Memory Lane

I have been spending quite a bit of time recently clearing out my mum's attic (that is, while not catching up on the 'things to do when I get home' list, I'm currently in the middle watching all 7 seasons of Buffy and the 3 1/2 of Angel that I have on dvd/video) and it's quite distracting. I think that somewhere along the way of me growing up I've picked up the rather useless habit of knowing I've got to chuck things out but when it comes to it I pick it up, look at it, spend 15 minutes reminising and then put it on one side in an 'unsure as to whether I should chuck it out pile'. This is all well and good but when you've gone through nearly 3 decades of saved books, old schoolwork, things that you bought when you were 9 and had no taste (and ditto for 10, 11, 12, 13...) what tends to happen is you've not actually got around to throwing anything out, you've just moved it all around a little. This technique has served me well for many years (as the clutter in what was my room kind of demonstrated) but no longer. This time the builders are moving in and we have to be ruthless. Out with the old school work, out with the old things that I thought were cool 12 years ago but weren't and definately aren't now, out with everything of my sisters that I'd kept in my room when I inherited it from her after her first year in Uni. Things that I couldn't throw out at the time because they were hers and, despite the fact that she'd said I could have the room, I didn't want it to make mine, I wanted it because I missed her. And because, generally, she's always had better taste than me. The rooms are now empty-ish. Just a couple of beds left, some chests of draws and a couple of things that I still can't bring myself to throw out. In some ways this is a good thing because when the room is finished it will be nice and well decorated and lovely. On the other hand I can't help feeling that I've just thrown out a good part of my life. Still, that's probably a good thing. Perhaps I ought to try and clear my mind of some of the same clutter. Do you think that the recycling place takes memories? p.s Today's random thought was brought to you by www.IhadsomethingreallyprofoundandinterestingtosaybutwhenI satdownithadalldisappeared.com.uk.

Memories

I've been helping my mother clear out the attic (it's not like I've got a job to do or anything) and I've been finding stuff. This picture was something I'd forgotten completely about. Me and first boyfriend aged 17 on a music course at Bro Myrddin school I believe, the new one. Made me smile though. P.s I hope he doesn't mind me showing it :/

It's all about me...naturally

Pomgirl tagged me to do this and though I vowed never to do a meme again this one kinda got me so here you all go, a deep and meaningful insight into my life. Please don't run too far, I'm not that scary, honestly. What were you doing 10 Years Ago? I was 16, in my GSCE year. Overweight, confused, and generally not loving life. The only thing that I knew I could do even vaguely well was play my clarinet. That was the year I got into the Three Counties Orchestra for the first time, which was nice, because it meant that for once I was on a sort of level playing field with other fellow (and much better than me) musicians like my friend Amy. I had a huge crush on my clarinet teacher and my geography teacher. I didn't have much of a life, it being all school, music, sleep, school sort of thing. I did have some very good friends though, some of whom I'm still in touch with now, which is nice. 5 Years Ago? I was living in the rather amusingly named Burchett Place (try saying it out loud, a lot of 18-21 yr olds found it funny) and was attempting to graduate from Leeds University. This was hampered by the fact that I was still recovering from a bout of glandular fever at Easter the year before, I was seriously depressed about my dad dying the May before that and was about to come down with a rather serious viral infection just before my finals which got my housemate so worried that she took me to casualty with suspected meningitis. Fortunately I wasn't quite that ill and some rather strong painkillers and antibiotics knocked me out for about a week in order to let me get somewhat well again. I also reached the end of my tether where my dissertation was concerned which culminated in a series of visits to the Uni counselling service - the condition which my department put on me actually graduating. The dissertation never materialised. 1 Year Ago? I was 2 months into my round the world tour and had just arrived in Australia. My friend from home was visiting and we were seeing a lot of Victoria. We had hire a car to drive round in and ended up with the yellow mean machine. This car grew on us quite a bit and we both have various pictures of the yellow mean machine taken in various parts of Victoria. I hadn't met TAB yet and was still slightly pining for New Zealand but Australia was growing on me. Life was good and I had already realised that the UK was not the country for me. I felt free-er, happier and generally in an all round good mood for the first time in, well, ever. Five snacks you enjoy: Jaffa Cakes Bournville Chocolate Prawn Cocktail chips (sorry, crisps) Plain Homewheat Biscuits Stuffed Olives Five songs (I think) I know by heart: Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield Goodbye to you - Michelle Branch The Be All and End All - Bic Runga Hotel Yorba - White Stripes I Touch Myself - The DiVinals (I like the song, ok?!) There are actually lots, lots more, I have a very scary memory for lyrics. Especially of musicals. Just a pity it doesn't work for anything else! Five things I would do with a LOT of money: Buy my visa to Australia Fix up mum's house Buy a house in Melbourne Pay for all my friends to visit me (and yes, Doris, that includes you) Invest a lot of it (boring I know but sensible, right?) Five things I would never wear: One of those tops with an empire waist line that makes even the shop window models look 7 months pregnant Stilletos (my sense of balance isn't brilliant) Puffball skirts Items of clothing with horizontal stripes Anything bright orange or orangy red Five things I should never have worn: Can I count most of my wardrobe between the ages of 13 and 24? Specifically? Ok... Tight t-shirt and leggings when definately overweight Really baggy, shapeless jumpers and tops All my trousers (they were all too short for me, not entirely my fault that the fashion world simply didn't do extra long trousers then, I'm not that tall but my legs are very long) My school uniform (trust me, with a pale complexion and habit of total face and neck blushing, postbox red was NOT the best choice in colours for me) Nope, am still going to go with the rest of my wardrobe. Five things I enjoy doing: Reading (of all things bar newspapers, I don't like the seriousness) Doing cross stitch (I'm sad I know) especially whilst... Watching things like Buffy/Angel/Firefly, anything Joss Whedon-ish Skydiving Rock climbing Five bad habits: Saying 'really' a lot Sucking my thumb (yes, I do still on occasion when I'm really - damn - down, it helps) Biting my fingernails Falling for idiots Dithering Five people I would like to do this: Once again, not going to do this one. If you want to do it, go ahead (and please tell me, cos I'm interested) but if you don't, then you don't and it's all fine by me :) Last, but not least, I have realised that my blogger comments are appearing on my main page but I'm not sure if people can post to them but if you really feel the need to comment then if you make just the post you want to comment on appear (click on the list of recent random thoughts at the side) then at the bottom of those is the haloscan comments (witterings and trackbacks) and when you comment on these I definately get them at the haloscan website - it's a work in progress as to whether they appear on the blog. It's taking time but I'm getting there!

Moments

There's a quote that springs to mind from somewhere*, I'm not sure I've got it right but it generally says that life is split into moments. There are moments of importance and moments that move you on. All it takes is one split second to change your life for better or for worse. A decision made in a second can ultimately decide where your life is going to head and how. I shouldn't have run from a country that I knew I loved. I know that now. In one short moment, someone made me so scared that I ran home, so closed to any feelings because to let one in meant to let them all in which would be a bad idea. A friend at the time told me that that was sad, I believe that I agree. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. That was both an important moment and one that moved me on, for better or for worse. There are also things, events, thoughts, which try to take over your mind so that you attempt to spend every minute of your day doing something else, thinking something else in an effort to shut out the ceaseless clamour of your brain about this one subject. When you're lying in bed reading until you fall asleep with the book in your hand because to put it down and stop living in that world is to let the thoughts be heard again and stop you sleeping, that make you relive things and make you think that maybe, just maybe you could have done something to stop it, make it happen differently. Avoiding thinking about this moment is desperately important. Suddenly, another thought appears. It won't go away. It's not clamouring, shouting to be heard, deafening, obliterating all other rational thought like the other one. No, this one is quiet, murmering, whispering, incessant but somehow clearer than the other. Very soon it has wormed its way in past all the shouting, deafening hordes. This is also the result of an important moment but one you hadn't really considered important until now. And, just like the other one, it's vital that it doesn't overwhelm. Sane thought must be preserved at all costs. This is why, right now, I'm really, completely pissed off at Hotmail. It's annoying me beyond all belief. It didn't work properly on this computer, whether because of the dial up connection or the internet provider, I don't know but it did not work! To be able to read my email I had to refresh each page after I'd loaded it as it would come up in the wrong format and all the links wouldn't work. This is however no longer a problem because when I logged on today Hotmail asked me if I wanted to join it's Beta testing phase thingy. Fed up to the back teeth with a non-functioning Hotmail I agreed. This was most DEFINATELY a mistake. Now I can't check ANY OF MY BLOODY EMAILS AT ALL!!!!! I've tried a couple of times to log on and it will load a mainly blank page. The second time it did deign to tell me I had 3 emails and what the titles were but not actually let me see them. When I tried to reboot it, it didn't let me even see that small amount of information. Wonderful. And the joyous part is I can't even email Hotmail to tell them that it's screwing up! Well, I could use my gmail account but that would mean opening that up to whole amounts of spam that I really don't want to (I'm already coping with large amounts of emails that seem to think I want penis enlargements - I know I've got short hair but come ON people!). As smokescreen thought processes go, I think this will keep me going for at least 24 hours. This is good. *I do believe that it's the opening voiceover from a late season 3 episode of Babylon 5 by G'Kar - I know, I'm sad. And it's not quite relevant, but near enough.

Fingers crossed

It's a little wierd. Jobless as I am, I've been fairly glued to the Commonwealth Games coverage on TV while it's been on. I've been amusing myself by trying to work out in exactly which building the BBC's studio is in judging by the view from the window. When the races were on like the marathon and the triathlon I was imagining myself walking down those very same stretches of the Esplanade (and once I bladed down them but we don't want to talk about that...) and the street that my flat was on etc. Another, very similar, occupation is pointing out to mum where she visited. Today I was at it again, though with a slightly less enthusiastic approach as I watched the footage of where the cyclone hit the coast of North Queensland. In particular, the towns of Innisfail and Cardwell. I watched, nervously, as the helecopter flew over pictures of some houses standing, some totally wrecked and hoped that my old hostel, in Cardwell, was safe because the people who ran it were lovely - albeit a bit naive about how to run a hostel full of backpackers - and I really had a great time there (sorting bananas aside). Although I saw shots of the sea front at Cardwell, and a couple of Innisfail, I didn't see anywhere I knew in ruins. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not yet certain. I would keep my fingers crossed that they're ok but the heating's gone off again and I'm not sure that I've got that much flexibility left in them so I'll just keep hoping.

Aaargh!

I know that I am rapidly becoming like a broken record on this matter but it is frustrating to the extreme! I would like, thank you very much, to have nice, shiny, new haloscan comments. I've deleted large portions of HTML from my template referring to the comments, I've pasted in all that haloscan have told me to, where they told to and STILL my blogger comments work! It's not made the BLINDEST bit of difference! How is this possible? What is going on here?? Will my dinner burn before I finish this post??? That last one is possible so had better dash. Please, someone, I need help and I need it NOW!!!!!* *5 exclamation marks, a sure sign of an insane mind...and does anyone blame me????!

Hmmm

I have been finally trying to update this damn page. I've got my TTLB rating back which mysteriously disappeared for a while but was still on the template, wierd. I've managed to get the flickr badge to appear which is nice and shiny. Finally, I had a go at putting in haloscan comments. This has proven to be a liiitle more difficult. I've cut and pasted where it said to and removed the bit of blogger comments that my sister told me to and for some bloody reason, it's still not working. My old comments are there, although I don't know if you can still use them, and I'm hoping, hope upon hope, that when I publish this post that it will have nice, shiny and new haloscan comments. One can dream, can't one?

Heat(ish)

We had a lovely, lovely man come and look at the central heating today. I very nearly kissed him. If he'd been younger I may have offered myself in gratitude for supplying us with some heat. He's got it working. A little. He can't guarentee that if the heating gets to the point it's set to and the pump switches off until the house cools down again, that it will come back on when it's supposed to. But we had heat tonight which was lovely as I've spent the entire day attempting to coax the fire in the living room to burn, even smoldering a little bit would have been good! Eventually it got going so with a heater in the kitchen and the fire in the living room today was not quite the torture it could have been. At least, my feet were so cold that I ceased to feel them and I could warm my hands which is an improvement on last night (last night the hands were immobile due to cold too). I've spent most of today huddled infront of my fire (spark? smoldering cinder? warm ash?) watching episodes of Buffy. Moving from within 5 of a heat source was not an option. My lovely sister has got back to me with how to put haloscan as my comments so in the next couple of days when I don't need to go and defrost my hands at 2 minute intervals I will update things. Yay! I do have to wonder though, did I feel the cold quite this much before I experienced the heat in Australia or has my body, never really good with the cold, decided to up it's optimum temperature a little so now what I thought before was cold is now enough to give me frostbite (or at least, I think it would be if I wasn't wearing 2 pairs of thick socks).

And the award for stupidity goes to...

Ok, yes, I hold my hands up and freely admit I am a bit of an idiot. I sorted out my comments problem. The reason that no comments have been appearing on this lovely random blog of mine is that I had clicked the box that said I wanted to moderate all my comments before they got posted (not that I really knew what it did but simply in a 'ooh, a box to click in, lets click it and see what it does' sort of way) and then forgot all about it. Not that this solves the other problem of people having to have blogger accounts or signing in as anonymous (which irritates the hell out of me) but comments will now be visible, which is a plus. So, haloscan will soon be hopefully making an appearance here once Rachie gets back to me with the altered template because I'm also too thick to work it out myself. Please keep your fingers crossed... I'm going to go to bed now because we're having a bit of a crisis here. Just as the weather has decided to go completely arctic on us again, mother's central heating boiler has packed in. I'm bloody freezing. It's only because we've got an immersion heater that we've got hot water so thank heaven for small mercies! I have a lovely thick feather double duvet upstairs and I'm going to go and bury myself in it in the manner of a hibernating bear. It's entirely possible I won't emerge until the weather warms up either.

Not good

Mum is going to kill me when she gets back from work. I'm supposed to be ringing Universities about their PGCE courses. As I sat there, phone in hand I suddenly realised I have not got the faintest idea what I'm supposed to be ringing these places for. Why am I talking to them? What am I supposed to be asking them? Really, truly, what on earth is going on? Following this rather distressing realisation that I don't have a clue what I'm doing was the sudden revelation that one reason I've been putting this research off is because I've been kidding myself. I do not, under any circumstances, want to go back to University. The last time was bad enough. I had a horrendous 3 years (although, to be fair, that was not entirely the University's fault) and am definately not cut out for academic studies. In helping mum sort out the attic before the builders arrive I found some of my old degree essays and notes and when I re-read it I did laugh. A lot. As essays go it was all over the place, I didn't have a clue what I was talking about and I can remember thinking that at the time. All I was doing was waffling enough to get the word limit up. Only the first 2 pages were anything to do with the essay question. The worrying thing is that ALL MY ESSAYS WERE LIKE THAT. Not just uni ones either, all my A-level essays were similarly bizarre because I generally didn't know what the hell was going on, not because I wasn't trying, I was; but just because I'm not very good at that sort of thing. I didn't even hand in my dissertation as I nearly had a nervous breakdown about it. In a whole year I didn't write one word of it. Not one. And trust me, I spent enough hours sitting there trying to read things for it and sitting in front of my pc willing the words to appear. They didn't. Even thinking of attempting to do something of that sort now has my heart racing in terror. This whole 'I'll be a teacher' idea has come about because of one thing. I want to emigrate and what I AM good at, isn't on the skills shortage list for Australia. And, much as I love this place, my family and friends, I think I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I ran this far to escape the CTG when I didn't have to. Teaching is one of the few avenues open to me to get skilled but is it really fair to go to all that expense and training and not have my heart in the job (and, to be perfectly honest, be absolutely terrified of standing up there in front of a whole group of kids)? What am I going to do?

I give up

I am, I think, quite utterly hopeless. My lovely sister did email me instructions on how to enter haloscan comments onto this blog. However, having attempted a couple of times to get rid of the comments I currently have and put the haloscan comments in their place I have to admit I have failed dismally. This, possibly, has some connection to the fact that I've also drunk half a bottle of rather nice wine tonight, but I prefer to think that no, I just don't understand HTML. This I think is not a too difficult assumption to come to given that I've only had to use it to do this blog and, up until now, I've not had to make any real changes to it. I can add specific things when told where to add them and I can just about make sense of certain things (like fonts and how to add pages to my 'other people's random thoughts' sidebar thingy) but apart from that it is completely escaping me. It's a learning as I go process without the help of books or any actual helpful literature, sort of the blind leading the blind. (It's worthwhile noting that the haloscan page instructions on how to install it on blogger/blogspot pages tells you to put the code somewhere between the blogger and /blogger codes which I found nicely thank you, it doesn't really help you as to what piece of code you should be replacing, which would be the most helpful piece of advice imaginable at this point in time). Anyway, I'm going to email it to Rachie as she so very kindly offered to help me out (I probably would get there in the end with trial and error...of course this may involve me throwing sharp things at the computer in the meantime and I really don't think mum would like that...) so if you see haloscan comments here in the near future, please feel free to use them and thank my sister for her wonderful help :) And here's a photo to keep you all happy with my other skills (once again, courtesy of Rachie...what would I do without her?) See, I left warm climates for that. Is it any wonder I still can't feel my fingers? Pretty though, isn't it? :)

I'm Boston...apparently

Amy did this and I thought that, out of curiousity, I would do it too. Just to see if I came out as Austin too. Oddly I didn't although I'm not sure I really like the description... You Are Boston Both modern and old school, you never forget your roots. Well educated and a little snobby, you demand the best. And quite frankly, you think you are the best. Famous people from the Boston area: Conan O'Brien, Ben Affleck, New Kids on the Block What American City Are You? Do you think I'm snobby and demand the best? Really?

grrrr

I have, I believe, posted in the past about how I do want to update this blog with regards to photos and comments and things (but I'm too lazy to find the actually post and direct you back to it, sorry) and now that I have the time and a computer that I know there isn't a queue for in some random internet cafe, I find that I need to make a direct appeal for help! I have TRIED recently to upload pics directly from computers to blogger.com but that doesn't really seem to want to work all the time for me and I'm getting very, very fed up. With this in mind I used my already existing yahoo account to sign up to Flickr as I have noticed recently that a lot of people have nice shiny Flickr things on the side of their blogs. Signing up all done I now have not the faintest idea how to get that nice, shiny Flickr thing to appear on MY blog. And I can't upload anything at the moment because Flickr has 'the hiccups'. *Sigh* at least I know I can try again tomorrow! Moving onto the second thing that is annoying me lately. My comments box. I have been informed by several people that the reason they don't leave comments is that they either can't be bothered to sign up to a blogger account (which which I have on my comments because when I took the restriction off I got lots of junk mail comments) or once having signed up, can't remember their account. I have noticed that other people blogging (my sister, pomgirl among others) don't seem to have this problem and have nice, shiny comments boxes. I really, really would appreciate some advice on this rather troublesome issue! By the way, without me altering my template, my TTLB Ecosystem rating has disappeared. I'm confused, confuzzled and confounded. Please, help?

Another meme

I have been tagged by Amy to do this so here goes... Seven Things to Do Before I Die: 1. Emigrate to Australia 2. See more of the world 3. Hold down a relationship for more than a year 4. Become a skydiving instructor 5. Have children (well, one at least) 6. Have all of me waxed 7. Learn to fly planes Seven Things I Cannot Do: 1. Run (buggered ankle and a broken toe) 2. Blush prettily (it's bright red from hair roots to below the neck line) 3. Dance 4. Pick pineapples 5. Roll my tongue 6. Whistle 7. Understand biology. Seven Things that Attract Me To Blogging: 1. It's easier than writing mass e-mails 2. I'm hopeless at keeping my private life private, this way is easier than telling everyone seperately 3. I love the internet 4. I'm conceited enough to think that somewhere out there is someone, even just one person, interested in my life. Even if it's just me. 5. It helps me think things through 6. I'm not sure it's fair to read other people's private thoughts without them being able to see into my little brain in return. 7. If my sister can do it, I bloody well can too Seven Things I Say Most Often: 1. Really? 2. Um...... 3. True 4. Bloody hell 5. Black. No, I don't take milk. Yes, black coffee. No, no milk. 6. I'm not a pom, I'm welsh 7. No, I don't sound like an Aussie! Seven Books I Love: 1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 2. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien 3. Anything by Terry Pratchett 4. The Silver Crown by Robert O'Brien 5. The Harry Potter books by JK Rowling 6. The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper 7. Genius (it's the biography of Richard Feynman) by someone whose name I can't remember Seven Movies/DVDs That I Watch Over and Over and Over Again: 1. Lilo and Stitch 2. Steel Magnolias 3. Four Weddings and a Funeral 4. Fifth Element 5. Toy Story 6. Star Wars (IV-VI) 7. Lord of the Rings (all 3) Seven celebs who I would be friends with: 1. sorry, not even sure I can think of one! 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Seven People I Want To Join In: 1. As is usual, I'm the last in my line to be tagged and everyone I would tag has already done it. If people read this and havn't but would like to do it then feel free! 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. I'm always uncertain of these things (especially after a couple of glasses of wine, which I have had) as I can never think of answers as interesting or witty as the person who asked me to do it. In fact, these things usually render my brain as totally and utterly blank as when someone says 'Say something', the three syllables in the entire English language guaranteed to strike fear and loathing into the heart of even the most loquacious of people. On that note, I bid you all a good night. And if you can think of any witty answers, I'd be grateful for some help...

Home

Sometimes the last year seems like a fading dream, an impression of warmth on a seat that is quickly disappearing now that the person who was there has gone. Was it real? Did it truly happen? Will it all fade to nothingness, random snatches of dreams I can't quite recall when I try but occasionally get flashes of when I least expect it? When can I go back?

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

It's cold. Oh yes indeedy. And there is snow. Lots of it in fact. Currently, my friends in Murchison are sitting having a nice cold beer at the end of the day in 36degree heat. Hmmmmm.