late

Today was my first experience of a breakdown in public transport. After hearing that the Northern line wasn't running (at least, not from a station near to me) I decided to hang on to my digsmate and go to Wimbledon and grab the overland to Waterloo, then catching the Northern line to Charing Cross, my station for work.

So it wasn't the greatest - the closure of my station meant that EVERYONE was trying to catch a bus to an open station - so Dale and I decided to walk to Wimbledon. It's a gorgeous day today, and in a way I'm so happy to have walked - I feel very pepped right now.
So after a reasonable overland train trip I arrived at Waterloo, which was SWAMPED. Everyone was late for work, so everyone was tense, and there were also delays on other lines.

Long story sort, I got to work half an hour late, which was fine, even good, considering.
I guess it's just a shock after having nothing but good experiences with public transport in London, to feel well and truly stuck for a little bit again.

That said, I have to give kudos to Oyster - I lost my Oyster card with my monthly travelcard booked onto it this week. I left it on the train. My bad.
I called, and Oyster told me they would replace my card in 3-4 working days, with the remaining credit of my monthly travelcard (about half a month) on the new card.
They sent me a new one in 2 days. In a spiffy little case. With no hassle.
They are even willing to refund me on the travel tickets I bought in the 2 days I was without the card.
These guys are no squirrel monkeys - they're fantastic. Helpful, friendly, efficient, good customer service, take the onus upon themselves to solve problems, a problem that my own carelessness caused. They must have a clear understanding of the annoyance of losing this precious little card - it affects you daily, and affects your ability to get to and from work.
Impressed, I am.

Maybe the creative juices weren't flowing as strongly as I thought. Or maybe the fact that I have been on extended deadline for the past three days is what has resulted in the lack of will (or time!) to write.

As I sit here, my boyfriend screams at the TV downstairs. It would seem, according to the ratio of 'YESSSSSS!' to 'aah, COME on', that Liverpool are winning.

As I was trying to watch earlier, I told him that I actually think I prefer cricket. He responded by telling me that my feet stink. Point taken.

I'm thinking that it's time I bought myself a digital camera, and am seriously looking at this one.
Or this one.

Do you know of any reason why this girl, and either one of these cameras, should not be joined to take photos from the London Eye? Speak now, and I shall perhaps listen, or perhaps ignore.

This expresses it all. And I don't care what he says, he is a master at blogging.

I want to write more now! Just from reading that! It will have to wait until lunch.

Take it.

I read this with interest...

The influence of my very feminist Language and Gender lecturer from Linguistics 202 has resulted in me filling in every form as 'Ms' since my second year. I do this every time I fill in a form, and should there be only the Mrs or Miss options I insert my own Ms.

But the article raised a good question. As a single woman I don't feel that I have to advertise the fact, nor is it in anyone else's interest as to whether or not I am married. 'Miss' smacks of availibility, 'Mrs' of ownership. But when I get married one day, will I feel the same? Will I not want to be referred to as 'Mrs So-and-so' for the first time after my wedding? My feelings tell me, maybe I will. Maybe I will want to keep my last name too, or maybe I will take that of my husband's. Sadly, such a cumbersome moniker as mine does not lend itself to double-barrell-ing, so it's one or the other.

Maybe I don't know about it yet because it's not a reality yet.

Laughing Yoga.

Those who know me well, know that I have knee issues. This would be putting it mildly - let's just say, I was never meant to have knees. I was at the back of the queue when they were handing out knees. I got the leftovers. I have the knees of a 90-year-old pro American Football star quarterback. With bad knees.

Last night before going to sleep, I commented to Ian that my knee had felt a little funny during the day.
I woke up at 4am, unable to bend or straighten my leg out of the 45 degree angle I had slept in. Consultation with google has led me to believe that what I experienced this morning is Repetitive Strain Injury, which affects the tendons of the joint in question, which in my case is the Achilles Heel (anatomy-analogies gone wild here) of my knee problem.

Luckily, after a teary episode in which my consideration-embodied boyfriend helped me out, I fell asleep and this morning, it would seem that the RICE rule worked as promised and my knee has almost full range of mobility back again, if bent and unbent slowly. This has made it possible to go to work, take the stairs, and sit cross-legged, things I thought I wouldn't be able to do today in my panic-fueled state last night.
Small price to pay for sleeping with a bag of frozen peas on your leg.

Please, if any of you decide to become Nobel Prize winning doctors, consider focusing your efforts on developing an everlasting Titanium knee. Or one made out of the stuff they build the Space Shuttle from. You can call me Guinea Pig.

I loved Napoleon Dynamite, so this totally pushed my buttons. (thanks Ade)

I'm a big fan of the Greedy Buffet Patron, myself. And to my mind, it runs smoothest with the 'Satisfaction' soundtrack.

Ian might be bleak at me for stealing his thunder (on a day upon which he has no time to blog himself, due to a job interview), but as it turns out, the man was right (to a point ;P) to be listening to XFM all day long.

He has won tickets to see The Coral for tonight and is taking his girlfriend (but of course!) along with him. While I don't know the band well at all, I have hear their new single 'In the Morning' almost every day and any band that can put the lyric 'an alley cat chewing on dead meat' over happy sounding steelband pans wins my vote.

We'll see.

On Friday evening I went with two of my new co-workers to see one of the films showing in the Korean Film Festival, Spider Forest.

This review pretty much covers the way I felt about the film, it really touched me and I left the cinema a little bit dazed and full of appreciation of life and love and luck, as you should after seeing something so moving.

It kind of fell within that 'twisty turny surprise ending' genre, but it didn't neatly tie up as I usually like these kinds of films to do; the audience was left with questions about the reality of each scene and how each of the loose ends really tied together. For a change, I liked that everything didn't come to some solid conclusion.

If you get the chance to see this film, grab it.

Where the hell did that weekend go? DAMMMIT!

So, another work week begins. My office still looks like a dump, after the big cleanout on Friday; no one came to pick up the rubbish bags.
What a gorgeous day it was yesterday, positively South African! While my honey slaved away on some important work, I sunned it up on Clapham Common with the Lau and her boyf, feeling sad for Ian and guilty for leaving and resolved to make him a great dinner - only to come home and get the biggest (methinks sun-induced) headache and skulk to the room to Disprin and sleep while he cooked up a storm.

I am a bad girlfriend. BAD girlfriend! *slaps wrist*

Photies from the park to come, and still 4 days of work to go before the next blinkable weekend arrives.

I am Jack's screwed-up sense of time.

In the short space of time at the new company, I have come across a few Americans; having to deal with them as customers over long distance calls as well as being in the same office as one American woman.

I think I would marry an American simply for the accent.

Oh wait, that's not me, that's my sister.
Oh, and he's a pretty nice guy to boot :P

Seriously, there's something about an American accent that is *deep voice* soooooo sexxxxxyyyy. I don't know what it is... maybe that they could shout "OH YEAH!" without it sounding forced.

Thinking about this straight after speaking to a client, I browsed through the American blogs I read daily and tried to imagine them read out in the accent of the author. Weird.

I've been told that my accent is weakening here, which I do believe is true - it comes from dealing with Brits every day and saying 'yeh' instead of 'ja' just seems to make the convo flow a little more smoothly. I don't want to lose my accent though, but I seem to pick up from others. When I spend time with my brother-in-law I sound ridiculously diluted American.

Someone said that Charles, my best friend, will be hot totty when he arrives here because the pom girls love a guy with a foreign sounding accent. And I know just how he would respond to that.

Bring.
It.
On.

People are going crazy on the dating thing. Recently, three of my closest friends have either entered a relationship or made serious advances into the dating scene. Cue the herding effect to begin.

When is your birthday? Please leave it in the comments box below.

Extremely funny article.

----

Okay, so I sandwiched a desperate attempt at getting everyone’s birthdays between two thoughts. I have a new phone with reminder capabilities (sorry old pal 3210, you just didn’t make the grade) and goddammit, I’m gonna use ‘em. Of course, if you don’t want me to know your birthday, don’t put it in. Be sad like that. Sorry for yooooou.

Reading Joe’s stuff always leaves me smiling. He’s got an excellent way with words, writing these amazing stories with cliffhanger instalments that leave me, and so many other readers, gagging for more.
This phrase really stood out to me, but for my own reasons:

“All our lives, we plan. We plan our educations, but rarely end up doing what we trained for.”

I’ve just started at a new company, as you know if you’re a regular, and I’m very happy in my new position – things are still quite unsettled, but that’s due to a number of factors, and I know it will settle down in about a week. So far it’s been a great experience, and working in production on the two other jobs I’ve had since arriving here has been a bit of a steep learning curve. This is, of course, due to the fact that I didn’t get a degree solely in production. I studied what my university termed ‘Design’, lingo which I’ve learned isn’t quite accurate here in the UK.

Here, design relates pretty much solely to graphic design. My studies were more about page layout for all types of media, touching frequently on the production process.
The job I do right now is entirely production. I don’t even have a copy of Photoshop loaded on my PC at this company, something which is a first. My official job title is that of Advertising Production Controller, ie I control the ad production process of a range of titles, ensuring a smooth run and that all copy arrives on time, and to the right specifications.

Now let me allay any fears right now – I am qualified to do this job. I don’t feel like I don’t know what this job entails; in fact, if anything my experience in layout has prepared me well and allows me to understand the process and many of the production problems I am presented with on a daily basis.
Also, I enjoy this job. I feel comfortable here, capable.

Here’s the thing. Am I missing out? I do miss doing page layout, and in this company the layout of the office is such that on the way to the kitchen or bathroom I always walk past the layout desks and am faced with people doing the job I studied for.
Am I feeling that I want to change to layout? Would this satisfy me further? Or would the subjective nature of layout put me off – not everyone likes what I like, and I would be lying if I said fear of rejection wasn’t an issue.
And why would I risk a perfectly good position that I enjoy to do something else?

It’s just a little something that has been knocking around in my head. And who knows – I may just get the chance to stand in for someone in layout here who needs help or is ill, and see where that takes me.

I’m happy. It's the what-if factor that's the killer.

I got my new phone, a sexy little beast with a camera which obviously can't take a photo of the phone itself *boooooo* so this'll have to do. But mine's grey.

My new number is*:
AH TOO LATE IT'S GONE, SPAMMERS

*Yes, I'm that cheap, and SA numbers aren't included in my free text bundle.

Hey hey, it only took me 2 and a half months!

Okay, so now I've shown you this I can't use any of the tricks against you. But go on, prey on the weak.

Forgive all the singing along. The music war between Ian and I rages on... in a good way. It's as though we're on this constant mission to educate each other of the benefits of our own music of choice.

So tomorrow hails the very first day at my new job. I'm hoping that it goes as well as it did in my last post - it is pretty sad that the three days before I left were filled with training up a girl who I'd seen around the department and deemed an unfriendly ice queen - only to discover her to be a fun and funny gal too late. I do feel the need to expand into the realm of non-SA friends, but have generally found little in common with the Croydon girls. Hopefully the Leicester Square girls are less chav.

I'm a bit of a lippie manic. I love anything like gloss, balm, lipstick, anything - last year I had this little silver mini pencil case for my lip things...

so despite the warnings of lip balm dependancy from the radicals, I carry on.

And I must share with you the best of the best, first introduced to me within a great birthday present from Wa.
Score:
Healing - 0
Glossiness - 9
Smell and flavour - 10

Now that there's another female in the midst, I feel free to share this obsession.

That is all.

Loving this.

Sick.

AGAIN.

*cough*

Le sigh.