Sunbeams and Daisies

Delicate

2010-04-21T16:55:00.006+01:00

I'm feeling delicate today.

I'm excited. I can feel possibilities and ideas welling up inside me. I can feel my little bubble of safety stretching and growing. My usual excuses are ringing dull in my ears, I don't believe them anymore. I believe in myself. I want to take steps forward while I feel able. Actually, forget steps. I want to jump into something, both feet together. I'm sick of playing safe.

Ideas and grandiose plans are rushing through my mind... but I'm observing them from a distance, hardly able to breathe in case I blow them away again. I want them to stay, I want them to be a part of me. I want to hold them close without being afraid of them vanishing like a dream.

And so I come back to steps. Baby steps that I can take towards my dreams without frightening them away. But where do I go from here? What's my first step?

Beating the Block

2010-03-23T19:11:00.000Z

I'm very proud of myself right now.

I didn't want to write for my photography blog this morning. It's so hard to start again after a weekend of work and no thinking, but I knew that if I didn't write today I wouldn't write tomorrow either... and the next day? Who knows. This is what happens to every new project I start. As soon as it gets difficult, I find excuses to avoid it, until I forget about it altogether.

Well not this time. I'm determined to stick with this wherever it might take me, and no matter how hard it gets. It's my personal challenge to myself, and anyway, I'm loving this project far too much to want to lose it. So I banned myself from checking my email, using the internet or my phone, anything except writing really, until I had written just one post.

To my delight I discovered that, once I got through the initial block, I didn't want to stop. Hours later I'm making myself take a break, having written and posted one short tutorial, written another post to publish tomorrow, and written part of next week's tutorial because it was writing itself along with today's. It feels so amazing to have written so much, so easily, with so much enjoyment, after being so set against it in the morning. I've proven to myself that I can break the old habits, and do what I set my mind to.

My portfolio website is also going through a make-over. The colour and style is much more me than before, and I spent yesterday updating the photo collections. I now have something I'm happy to show people, rather than hiding it away and mumbling about how I have to get around to fixing it.

Now I'm off to spend some time awaaay from the computer screen!

Wait, so the cake was filled with custard?!

2010-03-14T00:39:00.000Z

I watched Muppet's Treasure Island today, again. Even though I haven't seen it in a while, I discovered that I still know almost every single line by heart. I've watched it *that* many times. It makes me happy. Ridiculously happy. And instead of growing out of it, I seem to be growing into it. Every time I watch it I love it even more than the time I watched it before.

I was a very piratey girl growing up (and am still, but shh...) and cannot think of a better start to any movie than this:

Anyway, today I learned something. When Miss Piggy, here Benjamina Gunn, is complaining to Kermit, AKA Captain Smollett, about him leaving her at the altar... I aaalways wondered why she told him that her "cape was filled with bloomin' CUSTARD!" (yelled emphasis hers). Today, a good 12 or 13 years after first seeing this film, it clicked, and I realised that it wasn't her cape that was full of custard, but her cake.

It makes a lot more sense, but the image I've always had in my head, of a dressed up Miss Piggy with a cape bulging with custard, is too good to lose, and I might have to pretend there's no cake involved.

***

This post was supposed to be about a lot more than the Muppets, but it's late and it's Mother's Day tomorrow, and by some miracle (in the form of unused holiday) I have the weekend off. I want to be fresh to make the most of it.

I'll post properly soon!

My mini St Albans adventure

2010-03-11T13:12:00.000Z

((Also posted at http://blog.vrindawebb.com))

Now that I finally have a bike, a whole world is opening in front of me. Last week I realised that there is a train station tucked away right near my house that connects to St Albans, my favourite place nearby, so yesterday I got on my bike and went out for a little adventure, just me, my camera and a book to read.

When I found the station I could understand how I’d never known of its existence before. It’s a single platform by the side of a road, with a couple benches and one train an hour.

I timed it perfectly, and just half an hour after leaving my house, I was already at St Albans Abbey with the bell chiming above me. (Hmm, is it still "chiming" when it's a very big heavy bell? I think it was probably "tolling", more than chiming...)

This abbey is one of my favourite places to sit and think. It has a beautiful homey atmosphere for somewhere so large. Over its hundreds of years of life, it has been rebuilt and repaired so many times with different materials (mainly materials sourced from the Roman ruins across the river) and in so many styles through the ages, that it now resembles a patchwork quilt made of brick, flint, tile, and plaster. It calls to me, telling me, “Don’t worry about being perfect. It's our imperfections that make us beautiful, and strong. They are what make us stand out from everyone else in this world, what make us shine. Perfect is dull...” And when I'm here, I believe it.

After my cathedral visit, I went for a walk through Verulamium Park. This place has always had a magical hold over me. Obviously every place has its history, but here... I can feel it. When I see the stone remains of gates where the road from London (or Londinium I suppose) met the Roman town of Verulamium, I can see the carts trundling through the narrow gaps, and I can see the Roman guards standing at their posts, both by the gates and along the top of the wall. I feel the hustle and bustle of the town that once stood where the park lies now.

Even though the day was overcast and grey, there were traces of spring wherever I looked. Right now there are huge clumps of snowdrops lining fences and walls, and the lake is full of cygnets; almost fully grown into swans, their beaks still warming into the same flaming orange as those of their parents, and the last of their tawny feathers being replaced by fresh, brilliant white ones. They kept swimming up, curious about me and my camera, but were soon disappointed when they realised I had no food with me.

And the coots! Before yesterday I'd never noticed how, without warning, they suddenly start running across the top of the water like sprinters heading for a finish line. I was determined to catch a good photo of them doing this, but it turned into a photographic cross between Space Invaders and Wack-a-Mole. They gave no indication when they were about to stop swimming sedately and run for it. The first I knew of it would be a splashing sound and by the time I had turned with my camera, it was too late, and they were just bobbing along innocently as if nothing had happened. After a while I was certain they were doing it on purpose.

Eventually, though, I managed to get this shot:

It’ll do for now, but I’m going back when the sun’s out and I can use a faster shutter speed. I’m not giving up until I capture the perfect photo!

Then I finished off by sitting in the cathedral café with my book, a cup of hot chocolate, and some ginger biscuits. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Not so Alone... and changes.

2010-03-07T23:41:00.005Z

After being so bleh and down last night, I started my day today with the intention to be aware of every act of friendship that came my way, and I'm feeling a lot better for it. I have good friends. Wonderful, lovely people who care about me, and who I adore.

I came to a realisation yesterday and today... it's all very well complaining about Facebook-style socialising (and I've got a whoole lotta rants on that subject right now), but I have to actually do something about changing the way I relate with people. I'm changing things in every other part of my life, it's obvious that this area needs revamping as well.

From now on I'm going to begin phasing Facebook out of my modes of communication. I hate the casual "Meh, well, you'll be on Facebook if I ever feel like talking to you again," attitude it gives to a "friendship". It spawns the kind of friends that "poke" you every month or two; not say anything to you, just poke. It feels like someone's standing very far away with a long stick, prodding and going, "Hmm, still alive over there?" not like they really care... more like a kid poking at roadkill out of curiosity.

Hmm, wow, okay, I appear to be feeling rather vicious towards Facebook tonight! All I wanted to say, is that I plan to begin re-building (or building up in the first place) real communication with my friends. I will text instead of sending a facebook message, or writing on a wall. Or I will actually pick up a phone, like off of the olden days. Today I bought a book of stamps and plan to go through my ridiculously huge collection of unsent cards, and actually send some. And as for the friends I miss and have been losing touch with, I will be making an effort to re-connect.

I think this has been me hitting a speed-bump in this whole change malarky. The thing is, as much as I'm exhilarated by the feeling of making changes in my life (as opposed to having the changes made for me) and feeling like I'm actually making things happen for myself..... the fact still remains that I'm terrified by change. I hate it. It's scary! I want to hide under the bed until it's all over.

I agree with what Lilly said in her comment on my last post. I think I'm just having my life cleared of people who are no longer right for me. Instead of being upset by it, I can focus on the people who are still big in my life and important to me, and look out for the amazing new people who will fit perfectly into the new, bright and bold life I'm gradually creating for myself. It's all just an extension of last year's Release. I can do that.

*deep breath*

All fine.

Alone

2010-03-06T21:22:00.000Z

I had a good day today.

It was full of silliness, friends I haven't seen for too long, and people who are becoming friends.

There's a mass leaving-do tonight for the 7 people who've left our store in the last 3 weeks (see, what I mean by a lot leaving?!) but I'm not there. I could be, people asked and re-asked, and made flimsy bargains with me to go... I told them I'm not feeling sociable tonight.

Coming home now, I don't think that's quite true. I like to know who I'm spending my time with, and be with my friends properly, rather than turn up somewhere loud where people may or may not be arriving at some point during the night, where most will be drunk, and none can hear a word spoken. I don't want that.

But while it's all well and good being particular about how I socialise, I feel so alone right now. I don't want to be there tonight, I'm glad made the choice I did, I'm glad to be home, warm and quiet after a long day of work. This has just highlighted for me how many people who have played parts in my life for the last three years or so are evaporating, our paths were intertwined for a while, and now they're not. It's natural, it's the way things go... but do they all have to be getting on so well without me? Is it bad of me to be upset by that?

Maybe I'm from the wrong age of socialisation. In myyy day (read, "some time past/present/future/in my head"), to socialise, people would come over for tea, arrange to meet somewhere, whatever... There would be parties, yes, but there wasn't this whole "invite every person on facebook" mentality. I'm just sick of friends-by-default. The idea seems to be: you hang out with a crowd, eventually the crowd splits up, you find a new crowd, repeat ad nauseum. Obviously there are exceptions. But in general, why does it feel like everyone's scared to make an effort, or say, "Hey, I like you. Let's be friends.", but instead float around, then float away. Why can't people just have normal relationships?

I guess I'm just around the wrong people. But then tell me please, where are the right people?

Bah. Humbug.

Okay, well, I've vented a little.

I'm going to go and bake up the last of my scone dough from last night. Scones, tea, and something good to watch should cheer me up. Thanks for listening, hehe. xxx

Spring!! And new ideas.

2010-03-03T17:57:00.002Z

Spring has sprung! It's sunny out! And it's been getting warmer. I took a walk through the woods today. There are a couple baby crocuses popping their heads out, and the bluebells are showing green tips through the brown leaves. Spring is my favorite season of the year. It's so fresh and green after the cold winter, and everything is full of life and hope for the rest of the year.

This whole week (what, it's only Wednesday?!) has been full of exciting things for me. After months of moping around, wondering what I should be doing with my time, I finally have a project that is fun and challenging and I'm loving every second of.

While trying to redesign my website last Friday, I was reminded of things I've wanted to do for a long time, and haven't because... well.. what if it doesn't go right? I want to write, I want to take photos, I want to teach photoshop. Put them all together, and a blog seems to be the best way to get started. I've thought things similar to this before, but then put it out of my mind coz, I'm busy, and who am I to tell anyone anything anyway?

Well. That's the old me thinking. When the idea popped up again the other day, this old me had enough time to go, "Yea... not a chance..." before the new me went, "Waait a second, why not?" and started off on a brainstorm of what I could do and how I could do it, just a quick list of possible topics so I would know if it was feasible or not.

The result was scraps of paper completely covered in scribbles and bullet points and ideas, not only for the blog but, for the first time in years, ideas for my own photography, photos I want to take, experiments I want to try, and more ideas coming every other second.

I'm still petrified of putting myself out there as any kind of expert, coz I'm not, I'm just someone who knows some things and wants to know more. But... what's the worst that can happen? No one will read it? Well eeeven if that was the case, even if I had not one reader (and I know I have at least a handful of friends as readers guaranteed, so there goes the worst case scenario already), for every article I write, I would still be learning and finding inspiration in my research. So basically it's win/win.

I've spending this week writing as many articles and tutorials as I can so that I can settle into a style and know what I'm doing. I'm having so much fun. It's stretching my writing muscles, and making me think about what I'm doing in photoshop and behind the camera instead of running on automatic. Everything I read or hear, I'm thinking of in terms of how I could explain it to someone, instead of it being something I vaguely hear and then forget. Already on my journey to teach other people, I'm understanding more myself. As soon as I'm ready, very soon, I'll start posting on my brand new blog!

For anyone who's curious, it'll be here: www.vrindawebb.wordpress.com

I'll remap the domain name to my own once I'm actually writing on it.

<<Update - later on today>>

My new blog has a couple introductory posts and can now be found here: http://blog.vrindawebb.com

The one left behind...

2010-02-27T21:04:00.000Z

Yesterday was about good changes.

Today was sad for me, changes that I don't like.

Over the past few months so many people have left where I work, finding other jobs, new projects, moving away. Where once there were crowds of friends who'd known each other for years, joking and playing as they worked, there are now new people. Some of them are lovely, but I miss the family we had and things being how they were. I miss everyone so much. Today the last couple people from the "olden days" were off sick or on holiday, and it was my manager's last weekend day before he moves to another store. It feels so empty now.

At least I've been given a good kick out of the rut where I trundled along so comfortably. This year is my year to step into what I want to do with my life, this just takes away one more excuse to procrastinate. I'll continue to work, I'll miss my friends, I'll make new friends to fill some of the gaping holes... but in my own time there can be no more idling away doing nothing, otherwise where do I end up? Selling someone else's products for the rest of my life. No thank you.

Forward, onward, upward.

2010-02-26T19:20:00.001Z

(Photo by Constantine.H on Flickr)

Since finally surrendering to my Word of the Year, I've been working on Dare all of this month. I find it incredible how one little word, once you let it, can get under your skin so completely. Through Dare-tinted glasses, everything looks different. While I'm still finding it terrifying to step out of my comfort zone, it no longer feels like an option to not do so.

When I think of taking action and think, "But what if..." I'm developing the ability to stop and say, "But what if I don't. What then? What do I gain?" The answer is almost always, "Nothing new." I'm becoming able to ignore the groans and creaks of resistance and take small steps forward. Little steps, one at a time.

This is all fairly vague today, I apologise. I want so badly to blurt out all my lovely plans and ideas, and more importantly, the things I've actually started doing to make them happen. But as much as I'm Daring right now, I'm still petrified of falling flat on my face and am not quiiite ready to say too much just yet. I'm just thrilled at the changes I can see in the ways that I'm thinking and acting and wanted to let loose a little squeak of excitement.

Now that I'm moving forward, things feel like they're beginning to finally start clicking into place around me. And this is in only about three weeks, I have the whole of the rest of the year to keep Daring onwards and upwards.

Candytree and Power Failure - or, making videos once more.

2010-02-21T13:04:00.006Z

Isn't it amazing how mixed up your days and nights become when you miss a night of sleep? I'm not entirely sure what day it is anymore. My calendar tells me it's a Sunday... my brain doesn't know what to think.

Friday night I spent the entire night helping on a music video shoot for a friend from uni. It's my first time working with him on one of his own projects, and it was a lot of fun. The video is for a band called Candytree and a song called Power Failure. We had fun playing with every kind of light we could get hold of, including a sunset, all the lights of the city, torches, and some fairy lights. Rob is very, very good at what he does and got some fantastic shots. I'm super excited to see the edited piece as soon as it's finished.

The shoot went from 4pm until a little past 5am so that we could film everything in the darkest night without having to worry about changing light. I didn't get home until it was broad daylight again, I fell asleep for a couple hours and then forced myself to get up so I wouldn't go nocturnal. Filming was tiring, and for several hours it was more cold than I ever remember being (an example: our CD player stopped working for a while due to ice in the mechanism), but I enjoyed it thoroughly. There were so many lovely people to meet, sets to organise, lights to stick colours all over, and music to play/pause/play/pause/play/pause.

This is the first video project I've worked on since finishing uni, it felt so good to get back into it. I've missed making things. I want to keep on making even just tiny little videos to keep from getting rusty. There's something so magical about seeing a finished video and knowing that before you, it didn't exist... to see your ideas develop from words on paper into moving images, characters coming to life on screen. That's what I love most about making videos.

Hey Jude - baby style

2010-02-15T17:48:00.002Z

Found this while flicking through youtube today and it made me giggle, so I thought I'd share.
How adorable is this kid?!

Back in the land of Dare

2010-02-05T21:14:00.003Z

Well, after a strong and determined start, I've spent the first month of 2010 in a blogging dead-spell.

The truth is that after announcing all my dramatic intentions for this year, I panicked. I suddenly realised how big and scary the word Dare is for me. Scary like a rollercoaster, or skydiving. With this word I can't hide behind my excuses, I lose procrastination rights in changing the things I don't like about how I'm living my life.

I realised that, if I'm doing it right and making the most of this year, there's no gentle way of easing into Dare. I tried, oh how I tried. I thought of softening it with some "easier" words, words that would let me carry on as I am for a while until I was "ready" to make some changes. But that just felt... I can't describe how fake and awful that was. I need big changes.

Well, I'm finally back in the world of Dare, and all its invigorating, terrifying hugeness. Big thanks to the wonderful Becky, who has made it less terrifying, and has helped stop me shrinking away away from the things I know I have to, and desperately want to do.

This month I'm helping a friend with a music video project, and very much looking to getting back into production mode for the first time since finishing uni. I'm also looking for jobs more suited for what it is that I want to do with my life.

Today I applied to volunteer with the Samaritans to gain some experience. In the longer term I want to take a counselling course, just as soon as I can find a course that suits me and can work out how to afford it. My student financing days are behind me, I have to either fund it myself or find grants or something from organisations.... something something. I don't know yet. (If anyone has any ideas at all I would be thrilled to hear them)

So that's where I'm at. Back being daring.

So scared, so exhilarated.

Waiting to see what each day will bring.

My Guest Post on Christine Kane. Plus my Word for 2010.

2010-01-04T11:03:00.004Z

Happy New Year to everyone!!

At the beginning of 2009, I read what Christine Kane had to say about choosing a Word-of-the-Year. The word I chose was Release. Through 2009 this simple little word made so much difference to me that, when the opportunity arose, I wanted to share. Today my guest post is on Christine's blog. Go across and take a look at all the inspiring stories people have written about their words this year!

Through December I put a lot of thought into what my word should be for 2010. At first nothing was exactly right. Almost, but not quite there. In the middle of so much change, I've been finding it hard to focus on one thing I want to do with my life, never mind narrowing my choices down to just one word.

Also, I realised that after a year of Release, it was so easy for me to play safe and choose another word along the same lines to "continue what I'd started" or, in other words, not have to do anything different and scary. I realised that what I needed was a good kick that would shift me forward into the next phase of my life.

Finally it clicked.

For 2010 my word is Dare.

For me Dare contains many words in one;
       It means daring to continuously move forward, well out of my current, oh-so-cozy safe-zone.
       It means that while moving forward, I'm trusting that whatever choices I make, whatever risks I take, I will always have what I need and be looked after.. allowing me to move forward fearlessly.
       It means daring to listen to what my intuition tells me, then acting on it.
       It means not trying to blend in with the people around me, being truly me, not being afraid to see things differently from people around me, and being willing to stand out in a crowd.

As the last seconds of 2009 ticked over I promised myself that, as my final act in my year of Release, I would release every previous non-success (I don't believe in failure, just not-yet-there-ness), every ill feeling I have towards anyone in my life (past or present), and every pre-conceived idea of how my life should go... and that I would start completely anew in 2010.

I'm sure there will be challenges to come with this mass-release, but so far all I feel is happy and free, and I'm loving this year, all four days of it.

I started painting my room last night to make it lighter and fresher. I've moved everything out of it to paint and I plan to only put back what I really, really want or need. I need clear space in which to dream up where to go with all my daring!

And now I'm going to get back to painting, the first haphazard coat is dry now and my brother is ready to help me move the bed.

I wish you all everything wonderful for this new year!

What's Next?

2009-12-29T12:53:00.000Z

So, another year draws to a close.

I'm determined to make 2010 my biggest year yet. Up until now I've either drifted through my years, from time to time getting caught on some reeds or the riverbank; college, uni, a job I need to pay the rent... but I don't know why I'm where I am, how I got here, or where I'll end up.

Well, from the beginning of 2010 onwards I am going to use my own goals as my compass, and decide for myself where it is I'm heading. No more doing things just because I don't want to disappoint the people around me, or because I don't have anything better to do than go along with what I'm told is best.

I'm prepared to make mistakes here and there, and have to adjust my course, and surprise a few people along the way. After all, I know that all the important people in my life will support me in whatever I decide I want to do.

Today I've been planning. I'm surrounded by hundreds of big and little ideas of what I want to do, and excited by the fact that so many of them seem achievable. I now need to prioritise them so that I can focus on one at a time and start ticking things off my list of accomplishments without becoming overwhelmed.

I'm looking forward to this next year.
How about you?

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

2009-12-25T13:42:00.003Z

(Photo by Gregor Halbwedl on Flickr)

I just wanted to wish everyone a very very happy Christmas, full of love and joy and wishes come true.

Christmas is usually just myself, my mum and my brother, but today all our friends in the area are merging our Christmas celebrations and gathering together as an extended family should. I volunteered to make the brussel sprouts for the party, and spent yesterday making pies (Pumpkin and chocolate cream! Not together... that would be odd.). Now just to work out how to transport the pies and us without some terrible mishap. I'm thinking I might cycle and let the pies take over the back seat of the car.

There are splodges of snow still in the garden here, in my mind that counts as a White Christmas, and Classic FM on with the Christmas requests downstairs. All is well with the world... or at least this little corner of it.

I hope things are just as wonderful with you!

Much love to all! xxxxx

Bring It On

2009-12-21T09:32:00.005Z

2010 is fast approaching. As is usual at the end of a year, I've been doing a lot of thinking about where I am in my life. But this year I'm realising how far I am from where I want to be, and worse, how unsure I am of where it is I do want to be.

The most important thing I do know now, is that there is no pay off for me playing it safe. I need to do something that is worthy of my time and effort. I want to make a difference with what I do, in some way, otherwise what am I working for? And without this challenge and integration of values, I just end up miserable, constantly trying to find time to jam everything important to me into my "spare time" instead of including it in my life.

It's so easy to get cozy somewhere, stuck in a safe little rut, doing the same things every day while thinking and talking big and saying what I'd like to do someday. It's time I stop living like this. I don't want to talk big, I want to live big.

As of today I'm no longer playing safe.

I don't know exactly what this means for me yet. At this moment it feels like I need a complete change of direction, and the courage and commitment to actually go through with it without going, "Oh, but.... it's so haaard......."

The whining, complaining part of me says, "But whyyyyy do I have to do this? I only just finished my degree! Let me rest! Let me sleepwalk through life a little first, it's less scary." But the rest of me is becoming stronger, and saying, "No no no no no. No more. No more wasting life on things that are pointless and life-leaching."

I have ideas about what I would like to do and I'm spending the next couple weeks fine-tuning and looking at options. After that..... I'm ready. Bring It On.

First Snow!

2009-12-18T12:48:00.001Z

Snow snow snow!
In December!

This doesn't happen here... like.... ever.
So excited!

In the Land of the Northern Lights

2009-12-15T10:19:00.005Z

I am very happy. I have finally tracked down an actual DVD that I can buy of Joanna Lumley's journey into the Arctic circle. I watched it a year ago and fell in love entirely. With Norway, the people there, the Northern Lights, and with her. When I was young I dreamed of being an explorer, I read the Swallows & Amazons books constantly and was transported into my own world of high adventure and new discoveries.

Watching this documentary, you're watching someone who is grown up and famous, reverting back to the childhood dream mode... and actually fulfilling these dreams. Never once saying, "Hmm, this must seem silly to you." Oh the goosebumps when she steps into the Arctic Circle for the first time, what to speak of seeing the Lights themselves.

I love watching this for the beauty of the film itself, and for Joanna Lumley, who is simply fantastic with her dignified childish wonder, and for the hope it gives me that there need never be a "use by" date on childhood dreams.

If you haven't seen it, you should. The DVD is available on Amazon at last. But the whole documentary is now on Youtube. First part here:

Home-Grown Silent Movies

2009-12-14T22:06:00.004Z

I stumbled across these linked in an old email. These quick mini videos are the result of an afternoon playing in the woods with a camera, back in the days of yore... before we were grown up with uni and jobs. (Although, since finding these I've been thinking about how to get everyone back together for more. I'm thinking spies... watch this space.)

All are taken with the silent movie function on my point-and-shoot camera.
Each clip is only a few seconds long, and quite absurd. Enjoy!

This whole filming thing started with the discovery of my brother's unexpected silent sneaking skill. I have no recollection of quite how we made this discovery...

Don't trust nonchalant people standing in the middle of the woods.

Watch out for strange hooks coming from behind trees.

Our interpretation of that famous scene in Indiana Jones

Some kind of chase.

When a tree stands on the boundaries between dimensions, odd things can happen.

Also, don't trust cute little girls standing on tree trunks.

And last but not least. Don't blink or you'll miss it!

FIN

A kick into action.. or inspiration in the form of "that should be me!"

2009-12-14T11:38:00.003Z

While we were having breakfast this morning my mum put on some one-off documentary thing from Channel 4. I didn't feel like watching TV and was about to turn it off, but within seconds of it starting I was spell-bound. It was one of those things you watch and think, "oh my god, this is something I would have made given the chance" (well, as a not-quite-yet-filmmaker I watch and think that, maybe not you.)

It was just so.... me. It was called The Solitary Life of Cranes, and was about crane drivers, how no-one thinks about the fact there are people in tiny boxes at the top of the hundred or so metal structures towering above you wherever you go in London. It was all about the things they see that no-one else does, the patterns, the little things they notice, weather, sunrise seen from the sky, the quiet and solitude... and the whole documentary was shot in exactly the way I have written up treatments for my own films several times. It was like watching moving photography. Quiet, simple, no faces, no talking heads. Just a constant stream of amazing imagery, and the voices of the crane drivers talking about their experiences.

The whole time I was watching I was thinking, "I could have done this. I have to start making films. I could have made this!"

As it drew to a close I became determined to stop going, "Eh, but it's all so difficult and commercial..." and actually write something that is me, and then pitch it, instead of worrying about having to get an official media industry job and working on other peoples' projects for years before daring to think of my own. I can work on mine in my own time while I'm working in my normal job, or while I'm working on other writing.

Then the credits started rolling. First came all the special thanks.... then the director's name.

Eva Weber.

Not only has she made a film that is identical in every way to my style and attention to things no-one usually considers, she even has my name! (Properly, I'm Vrinda Eva Webb)

Seeing someone with my name making my films has given me a good kick to stop procrastinating. I've come up to my room now to start work on my own projects. I'm going to start working on either one of my storybooks (still running on the inspiration of meeting the illustrator the other week) or on the script I've put to the side since last year and would love to have completed.

So off I go to do that now.

The butter to my bread...

2009-12-14T10:50:00.000Z

Out of Julie & Julia, I loved this quote most of all.

VrindaWebb.com - my little web baby

2009-12-10T09:15:00.002Z

Instead of waiting until everything's perfect (which will take a while, as I'm extremely new to this) I've decided it's time to show the beginning of my website. It still needs, among many many things, a homepage, and an About Me page without glitchy links that appear by themselves. And many more photos.

But it's still a baby, and it's mine.

So without further ado, I bring you.....

*drumroll*

www.vrindawebb.com

Christmas in Retail. (never again)

2009-12-09T00:26:00.004Z

Only two weeks into working full-time in solid Christmas retail, and I've hit breaking point. I left work today promising myself that I'm going to never, ever have to slave away in retail for another Christmas. I know "everyone knows" already about the commercialism of this season, but today I suddenly saw it clearer than I ever have before.

Customers are stressed, rude and snappy... of course having a thousand and one things to deal with, how are they supposed to find the time to spend their hard earned cash on things that no one needs but they're told they need to buy? And as for everyone working in the store, tempers are fraying, disagreements become huge deals, people are getting under each others' skin and trying to make everyone around them as stressed and miserable as they are.

We're open for late shopping, no one wants to be there until 9:30 at night, not when they'll just be doing is stumbling home and collapsing into bed, only to get up and come back to work the next morning. Comments are made about the futility of going home at all, semi-humorous suggestions of bunks in the staffroom.

I feel spoilt and self-important complaining about an occupation that thousands and thousands of people do as their normal lives, especially when I've spent so little time doing it. But maybe the fact I have never had to subject myself to this is why I'm finding it so difficult now.

Looking around today I was hit hard by how depressed everyone was, shoppers and staff alike. It doesn't feel like a group of people anymore, it feels like we're part of some robotic vision of how life should be. Work, spend money, work, spend money, work, don't have enough money? Buy on credit! And in retail, we're the ones being paid to part the public from their money. The more money we take from them, the more we're rewarded.

I don't have to be part of this soulless factory mentality. If I can avoid it, I don't ever want to rely on wages like this again. I want to be self-employed, freelance, reliant on my own skills to make the bulk of my money, not just another faceless employee. I know that this will take some time to plan and build up, but one step at a time and I'll get there. Now that I've seen the alternative, I have serious incentive to becoming serious about finding my own direction.

I'm going to spend this next year focusing on all the things I can do instead of slaving in retail, or some other bread-line job. Every day I will take some step, large or small, towards my own goals and accomplishments. That's at least 365 steps. Enough to start me down my new path.

Candyfloss of Dreams

2009-12-06T22:10:00.002Z

While looking through my archive of photos I stumbled across this one and it made me smile, so I thought I'd share.

Last September I spent a week exploring Paris with Becky. On our second day I saw a child near the Eiffel Tower walking around with candyfloss and decided I wanted some very much, but then I couldn't find where they'd got it. I was most distraught of course, and every day from then on I scoured the tourist sites looking for where to find candyfloss.

Finally on our last day, sitting on a bench in Jardin de Luxembourg, a child walked past with candyfloss. I jumped up, euros in hand, and started walking the way the child had come. After a minute I passed a couple more kids with pink fluffy clouds of sugar and knew I was on the right path.

When I finally found the woman in her booth and pointed at the sign for candyfloss, she was so amused by me joining the queue of people half my height and a quarter of my age, that she kept spinning and spinning it until it turned into the most giant candyfloss mountain I've ever had, probably the size of some of my fellow sugar-cravers.

A most satisfactory conclusion to my candyfloss hunt, and farewell day in Paris.

Chance Meetings

2009-12-05T09:16:00.000Z

One thing I love about my job is the variety of people I meet. Yesterday I was scanning through an assortment of different papers and asked the customer what she planned to do with them.

It turns out she's an illustrator of childrens' books, something I have been thinking about for a while. I mentioned that I was working on a couple little stories for childrens' books and she gave me her email address and website, telling me to send her what I have and saying that she has worked on books long enough to know when they're ready to be sent to an editor.

I'm not certain that my stories are what she usually deals with, but, she mentioned that she does illustration with collage. Something that would suit one of my stories perfectly, a story I've been trying to work out what style it needed. So even if I didn't send it to her, I have an idea for my own work. More than anything I would love to both write and illustrate my book.

She's got me thinking about it again. I think I'll start to work on it seriously now, instead of it being an idea for sometime in the future when I'm a Writer. And who knows, maybe when I start working on my stories again I'll find something to send her..

Website, coming soon. (no, really this time!)

2009-12-05T00:09:00.006Z

I very, very much want a website with my photos, just collections and favorite images, somewhere I can show what I am proud of and use as a portfolio if (when!) I go more serious with my photography.

After months of coaxing, cajoling and bullying my brother into actually making me the website he promised to build me, I've gone back to the free software I started making my site with in the first place. He's still promising to finish building the one from scratch, but instead of waiting I'm doing my own thing and I'll replace it with his when it's done.

I now have the basic skeleton of my website in running order, it just needs a few cosmetic tweaks and a little more content, and it'll be ready to actually show people. I can't wait to have somewhere that's mine at last, rather than just a page in a giant website like Flickr (which I do love). I plan to have it viewable by next week.

Eee, excitment!

Clean Slate - plus Bike, Work and Skating.

2009-12-03T11:18:00.002Z

I miss writing here. It's been so long since I have written regularly that I feel like I should catch up on everything I've missed. I never know what to write when I do sit down to begin.

I think I need to start fresh instead of trying to catch up. Clean slate and all that.

So....
************ ( <<== this symbolises a slate being wiped clean.)

Hi!

Two weeks ago I finally bought a bike. It's a pretty pretty white Raleigh Caprice and I love it. It opens up a world of freedom I haven't had since leaving London. This is the wrong month to begin cycling I think, I had a week of lovely crisp weather before it turned rainy and cold. But I'm determined to cycle anyway, it's like flying, I get everywhere in a fraction of the time it would take to walk, and whoosh the whole way with the wind in my hair. Could there be a better way to travel?

And last week I went full time at work, at least until Christmas. This means more money, but far less free time, which is tricky when the holidays are drawing closer and you have no presents for family yet! Somehow I'll manage.

I went iceskating on Sunday with friends I haven't seen for a while, it was huge fun, I discovered that I can skate, I didn't know that you see, and now I want roller blades (or quads, either kind of skates would be amazing) so I can skate all year round.

And this is the end of my clean slate post.
I'll be back sooner next time.

(My bike by Battersea Bridge on a lovely all-day bike ride last week)

Life

2009-10-25T20:31:00.000Z

My poor blog, lying here neglected as life rushes past.

I'm still staying at home for the time being, two months on, something I didn't expect to happen. But thankfully it's working out a lot better than expected. House-hunting is on hold while I find my way in the world and get back out of my enticingly large student overdraft. Unfortunately this means as much overtime as I can get while I can get it. I've worked my usual weekend today and yesterday, I get tomorrow off, then I'm working all the way through until next Monday... six days in a row. *sighs*

But in the meantime I've finally begun my Writer's Bureau course, I've sent off and received back my first assignment and am working on what to write for my second. I'm determined to follow through with it consistently from now on. I want to write.

On the subject of writing, Nanowrimo is fast approaching and I'm facing my yearly "to do, or not to do" dilemma. I really want to, I miss it. I miss the ridiculous pressure of writing so many words despite whatever is going on around, but I'm worried about putting that pressure on myself (yes, a complete and utter turnaround from my last post, but that's me through and through right now) while I have so much else going on. I'll think hard on my day off tomorrow and make a decision one way or the other.

Moving, plans, and writing.

2009-09-25T12:22:00.002+01:00

I can't believe it's been over three weeks since I left my room in London. It's gone so fast.

I'm still not sure where I will be living a month from now, or a few weeks, who knows. Back and forth, here and there. I'm still house hunting, but calmer and less frustrated than I was. The perfect place is just around the corner I'm sure. In the meantime I get to spend some time with my family for once. I've been working some overtime and sorting out all the stuff in my room that I haven't touched in the three years I've been at uni, getting ready to make the next move easier.

I watched Julie & Julia with my mum on Wednesday. For once there's a film where the people involved don't succeed due to some big windfall or unlikely contacts, but through hard work and determination. I'm in a business where "It's not what you know, it's who you know," is like a mantra, repeated whenever anyone discusses their (or my) future in the industry. At times it begins to feel like if that's the case there's no point, I don't want to spend my life waiting for a lucky break.

I've decided that now is a good time to ignore every thought of lucky breaks and start working on my skills. I'm going to make it big in some way or other, and I'm going to do it under my own steam. If people decide to help me along the way, it'll simply increase my momentum.

Focus is something I need to work on. There is so much I want to do, and when I try to do it all I end up weak and diluted and doing nothing well. So I'm going to focus on one thing at a time. Firstly writing.

Yesterday I made a new plan. I want to push myself for once, instead of just talking about the wonderful things I could do if I tried. It's my plan, starting.. uumm. in the next few days, to write 1000 words a day for a year. I give myself permission to not expect it all to be amazing, instantly publishable work of genius, but 1000 words a day can't fail to stretch my writing and observational muscles whether or not all the writing is actually good. Oh, and I still want to do Nanowrimo as far as wordcount is concerned. I won't necessarily be writing a novel, but I'll write the 50,000 words in November.

I'm a little scared of posting this here, it means that if in a month or so it gets as hard to keep going as I suspect it might, I can't pretend I never started in the first place. Eep.

Sometimes...

2009-09-18T23:20:00.003+01:00

…you reach that point when it’s simply impossible for things to get any worse.

Trudging, cold and drenched, to Euston station at night in monsoon-style rains with shoes so full of water that they both squelched and sloshed at the same time, after a slightly hysterical day at work while being lied to and avoided by estate agents, knowing that the car had broken down and we had no lift on the other end of the train journey and faced either a 40 minute walk in the rain, or an extortionately priced cab-ride home… we reached that point. Becky and I kept telling each other, each time our shoes scooped up even more water from the rivers running down the pavement, that was the low point and everything simply had to get better…

Happily we were right. Things are looking up.

Moving, and NaNoWriMo.

2009-08-20T12:50:00.004+01:00

Even more stuff is gone now.

It's a shock to have my surroundings suddenly so empty, although I'm actually liking this taste of simplicity. I hoard things usually. I can't bear to get rid of them, "just in case". My stuff is mostly in a storage locker now, and I'm tempted to keep the locker for a couple weeks after I move into my new place so that I can get used to living with less and can give away/sell as much as possible instead of taking it into the new flat with me. A really fresh start.

In other news, I'm planning to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I haven't managed to finish this challenge since starting uni, but now I've graduated and am trying to make writing part of my daily life, so I figure this is a good way to jumpstart a new writing routine. And I've missed being part of the craziness that is Nano.

The thing I'm concerned about is the fact I'll be working full-time this year, it's exhausting to work on a shop floor at Christmas, in the Christmas department no less. I'm hoping I'll have the energy to write while I'm not working. But I'm determined. I want to do it this year to prove to myself that I can. If I can write a novel in a month, while working full time, then afterwards I should have no problem with toning it down a little and merely writing a normal amount every day.

Phase One

2009-08-17T19:35:00.009+01:00

The first load of stuff has left my room.

My room feels sad now. Most of the stuff that is me is out. All my books (except the 10 or 15 I refuse to be parted from), my DVDs, my clothes apart from a skeleton wardrobe, my knitting and yarn stash, spare bedding, art supplies, my ridiculously large collection of notebooks...

And my landlord seems to be dodging my notes and visits since I handed in notice about two weeks ago. He owes me money.

(I've just noticed that in this photo I have Bridget Jones, Jane Austen,
Anne of Green Gables, and a rag doll.... my stuff isn't all this girly and twee, honest!)

A fresh start...

2009-08-11T14:23:00.007+01:00

(photo by Infinite Monkeys on Flickr)

Life is moving very, very quickly right now.

My sometime-in-the-future plan of moving out and finding a new place with Becky has suddenly run out of "in the future" time and become, like... now. I've handed in notice on my room and have to be out in just over two weeks.

The thing is, we still don't have a place to move into, most of my things are going into storage until we find somewhere. Becky's off in Nepal until the 29th of this month, and we can't move until she gets back. I've begun looking for a flat, but the quick searches I've done so far have just found lots of places that are out of our very limited price range. Hopefully something perfect will turn up soon. Very soon...

I'm excited. I can't wait to begin my new life, all fresh and full of possibilities. But this part of it is scary! The saying, "Leap and the net will appear," is more relevant than ever. Repeating it over and over is the only way I'm getting through packing up my home of three years with no idea of where I'm going to be this time next month.

The net will appear.... it will, it will...
Eep.

Graduation!

2009-07-29T21:53:00.005+01:00

Yesterday was graduation day. I am officially a graduate, LSBU alumni. My student life is behind me, my future ahead.

My mum, my brother and Becky were there with me on my special day, my nearest and dearest. It was a fun day, albeit very.... I don't know.... fast. It all happened in a big swoosh of people and robes photos, announcements, more photos and then... it was over. It was held in St George's Cathedral, so gorgeous with its windows, pillars and stonework, an amazing setting for this day. Then we had a reception with a band and refreshments in the gardens of the Imperial War Museum. It was sunny and we took hundreds of photos, some of which I will post sometime this week when my internet is working well enough to upload them.

I thought that, after 2 months of being finished with uni, not seeing anyone, being in the buildings, this day wouldn't be that big a deal, but I came away a little shell-shocked by the finality of it all. Knowing that I would never see probably half of the people in my (quite large) class again is very weird. And then even with the friends that I will keep in touch with and see, it's different. There's no more casual, "See you in next week's class..". If we want to see each other we have to make an effort and arrange it, and all that. Which I think is a good thing and I'm looking forward to friendships growing past lazy communication, but it's still a bit of a shock to realise that everything has changed.

More than anything though, I'm proud of what I've accomplished in this time, the person I've become through my experiences, the precious friendships I've made, and what I've learned.. both professionally and personally.. And I'm excited about what's to come. I appear to have a semi-solid plan forming for what comes next, and I'm determined to make it work. Watch this space.

Titles get hard to think of after a while....

2009-07-22T16:37:00.003+01:00

Today seems to be a day of unexplained grumpiness for me. Maybe it's not enough sleep (I fell asleep for an hour or so again this afternoon), or maybe it's not, I don't know. But I don't feel like writing, tidying, doing anything. Today is the first time while doing NaBloPoMo this month that I have to force myself to write. A little stroppy part of me, even as I type this is going, "You can't make me write! I won't do it!".

It's funny, coz I've been doing really well for this past few days. I'm trying to use the month between now, and me moving out and into a new place, to examine my life and fix what's not working. I want to start with a clean slate. This of course starts with my constantly mentioned tidying and sorting, but it's been other things as well. I'm beginning to be aware of blocks I have in my thinking, and the ways I interact with the people in my life. I'm trying to look at every situation from different angles and not do things, or act in certain ways just because it's what I've always done. This is new to me. I'm used to hanging onto ideas and fears and grudges for dear life. And it feels so, so good to let go.

Maybe that's why I'm grumpy today, too much of everything shifting around inside my head...

I hate shopping. Am I allowed to say that?

2009-07-21T09:34:00.007+01:00

I'm having graduation panic. Not about the graduation itself, I'm quite looking forward to that, but I have nothing to wear! Today I'm planning to go to the still rather new, and ridiculously giant Westfield Shopping Center to find something nice. I've never been there before and I feel like going somewhere new. The problem is, and saying this may go against every rule of being a girl, that I hate shopping. New clothes, I love, new things of any kind, I love. The act of delving into the shops to find said new things? Ugh. Not so much.

Sales are worst of all. I refuse to shop in sales, even if there are (so I'm told) bargains to be had. I would prefer to go when it hasn't been hit by a hurricane of frantic shoppers, all rummaging through the same rail of crumpled clothes, even if it means paying full price for something.

London shops are huge, and stock everything, but are full to the brim with tourists and crazed teenage girls in 4 inch heels. Outside London, things are (generally) a little calmer but, having been to the London stores, I'm aware of how much is missing from these smaller stores and don't want to buy until I've seen everything. I can't win.

So after hours of frustrated high-street shopping, I usually find myself in some semi-designer place spending £40 on the cardigan instead of my budgeted £15, or £75 on a swimsuit that I've given up hope of ever finding anywhere else. I'm a student, that's a month's worth of food money!

And with that rant off my chest, I'm off to shop!
Wish me luck!

Another day.

2009-07-20T13:40:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was another no-internet, and thus no-post, day.

After 35 hours spent in or around my bed, I wanted very very much to be out of the house so I did everything possible to get enough sleep and was feeling okay in the morning yesterday, so I made it into work. The thing is, when I'm not well I tend to become very, very spacey, and kept finding myself staring into the cabinets at work with no recollection of how I got there or what I was supposed to be doing. And walking into things. And dropping things. I tried to throw a piece of paper into a bin and missed..... from three inches away (I say three, it was probably closer..). But I survived, as did everyone around me, thankfully. I'm a fair bit better today, taking it easy. I just fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon, something I haven't done in a long time.

I think I'll spend the day tidying and starting to sort things out for moving next month. I have a system started, and for the first time in my life I'm actually being able to get rid of things. Instead of looking at something and thinking, "Aww, that's nice. I haven't used it in forever though.... but... I might someday! And if I ever do need it where would I be able to find another? No... I'd better keep it.... just in case.... it's only small anyway... it's not like it takes up space. I'll just add it to the boxes full of other 'maybe someday' things..." I can think, "Huh, cool. Oh well, out it goes." This, for me, is incredibly radical thinking.

Taking a Sick Day

2009-07-18T13:19:00.006+01:00

(Photo by Kati Brown on flickr)

I'm home sick from work today. It's the first time in my year and, um, nine months I believe, of working there that I've ever called in sick, and I keep getting the guilt coz I know that they'll be short-staffed on my floor today. But then I do something like call my mum, and realise that for some reason I'm incapable of even stringing together a simple sentence without slurring it and forgetting what the start of the sentence was. Or I'll try and open the curtains and lose my balance. No... I'm better off here, huddled in my room feeling sorry for myself. And better I rest today and am fine for work tomorrow, than go in today and be useless and then be useless again the next day.

In a twisty way it's kind of nice to have permission to just... be sick. I don't have to push myself to get to work, and then stay upright once I'm there, and I don't have uni work to do. I don't have anyone around me wanting me to do anything, or be anywhere. It's just me, my duvet, and a day of much needed rest.

I'm hoping that, with enough water, sleep, tea, and vitamin C, I'll be fine to go to work tomorrow. At least it's a later start than today so I don't have to get up too early..

Calling in sick raised an interesting dilemma I'd never had to think about before. As I dialled the number I was wondering how sick you're supposed to sound when you call in... Where's the balance between sounding sick enough to take a day off, and sounding so sick that you must be faking it?

Website, coming soon.

2009-07-17T17:20:00.007+01:00

My brother has been promising me for ages to build me a website for my photos, but then not getting around to it. Today I sat down with him for a few hours and made sure he didn't leave his desk until it was built. I now have a basic skeleton that needs a few tweaks, and, well, some photos.... then it will be all up and ready to see! I can't wait.

I feel like drawing. I think I'll play with my tablet more today.
Eep, and I'm behind on my writing. I'd better go do that also!

Short post today. xx

P.S.
Because it's such a short post, I think I'll leave you with a picture. This is the pretty clock that I bought yesterday for mine and Becky's new flat (yes, the one we don't have yet), it was cheap, but I like it. And behind it is the mask I bought in Venice.

Preposterously Positive.

2009-07-16T15:26:00.012+01:00

"Say yes to positive, not no to negative

'Cos no to negative is not enough

Say yes to positive, not no to negative

Preposterously positive, that's the stuff."

(From Carrot, by the wonderfully funny Mal Webb)

I'm in a very good mood today. I saw some friends last night who I haven't seen for a while. And I made new friends. Both good things.

I've been thinking... not being sucked in by peer presure, being different from the "regular" crowd, being able to generally not take peoples' opinions to heart are all things I pride myself on. But I'm discovering that there's a big difference between not paying attention to negative input, and having positive input.

I can feel fine around people who may or may not truly "get" me... but "fine" is very different from the great that I feel when I'm around people who believe in me, and who see for themselves qualities in me that I'm used to having to work to get other people to notice, or even that I stop noticing myself. Being around people like this gives me a big injection of happy, and I come away feeling like I can do anything I put my mind to, every huge challenge I face melts into triviality.

I love feeling like that.

I'm so very grateful to have people like this in my life.

And now I can draw.

2009-07-14T11:05:00.016+01:00

I got my tablet working properly in Photoshop last night. I can now draw and paint properly! I haven't drawn anything, by hand or otherwise, in a very very long time and drawing digitally seems to be the perfect way for me to start back up again. I love it. It's a no risk medium where, with all my layers, I can change my mind at any point and rearrange the whole picture if I like, or redo sections. So much fun.

Writing, writing.

2009-07-13T18:23:00.014+01:00

After a week or so of doing nothing but binge-watching Buffy, I'm finally feeling more alive again. I think I needed to get a whole lot of doing nothing out of my system. And yesterday's return of my desire to write is getting stronger. Last night I was up till past 1am writing the first assignment for my Writer's Bureau course. Four years I've procrastinated on writing that... no... five.. and now I'm up all night coz I can't pull myself away before "just one more sentence... and one more...".

Also, Becky and I have a new pact to stretch our writing muscles with challenges. We have begun to set each other subjects or tasks to be written by a certain day. I'm currently writing about facebook, I haven't quite decided what aspect exactly.

Also also. I've been digging through my old scraps of writing and have found a couple things I haven't seen in a long time and am suddenly very excited about developing into something more than scraps. I found a story that I wrote in my morning pages on day a few years ago and want to try turning into a childrens book. I scribbled (keyword "scribbled") in word with my pretty new tablet (which I'm loving more by the day) for a few minutes and have a rough rough opening page, and a thirst to find my art supplies and try my hand at illustrating.

Page after Page - a review/love letter

2009-07-12T19:31:00.012+01:00

Last Thursday I spent an hour or so reading in my favourite Waterstones (the 5 floor store on Piccadilly, my own little heaven), a luxury I haven't indulged in for a very long time. I devoured photography books cover to cover, and then moved on to the writing books. The writing section is usually dangerous for me and my decreasing bank-balance, but I thought this time I'd be safe, seeing as I now have most of the exciting books in that section. I was wrong. I found one I'd never seen before, and fell in love at first sight. By the time I'd finished reading the table of contents I knew I needed it.

The book in question is Page after Page, by Heather Sellers. It's such a cute size, perfect to carry around and read anywhere. The cover is pretty, and there are soft designs around the edge of every page, a different design for each of the three sections. And the writing is friendly, encouraging and genuinely funny. As with every writing book out there, there are also writing exercises. I'm not usually particularly excited by writing exercises, but these I love. They're... different somehow. They range from the unforgivingly practical, to the sumptuously luxurious.

Like I said, I have every writing book there is to be had. Okay, so that's a rather large exaggeration. But I do have a lot, many that I love and that are full of inspiration. But more than any of them, even books like The Right to Write and Writing Down the Bones, this book makes me want to write. Those books make me want to have become a writer, this book makes me want to actually do the writing, right now. Instead of writing as a writer who has "made it" in the business and is informing us mortals how to do so too, Heather Sellers writes as a normal person continuing with the same challenges that we do every day, and showing how she gets past them. She makes it suddenly seem so real and doable.

And I love, love the way she uses words. The way she writes is like a cross between how I write, and how I want to write. It makes me think, "Hey, you know what? I can do that!". And not just think it. Start it. For the first time, I think ever, when I came home today from work... a heavy day of being short-staffed and moving furniture and fixtures around a store that is mostly a building site right now... I got home, changed out of my work clothes, and before anything else, I sat down and started writing. There was nothing else I wanted to do quite as much.

I'm hoping this is the start of new habits, I'm taking it a day at a time. Today I wrote, and I'm celebrating. Tomorrow, hopefully I'll write again, and I'll celebrate that also. And the next day, well, we'll see!

Buttons 2 - AKA The Button Torment

2009-07-12T12:00:00.002+01:00

As I've mentioned before, I have a thing about buttons. And finding them. I found three today, and a zip (I branched out into occasional zips coz I kept finding them too). For some reason I see them everywhere. Oh wait, four buttons today. I forgot one. Aaanyway. There is one button that has been plaguing me since April.

I saw it on the the tracks at platform 5 of London Bridge and spent the rest of my wait for the train watching it intently, trying to think of some big and clever plan to get it off the tracks. Most of the plans involved distracting the guards while I lowered a giant super-power vacuum from the platform edge. I didn't have a giant vacuum, otherwise who knows, it could have worked.

It's still there. It won't go away! Three months it's been sitting on the tracks taunting me with its buttonness. If anyone has any schemes to rescue lost buttons from train tracks, preferably without loss of life or limb, I'd be thrilled to hear them.

Old Friends and Soup Disasters

2009-07-11T20:21:00.008+01:00

My Breakfast

I left for work an hour early today so I would have time to sit and write before work, which worked and was lovely. Starbucks failed on the drinks front though. I went in and ordered an iced decaf mocha frappachino (because I like to be difficult :op), and the barrista looked at me funny and said, "Um.. we can't do that." So I said that was fine and that I'd go to Caffe Nero instead. Which I did, and they didn't blink when I asked for the same thing, and it was goood. They win.

I met an old friend today, or to be more accurate, she met me. She came to the store for my lunch. I haven't seen her in about two years and it was it was really great catch up a bit and hear about her time at uni. It's so strange to think how much things have changed and we've grown up since we first met when we were young. I don't feel different, even from what I was like at 10. How does that work? How do we grow up and mature... and yet stay the same?

For lunch I had soup to eat in the park. Beautiful red pepper and goat's cheese soup. I then managed to drop said soup. It went everywhere, completely covering one leg from the foot to the knee. Somehow, thank goodness, I managed to clean it up enough that it wasn't noticable when I went back on the shop floor half an hour later. But now I'm hungry coz most of my soup ended up on my leg or the ground. So I'm off to eat shiny big cherries and then find something more substantial.

Home Sweet Home

2009-07-10T16:12:00.009+01:00

(photo by kaysare on flickr)

So... I'm moving soon.

I've kind of known it for a while, but it seemed a million years away until last night. Suddenly it's all hitting home, so to speak.

The very lovely Becky is starting uni in London in October. I'm going to move out of my little room here and the two of us will find a flat in a better part of London than here, somewhere closer to work, my family and her uni. This place has been perfect student accommodation and I'm very grateful to have had it throughout my time at uni, but I'm living in a single room and storing half my clothes under the bed. I'm very excited at the idea of having somewhere that's truly a home. I'm looking forward to having a bedroom of my own, that doesn't double/triple up as office, storage, kitchen and living room. And I'm looking forward to being able to spend time with my bestest friend more than once every few months.

I'm not looking forward to paying rent and living expenses in London with no student loan to fall back on. Scary stuff.

Doing things the hard way.

2009-07-09T18:13:00.008+01:00

Another load/bucket of washing done. By hand.

I made up some whipped cream the other evening, easy enough.. but it's the first time I've done it without my electric whisk, which is in my mum's kitchen right now. It's rather more tiring manually. And then the water was cut off for all of yesterday and most of today. Turning the tap on and having no water come out is strangely disconcerting, there being no water in an entire house isn't something you really consider happening normally.

Add a non-working washing machine on top of that and it feels like I'm living in the stoneage! Or something. I feel spoiled by a way of life I don't even notice I have until I don't. How on earth did people survive without all the modern appliances that we take for granted now? Even thoroughly washing a pair of heavy jeans is a workout on its own. And never mind appliances, just having hot and cold running water is a big deal for me at the moment!

Anyway. Just musing aloud.

And now I'm off to check that nothing valuable is being saturated by the steady dripping of water from my jeans. I hope the weather wherever you are is less grey and drizzly than here!

People Watching

2009-07-09T10:35:00.008+01:00

I find it amusing how marvellously Londoners manage to make appearing aloof into an art form. I came home during the rush hour yesterday. We were crammed into the train, about to leave London Bridge, when a rather large man jumped on saying, "Will everyone please move down." in a slightly irritated tone, as if it was our fault that the train was already full. Everyone crushed down a little more, and the doors closed. I then got to spend the journey watching the man trying to stay upright by holding onto the handle by the door, and pressing his other hand against the glass sheet between the standing area and the seats.... The thing is, there was another man trapped between him and the glass. It was a very funny uncomfortable scene.

The two men were inches away from each other, one's hands pressed either side of the other, and yet somehow, staring in an intently casual manner out of the window, eyebrows slightly raised in a "tralala, isn't this a boring day with no people in it, especially not ones almost pressed up against me?" kind of way, ipods plugged firmly into their ears, they each managed to keep up the impression that neither had any idea the other even existed.

People are ever so entertaining.

And then the police were summoned...

2009-07-08T19:22:00.003+01:00

Well today was full of drama. We've been living in a building site for the past year and a half, thanks to a landlord full of evil. Today one of the guys who lives the house had a slight temper meltdown.

Now, it's quite hard for me to actively dislike someone. There are people I confess to not going out of my way to adore, but to actually truly dislike someone, that's rare for me. He's one of those rare people. To put it into perspective. I've lived in a house with him for three years. I haven't said more than three words to him for the last two years.

Anyway, the water was disconnected so that the builders could do their work, and he went ballistic at the plumber. But he's too weaselly to pick a proper fight. No. Instead he wound up the situation and wound it up, yelling and following them around, until the plumber's temper snapped, then called the police, telling them a fabricated tale about how he had, "merely asked them nicely about the situation, and the plumber became aggressive and knocked him to the floor." None of which had happened.

He called both the neighbourhood police, and 999, so a police van and a police car turned up (I have to say I'm quite impressed by their response time, it was less than 10 minutes later). I took one of the policemen aside as they came in and explained the situation as I'd seen and heard it so they knew not to go after the plumber as the aggressive one in the situation, and they were gone in about 10 minutes. They hadn't even got all the way down the garden path before he asked one of the builders to turn the water back on. He started another fight and called the police back. At which point I decided it was time for me to be somewhere else, so I threw some books and lenses in a bag and my camera around my neck and went for a lovely aimless stroll around London.

I enjoyed my little exploration, and am now inspired to go out on a proper photo seeking day soon, maybe tomorrow if the weather's nice.

And now I'm home with pizza and rasberries. Not together. And no police. Yay.

Results!

2009-07-07T13:59:00.001+01:00

Well it's official.

A uni email was sent out yesterday afternoon announcing that our results were posted on the noticeboard in a corridor outside the faculty office. I grabbed my bag and jumped on a bus. I didn't think I was too bothered about my results, you know, "Well, I did my best and that's what counts...", but when I got the message yesterday I suddenly realised that I really, really did care after all.

I spent the whole journey there trying to pretend I wasn't thinking about it. The weather went from bright sunshine to heavy summer rain. I love a bit of drama, and sitting there on the bus driving to meet my fate with the rain rattling on the windows was rather satisfying.

But thankfully my fate turned out to be a good one. I have a 2:1, which is what I was hoping for. Such an incredible relief. So happy. It's over and done with, and with a happy ending.

I have a degree!

Now all there is left is my graduation on the 28th.

The joys of clean clothes.

2009-07-06T10:46:00.004+01:00

Ah look, sunshine! Another beautiful day outside. And this time, I have the day off. The week off in fact. I've kept it purposely clear, refusing to let anyone talk me into doing anything or going anywhere. This week is mine to get my life, surroundings and routines back in order. Although I've been out of uni for a month now, this is the first time I've had a block of time this big just for myself. I can't begin to say how much I'm looking forward to it.

I began tidying my room over the weekend, and it's already feeling less like a landfill site. I bought myself a bamboo basket to keep all the scarves and cardigans that end up all over my floor. I figured that if I'm going to throw them around the room instead of having somewhere to hang them, I may as well throw them into something that looks nice and keeps them out of a heap on the floor. It's working wonders already. I don't know how I've collected so many scarves.

Today is laundry day. Thing is, I have no working washing machine. Today is the day my hands get very soapy and dry and I have water splashed all over the bathroom and clothes dripping dry from every pointy-out bit in my room that I can hang them off. So I guess today should be the day that I also find some lovely hand cream, sea salt scrub and other pampery things for my poor worked hands. Then tomorrow will be the first day in a while that instead of my morning routine being, "I'll wear....... oh... I can't. It's in the washing basket. Okay, then I'll wear.... oh. So's that." It'll be, "I'll wear.... that. Perfect." Done.

The little luxuries of life.

Flickery internet...

2009-07-04T21:39:00.003+01:00

Hmm, well I seem to have found a flaw in my daily posting plan. I'm back in London with no internet of my own, only that "borrowed" from an unsuspecting neighbour. An unsuspecting neighbour who only has internet at random points during the day and almost never during the night. That's on my to-sort-out list. But in the meantime It'll have to be post when I'm able rather than daily without fail.

I only have a flicker of internet right now and it's about to give out, so this can't be long. It's a post for the sake of it really. But hopefully I'll have something better tomorrow. If you're lucky it might even be worth reading!

*****

Aaand that was last night. The internet died before I clicked publish.

It's been a long weekend at work, kind of hectic but dead at the same time. Building work going on around the store which makes things confusing. But I actually really enjoyed myself at work for the first time in months. I wasn't watching the clock and waiting desperately until the time I could leave. I used to love my job so much, and I feel like now the rest of my stress is beginning to wear off, I'm getting that back. I can go back to being good at what I do, and loving it. Happy times.

Techno Goodies

2009-07-02T19:04:00.007+01:00

l have a shiny new toy!

I'm writing this blog post by hand. It's taking a little longer than usual... I'm still kind of mastering it and working out how to make it do what I want it to do, rather than what it wants to. Harder than expected at times.

So what is it? A Bamboo tablet is what it is.

My treat to myself as part of finishing uni and being out in the big world starting off on my own. I've decided a tablet would be great to use with my photo and film editing as well as the design work that seems determined to come my way.

It may be tricky to use right now, and some of software is being a little glitchy, but I love it already. I edited my first photo with it today, it's so much less fiddly than editing by finger and touchpad as I've been doing for the past year or so. I also love using it to browse through computer and online, and just in general. There's something so magic about writing with a piece of plastic and seeing it appear on-screen. Practice is still much needed though. What you're reading is edited. If I don't edit, it ends aup looking a litIle more like this. Oh, that wasn't so bad. See, I'm improving already!

Habits

2009-07-01T19:38:00.008+01:00

I want to get back my good habits. After my 37 days challenge, I kept my no late-night internet rule firmly in place all the way until last week. I was going to bed early (well, before midnight) and for the first time that I can remember, 9am became sleeping in for me. I was being productive, even writing and drawing.

But now I've been at home with my family, and with a TV, and with working internet. Every time I come back here to a TV, I double and triple my determination not to have one in my own place. Ever. I hate it and I love it and I hate it. I could, and have, spent entire days watching endless reruns of Law & Order, Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote... and other daytime TV. One hour goes past, and another, and another. I don't notice until I realise it's nearly bedtime. And then it's past bedtime. And then it's 2 or 3am. And then I sleep in the next day until 11, and the whole thing starts again.

The internet is also swallowing my time and energy again. I forgot why it was that I chose it as the thing to quit for my 37 days. As of tonight I'm back on my not past 10pm rule.

I want to write again. I've begun the first assignment for my Writer's Bureau course and can't wait to get started properly and really take my writing seriously. I want to be published, and make money from my writing. There's no reason why not.

I've also begun working on my own website for my photography, and for my videos when I have anything I actually want to show. When I say "I" have, I mean I've started bullying my brother into building it for me, which is only fair seeing as my very basic foundation of one was working until he started playing around with the database.. or whatever it was he messed with. Anyway. That should be up and running in a week or so, I can't wait!

I'm full of plans and ideas. Now I just have to pull myself away from the TV for long enough to carry them out.

Oh, and as part of my habit-forming effort I am going to attempt a post a day here. NaBloPoMo is the official hangout spot for bloggers trying to do this. I tried it last November, but what with deadlines and work I missed about a week's worth of posts. Lets see what I can do this time. Hopefully without sacrificing quality for quantity.

Venice - and lots of pictures

2009-06-15T15:40:00.023+01:00

And I'm back.

Venice was loovely, so beautiful. I wasn't there for nearly long enough. I want to go back already. It was my first time travelling completely on my own. I met my mum and friends once I was there, but the flight and the first trip finding my way through Venice was entirely my own adventure.

We were staying just outside Venice itself, a bus and boat ride away from the centre, although in our case we had a surreal trip into Venice where we walked through endless fields and the same bus driver kept refusing to pick us up and driving off with with his doors open so we could see him laughing at us, so bizarre. I went into a supermarket and asked them to call us a taxi and we got there in the end. My friends were meant to be going into Venice on the same morning, they didn't get there that day because they ran into the same bus driver. I don't think he's a real driver, I think he's bored and drives around the same route again and again in a fake bus in order to confuse as many disoriented travellers as possible. Just my suspicion.

We were staying right on the sea, you could see it from our balcony. A beautiful sandy beach, private to the place we were staying, so completely uncrowded. The weather forecasts all said rain, rain, rain, thunder, so I had a huge amount of layers and warmish things. It ended up being incredibly gorgeous weather every day. Some mornings were a little hazy, but it would burn off by lunchtime.

And Venice itself! I have to admit I didn't actually expect it to look like Venice is supposed to. I expected it to have a canal through the middle and lots of modernness, through which you may be able to see some hints of the olden days. I was so wrong, it's a gorgeous twisting maze of alleys, canals and bridges and filled with boats and gondolas.

My mum and I wandered through the alleys, exploring all the little shops of the most incredible glasswork. I've never seen anything so intricate in my life. And the masks! I fell in love with the masks. I bought one, which I still have to take a photo of. A pretty half face pale blue and silver one with a huge blue feather and lots of glitter.

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

But amazing and gorgeous as it was, it was still pretty hectic, and when I got home I realised I hadn't quite recovered from the final pressures of uni and needed a complete escape for a while, so I begged the weekend off work and ran away to stay with Becky in Norfolk for a week. Which was a lot a lot of fun and did me the world of good... but with the amount of photos we took, that's another blog post.

Venice!

2009-06-06T22:28:00.005+01:00

I'm off tomorrow night/Monday morning (red-eye flight, overnight airport stay) to Venice! It's my first time travelling on my own properly. I've flown places, but been dropped off/met at airports. I have to find my own way to Stanstead and through Italy on the other side. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm nervous. Less than I probably should be considering I've done very little research and my travel plan is scribbled in felt tip on half a pocket moleskine page. Once I'm there I'll find my friends, who have mostly all left today, which will be great. But until I meet them I'm looking forward to travelling solo for once, it's an experience I've craved for a while.

I got a new lens today, a Canon 50mm 1.8 prime, and I'm very very much looking forward to breaking it in fully while there! Hundreds of pictures a day will be taken.

Gotta go pack! I neeever leave it this late! Eep!

Uni.... Done? Huh, what?!

2009-05-21T20:26:00.006+01:00

After my months and months of talking and worrying about it, the end of uni has finally arrived. Today I wrote and handed in my final assignment. My last ever hand in. I returned my pile of library books. Yesterday we had our final screening. It's all done.

But after all my worrying about this dramatic day, it hasn't actually sunk in. The adrenaline rush of having to write 2000 words before 4pm hasn't quite worn off yet. I managed it all calmly, at my own speed, without a hint of panic. I was very proud of myself. But I'm still breathing in my "stay calm, it's all fine..." way right now, still bracing myself for more work. But there is none!

As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to go on a whirlwind clean up of my room. Any traces of uni are going to be put in a box under the bed, somewhere that I don't have to see them until I finally realise that it's all over. And all my work off my mac onto a backup harddrive.

Then I'm going to find something yummy to eat, and watch the episode of House that I've had sitting on my desktop begging to be watched for the whole of this week. And then... after that.... who knows? It doesn't matter! My time is mine again!!

Imperfection and Life

2009-05-08T10:07:00.014+01:00

"I have not failed 10,000 times.
I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
- Thomas Edison

I’m a perfectionist.

“I have high ideals,” I tell the friends who ask about why I’m letting opportunities slip past. “When I do start, it will come naturally to me,” I try to convince my skeptical self as I spend day after day avoiding doing the things I dramatically plan to do. “There’s no point doing something if a million people can do it better than I can. Better try only when I know that it will go to plan, and that I’ll be better at it than everyone around me,” is what I tell myself as I look through Amazon at all the beautiful books about everything I yearn to do, and the even beautifuller books that I yearn to have written myself.

Now, though, I’m having radical thoughts. I’m considering the idea of allowing things into my life that I know won’t, and can't, be completely perfect. I've started doing little things (like sudoku) imperfectly, but as far as big things are concerned... well, such dangerous ideas have never been allowed to exist outside my head. Once the first steps down such a revolutionary path have been taken, there’s no telling where I’ll end up.

I can allow myself to try things. I can accept that I will fail a dozen times before I succeed, and realise that there is no shame in it. I can be open to the knowledge that my relationships will never be completely perfect, no matter how many self-help and chick-lit books I read, and allow them to blossom anyway to their fullest extent. I can accept my skills the way they are now, and accept the areas in which I fall down. I can stand up, brush myself off and continue on my way with the new lessons learned, and with compassion and love in place of judgment and embarrassment. I can learn to take baby steps towards my ambitions, instead of giant leaps that cause me to fall flat on my face and cower in fear of falling again. One baby step at a time. One page of writing, one friendship, one scale on the guitar, one small sketch at a time.

Dissertation - complete!

2009-05-01T10:52:00.008+01:00

I finished and printed my dissertation yesterday evening. I can't believe it's over! I spent the night having nightmares of typos, and woke up this morning thinking that I'd forgotten to write a conclusion.

Of course I had to have a photo before handing it in.
The poloroid is by the very lovely Becky, photo of poloroid by me.

Now I'm on my way to hand it in. Then I'm coming home, cooking, and waiting for Becky to get back from a uni interview (with good news and an on-the-spot acceptance of course) and then it's out to the park for the afternoon.

Ah, freedom is so goood!

Focus.

2009-04-27T14:13:00.002+01:00

Photo by Margolove on Flickr.

A little reminder to myself as I was sitting here wanting to blog. I can't. I have to focus. Focus.

Tickets and tickets!

2009-04-24T19:55:00.005+01:00

We booked tickets today (we being my mum, my brother and me) to see Paul Merton's Silent Clowns show in May. I'm very excited because the whole reason I'm doing the dissertation I am is because I watched his documentary on Hitchcock and was rather inspired. I've grown up loving Paul Merton in everything that I've ever seen him do. So him just happening to be in the next town over from us two weeks after I finish the dissertation he inspired me to write, well, it's rather perfect really!

We also booked Imax tickets to see the new Star Trek film, 'cause we're an undercover Trekky family and my brother's never been to an Imax cinema. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I haven't seen aaany reviews or trailers (apart from the teaser trailer a year ago), which is my favourite way to go see a film, without a clue what it's about. Yay.

And now back to writing so that my deadline can pass stress-free and I can enjoy all these lovely things properly!

"Dear Windows Live User"

2009-04-22T13:18:00.004+01:00

"Dear Windows Live User,

We are contacting you regarding your communication preference settings for Windows Live and MSN.

Currently, your settings do not allow Microsoft to send you promotional information or survey invitations about Windows Live and MSN. We would like to communicate important product updates to you, so if you would like to change your settings, please visit your account profile here to change your preferences.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Team"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely opting out of promotional information should include information promoting the promotional information you've said you don't want..... right?

Globe Dancing

2009-04-21T10:44:00.009+01:00

I stumbled across this online today. I love and adore this video. It's four and a half minutes of distilled fun, spontaneity and complete lack of worries and cares across the world.

The story behind it is here: www.wherethehellismatt.com

It turns out there's such a thing as Too Sure.

2009-04-20T15:00:00.012+01:00

At work we have a coffee shop on our floor, and we have customer toilets. These toilets are of the most bizarre design I have ever seen. Very space-age. Only UV lighting, no normal lights at all, black walls, black floor and black ceiling. The door is huge, unmarked and locked, and we have the most delightful job of spotting confused people wandering around the floor and buzzing them through the door using our magic button behind the till. Oh, and then rescuing them when they can't work out how to get out again.

Yesterday my floor manager and I were standing by the till when a man wandered over from the direction of the coffee shop. He was looking around as if searching for something. He wandered over to the toilet door and the Filofax stand, and then away again, still looking around with a puzzled expression. This is typical customer-looking-for-toilet behaviour that we've seen a thousand times and pride ourselves on being able to spot.

"Through the door over there," we say as they open the customer opens their mouth to ask directions. "But.. we're looking for the toilets." they say. "Yes, just through that door there," we say knowingly, pressing the buzzer to unlock it. They look at us in awe, often asking how we knew before they said anything. We smile mysteriously and let them wonder. (This is how it looks from inside my head. It's probably a lot creepier from their point of view.)

So, this man was wandering around by the door looking lost, and V. called over to him, "Through that door, I'll buzz you in." but the man didn't hear him. V. pushed the buzzer and the door beeped loudly, but the man was now walking away from it and didn't seem to hear that either. I pointed at the door and said, "It's just that door over there". Still no response. V. said, "Excuse me!" and finally the man looked over at us. I said, "Just through that door." He looked at me with an expression that held zero comprehension. V. said, "That door, over there." The man was looking more and more confused now, so V. said, "Over there... toilets?" and the man said, "No... I'm.... looking for wedding cards?"

There was a second's pause as the situation sank in. It was one of those "must not laugh and make things worse" moments. We both failed and burst into fits of laughter. V. immediately attempted to placate the confused customer and went with him downstairs to show him exactly where the wedding cards are kept, and left me in stitches.

I think next weekend I may be a little less mysterious and a little more sure before trying to force someone to go through the giant, unmarked door by the Filofaxes.

Writing and fluffy friends.

2009-04-08T11:43:00.006+01:00

37 days:

Last night my disconnection time meant that I had the chance to actually work on my dissertation without distraction. I went to bed early again, kind of, about 11:30. But before that I managed to get an elusive 700 or so words written and plenty of notes made on what I have to do next. It gave me a good kick into working, and I'm not so stuck as to where to start next time I sit down and begin to write.

-----

Rest of Life:
Spring is really and truly here. I went for a walk with my camera and spent about 45 minutes at the park lying in the sun yesterday. It felt so good! I'm going to try and get outside for as many walks as possible now that the weather is so lovely, I always feel better when I walk.

I made a little friend while I was out. As I was dozing on the grass, I sensed a movement by me and opened my eyes. A gorgeous fluffy black dog had dropped its ball by my head and was waiting for me to throw it for him. I did this, and he went running after it, then brought it back for me to throw again, which I did. This went on for a long time as he completely ignored his owner calling to him. He was the friendliest, playfullest dog I've met in a long while. Thoroughly adorable.

Procrastination. Again.

2009-04-06T12:39:00.010+01:00

So here I am today, working on my dissertation. Can you tell? I'm hard at work.

I'm finding it difficult to start today. I'm flicking through webpages (about to force myself to shut them down), buying some music that was recommended to me yesterday, then falling asleep listening to said music because it's very lovely but awfully drowse-enducing, thinking that maybe I should tidy my room before starting (you know, because I'll be so much more productive once I've spent several hours sorting out this mess...) and thinking that perhaps I should cook as well before starting so that I don't have to do that once I'm into the whole writing thing.

Then I thought, okay this is ridiculous, I've got to stop. Oh, I know, I have some interesting things in various books about procrastination and how to avoid it, maybe I should read some of those and get some ideas on how to deal with it. It was at that point that I realised just how bad it had got, about as bad as bad as it can get. Well, almost. As-bad-as-it-could-get actually hit the moment I loaded up my blog to write about my efforts to not procrastinate.

Right. Time to write. Yes. Write.

Reclaimed Mornings

2009-04-05T19:53:00.005+01:00

37 days:
I have discovered a wonderful new side to my challenge. I am now not only reclaiming my evenings for myself, I'm reclaiming my mornings as well!

On Saturday morning I got up an hour earlier than I had to (something I very rarely do) and left for work an hour early. Once I got there, I sat across the road in Pret for an hour with hot chocolate and granola, and my trusty moleskine. I got lots of very much needed head clearing writing done before wandering back across the road and starting work. A good start to the day. For some reason I've never done that in all my time of working there. That's something that will have to change, it's a routine I would really like to set for myself. I loved having that time to myself instead of rolling out of bed and onto the shop floor.

Then last night I shut down the internet at 10 on the dot, sat around for a bit, then realised I was very tired. Half an hour later the lights were out and I was listening to a radio show before bed, 15 minutes after that I'd given up on the radio show and had turned that off also, 10 minutes after that I was fast asleep. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep so fast and slept so soundly. I think winding down earlier in the day helps me a lot.

Today again I got up an hour early, naturally no less, I opened my eyes to check the time seconds before my alarm went off. Again I had a lovely leisurely morning and was ready for work by the time I would have been dragging myself out of bed normally. Then it was out into the gorgeous sunshine.

I love having the chance to go to bed when I'm actually tired, instead of keeping myself up to read "one more" post, watch "one more" youtube clip, stalk "one more" person on facebook (not that I do that a lot... ahem). It's making a big difference in the way I live my days.

I didn't expect my slightly less internet time to spread its change across the whole day like it is.

37days + Filming

2009-04-03T11:02:00.010+01:00

37 days:
Last night I bent my rule a little. I was talking to Becky online for the first time in way too long, and for the first time since she was in London and I didn’t get to see her. It didn’t feel right to cut off a way overdue conversation midsentence, so I shut down all my main internet windows at 10 o’clock and let myself stay signed into my messenger for half an hour longer to talk to her. Then after that I shut everything down.

I’m going to go back to my 10pm cut-off for everything and not make a habit of changing the rules, but having that touch of flexibility makes the whole challenge a little more real for me. Not real as in more of a challenge, but real as in making it a part of my life. If I said, “Whoops, okay, got to go, sorry, talk to you in another couple weeks,” and signed out at the final bell-toll of 10, I think I would resent the challenge and would have spent the night texting her phone anyway. As it is, the experience is developing into something I can learn from and gladly live with the results after these 37 days are finished.

----

Rest of life:
Our filming went fairly well on Wednesday. Actually, it went fantastically. A lot, a lot of fun. Our actors were very lovely, the weather was gorgeous like I haven’t seen for a long time in England (we all came away sunburned) and the park was the best place to be on a day like that. I’m a perfectionist so there are things I’m not sure about in terms of shots etc, hence the “fairly well” at the start, but I haven’t seen the footage yet. I’ve been told it’s good, so I’m hoping to lose my pessimistic edge once I do see it later today.

This was our final uni shoot. The final project. The end. Such a strange thought. But after all the many disasters with groups and filming that I’ve had throughout my time at uni, I couldn’t have had a more perfect ending to it all. I love my group very much and there’s no one I would rather be working with. The project, even with the flaws I’m pessimistically predicting, is so very much ours and I love it holes and all. Like the group, there are no projects I’d rather be working on. And there couldn’t have been a better last day of filming, lovely people, weather, fun. It has completely made up for all of my nightmares from previous projects, I get to leave uni with great memories instead of regrets. I’m very much satisfied.

Another day.

2009-04-02T19:51:00.006+01:00

37 days:
My internet was out last night, so the challenge wasn't much of a challenge really. I'm still liking my "own time" rule, although it's tricky to get all my internet time crammed into a couple hours when I get in from being out all day. I suppose a good idea would be to look at where my time goes on the internet. Much of it is very pointless. Although.. an unexpected side-effect of doing this (or it could just be me being headachey and grumpy) is that I don't actually feel like random browsing at the moment. Even before 10pm, I've been opening my usual internet pages out of habit, then leaving them sitting there untouched while I get on with something more interesting.

Time for internet-off now.

My time. And filming plans.

2009-03-31T21:35:00.004+01:00

37 days:
Last night’s no-internet time was pretty much spent curled in an armchair with mug after mug of various teas (I drank almost 2 litres of tea yesterday.. usually I drink a cup every couple weeks! It's all I could even think of drinking/eating). It’s funny how sitting in one place can be so different with and without internet. If that makes sense.

I had my computer on the little table beside me, so sitting there, its not like I was doing anything more or less than I would have been had I been online. But being online creates a constant pull to be in a thousand places at once. I’m always alt-tabbing from page to page in an attempt to browse Flickr, catch up on my favourite blogs, write something in my own blog, avoid amazon or ebay so as not to be tempted by things I can’t afford (usually unsuccessfully), carry on proper conversations with whoever’s online... and a thousand other things.

So without internet I was instead.... just... sitting. And it was a very different experience. I like having that focus even on doing nothing. And even though I’ve only been doing this for a couple days, after 10pm has become “my time”. I’ve begun seeing things I need/want to do that I keep saying I’ll get to.. get to.. get to... sometime, and saying, “Oh, yea, I’ll do that after 10.” It’s already turning into a routine for me, and I love it.

As I was typing all this and trying to make it make sense, dharmamama left this link to another of Christine Kane's posts in a comment. Very very perfect for me right now. And then I clicked onto another post I hadn't read before, about attention splatter. This is exactly what I'm learning to avoid with my no-internet habits, and what I'm learning to avoid. It's so great to see it written down and know that it's far from being a problem that only I have. Maybe it will make it easier for me to spot it and steer clear...

----

Rest of Life:
We’re filming tomorrow! Finally! And everything has gone bizarrely, incredibly smoothly. We went through a bit of a panic this morning with a severe lack of equipment, and lack of solid permission to film in Greenwich Park. But somehow it all clicked into place like a dream. I'm pinching myself. And we're filming in the morning.

I'll write more about all of this tomorrow because I've just overrun my 10pm deadline by 5 minutes and my lovely friend is quite rightly pestering me with countdowns on msn to get me offline.

So off I go to finish storyboarding methinks.

xxx

Bring It On.

2009-03-30T15:35:00.005+01:00

37 days:
My off-the-internet experience last night wasn't quite as productive as the previous night's, as I seem to be coming down with... something. Hopefully it's just the start of a cold. But it meant I was awake till the birds were singing, with a throat that felt like it was being sandpapered and alternating hot and cold spells that meant I was kicking the blankets off, then piling extra ones on, before kicking them off again. I think it's stress leaving my immune system vulnerable to anything that comes my way.

So my evening wasn't filled with hundreds of previously undone things this time, instead, turning off the internet gave me the opportunity to sit back and take it easy, while letting my body begin to recuperate. I like having this time to be able to focus on myself and where I'm at, I've been losing track of all that way too easily lately.

---

Last night I wrote that I want to live big, to experience life to the full without worrying about making the wrong choices and getting stuck in a rut. Today Christine Kane's Bring It On post flashed up in my google reader. It couldn't be more perfectly timed for me. It's exactly how I'm feeling right now. I just need to get through my final weeks at uni, and then I can let the universe know I'm ready... bring it on!

37 Days, and the future.

2009-03-29T19:44:00.012+01:00

37 days:
Last night was my first proper night of no internet (I decided too late to implement it on Friday). And it was great. Actually, I have to confess that it was a bit of a shock to the system at first. I turned off my laptop (I've been having to use the internet on my dinosaur lately), and instinctively reached for the power button on my mac to turn it on. I stopped myself in time, put on some music and sat back to listen to it until I had got over the trauma of having no screen in front of me.

Then I dug out my camera manual and learned how to control the flash on my 450d, and a couple other things that had been bugging me. At work earlier yesterday I bought a gorgeous new first aid tin, so I spent a while tracking down things scattered throughout my room to put inside it. I assembled them and used my new-found controllable flash to take a photo of it, just because I could. And after all this I still had time to find food, and take it easy listening to some old Scott Mills podcasts until bedtime.

----

Rest of life:
Work was very quiet today and most of my day was taken up reading through a monologue from A Midsummer Night's Dream in incredible detail to help Z. learn it for an audition tomorrow. Analysing where the emphasis needed to be in every line and word, how long and short pauses needed to be, and trying to decypher what certain rather confusing lines actually meant. It was fun to watch customers staring at her in confusion, wondering why she was reciting Shakespeare to the bags, the cabinets and anything else inanimate that would listen to her practicing.

Uni work is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. That's the thought I'm holding onto when stress and panic clutches at my head and stomach. Filming didn't happen on Thursday like it was supposed to, but everything looks good for this Wednesday instead. Touch wood, fingers crossed. All that.

As for dissertation, well, I had a meeting with my supervisor for the first time in way too many months, and he loves my idea and plan so far and was very positive about it, so that made me feel a lot better. I'm heading home (my other home that is) to see my mum tomorrow with all my books. She'll make me get my writing done, instead of sitting around staring out of the window. And I get fed there. Double bonus. My plan is to have something good on paper to show my supervisor by next week, eep, not next week anymore. Later this week.

I'm feeling less doomed by the fast approaching end of uni now. Instead of worrying about getting trapped and stuck in a rut, I've simply decided I won't. I want to make a difference and change the world, even if it's only my corner of it to begin with. I have ideas about where I would like to end up, and what I would like to be doing. I don't know how I'll get there, or whether these ideas will change as my horizons open, but every day I can take one step towards these goals, big or small and end up exactly where I am supposed to be.

Finishing uni is the end of an era, and the start of a whole life-time of possibilities.

Positive outlooks are a lot more fun to have than doom and gloom ones. I need to make sure I keep hold of this one as deadlines and endings come nearer.

Time to check my mail before my cut-off point!

---

P.S. Here's my slightly odd selection of first aid things, just coz I want to show off my pretty red tin. I don't think there's much in there that would do any good in an actual case of emergency. Unless it's chapped lips or a cold. Oh, or a headache. Ah well, it looks nice, I'm happy.

37 Days

2009-03-28T21:09:00.009Z

I've taken on the 37 days challenge.

37days challenge March 27 – May 3, 2009

"I, Vrinda, being of kinda sound mind and body, have willingly decided to do one thing consistently every single day for the next 37 days. C’mon, self, it’s just 37 days. The one thing I will do every day is this:
Disconnect from the internet at no later than 10pm every night.

I’m not going to pick two things or nine things because that will dilute my focus –- just one thing. One. One simple action. An action, not a goal. An action, not a value. An action, not a wish. Something I can DO.

I’m doing this challenge at this time because I waste hours and hours and hours of my life mindlessly clicking from page to page and want to make a conscious decision to change this pattern.

I’ve chosen this particular daily action because I believe if I do it consistently for 37 days with no (NONE, ZERO, ZIP) exceptions, I will:
Find the time to do all the small, and big, things that I long to have the chance to do. I will have time to read, draw, listen to music as more than background noise. Do my uni work with the appropriate level of focus. And I will be able to once more remember what my own thoughts sound like.

If I should fail, I won’t blame anyone but myself (not even my partner, that idiot with 29 items in the express lane at the Piggly Wiggly, the IRS (so needy!), the people who make frosted Pop Tarts and Lofthouse Cookies, or Fate).

I also realize that this contract is solely with myself and carries no rewards, penalties or punishments other than those associated with the reflection of the strength of my character.
New things will happen for me.

I’m ready."

When choosing my challenge there were so, so many things that I felt I "should" do, and things I do want to do, but how to prioritise? What I kept coming back to was the fact that I have no time during the day to do all these little things. So, after much deliberation, I settled on my one thing.

Every night I have to be off the internet, preferably off the computer also(but that's a little implausable with deadlines looming) by 10 o'clock each night. That gives me an hour to do whatever I like, and an hour to wind down and still do what I like before going to bed at a reasonable time.

I hate to say it, but this is actually a big challenge for me. I tend to think, ah, just one more link, just one more post, just one more comment... and then suddenly it's 2am. I lose most of the next morning because I can't get up as early as I'd like, and I lose the evening through more random browsing, then go to bed late, then I lose the next morning... I want to break the cycle.

At this moment 10 o'clock is 28 minutes away and I'm typing furiously to finish this and check my mail before I have to switch off. But I'm looking forward to it as well. I'm looking forward to having my own time that isn't leached away by colourful pixels on a screen... (To those people I would otherwise be talking to online, that doesn't mean I don't want to talk to you! You're not counted as leaching colourful pixels, promise!! xx)

Oops, running out of time. I'll write a proper post tomorrow with all the things non-challenge related things I wanted to say in this one.

But for now, goodnight!

The End is Nigh.

2009-03-26T17:41:00.004Z

Major deadlines are creeping ever closer. Our film has to be made, my dissertation has to be written. People keep telling me that it will be over in a few weeks. They're trying to reassure me, but it makes it all the worse! Once these few weeks are up... what happens?! I have no plans. The world that I've been living in for the past 3 years evaporates. I don't want to get stuck in a rut, working to pay for living somewhere I can't afford. I want to find a job that I love, but I don't even know what I want that to be.

I don't know how I got to where I am now, by hundreds of little nudges from everyone around me as I grew up and made "my" decisions I think... I'm not complaining exactly. At least I had that many people who cared about me enough to give me those nudges. I just want to be more sure about how I make my choices from now on. I want to be sure they're made for the right reasons. I'm not going to take advice on face-value. It has to be right for me.

But I can't worry about all that now. I have no time. I have no time to think, and the less time I have to do everything, the less time I spend actually doing it. I think I'm trying to believe that if I don't do the work the semester won't finish and I won't have to deal with what comes next. This, of course, is a highly flawed idea of how things work.

Time to get back on track.

What is Love?

2009-03-25T20:37:00.003Z

I interrupt my procrastination to bring you this:

Too cute. I miss Sesame Street.
And now back to my procrastinating.

Maps and Spies.

2009-03-24T21:26:00.012Z

The Google streetview feature has been the controversial topic of choice in all the London papers this week. Whatever people say about privacy invasion and security worries, it's the greatest invention ever for procrastinating students! Hours of fun.

Here's my house, and my room. My curtains and all. I wonder if I was in there when the photo was taken.

And welcome to Central London:

View Larger Map

****

I watched The 39 Steps this morning. I loved the simplicity of it, almost bordering on naivety in a way. It's a spy film without the explosions and complex plot lines, and most of the spying. It's a film that doesn't worry about anything other than the story it's intending to tell.

The first agent needs to show that she is telling the truth about being followed. How does she prove it? She tells the guy to look out of the window. He sees this:

How beautiful a sight is that? It's got to be my favorite shot from any film I've watched recently, or any film at all. Eeeven more so than my Grace Kelly shots (and I love those much). You just don't see proper spies like this these days. Gone are the days of spies in trenchcoats with turned up collars standing in pools of lamplight staring up at windows. A sad fact of life I think.

When I was rather younger than I am now, it was my ambition to be a spy of precisely this type. I don't think I ever grew out of it. Actually, now I think of it. *runs off and finds picture* *uploads picture* I definitely never grew out of it. This is me procrastinating on uni work last year sometime.

Oh. Speaking of procrastination. I have a thousand things I should be doing rather than writing this. I should probably go and do at least one or two of them... Or pretend to at the very least.

This is me going.

Bye!

"Trouble with Twitters"

2009-03-19T11:41:00.003Z

This video made me giggle. So very accurate.
I couldn't embed it, so you'll have to click here to see it!

Rear Window, and actors.

2009-03-13T09:50:00.010Z

Casting went well yesterday. We have actors! I'm happy. They're perfect. After a full day of auditions, we ended up with the right kind of difficulty.. having to choose between too many wonderful possibilities. We're still in need of a location, something we have to work on fast. Our original location fell through and we need to find a cafe to film in. But after yesterday I can't help but feel positive about it.

Today though, my focus is my dissertation. Time is running out on that one. I watched Rear Window last night for analysis purposes, my first time watching it all the way through. I like it very much.

My nerves did stand it okay, but I haven't watched Psycho in a while, so maybe that's why. I think that'll be tonight's film.

My favorite part of this film (apart from the story, suspense, characters and all that of course) is Grace Kelly's magic suitcase. It's like Mary Poppin's carpet bag, but with silk instead of pot-plants and mirrors. Oh how I wish I could pack this lightly when I go somewhere overnight. And look this glamorous in the process.

I need to watch a Hitchcock film without Grace Kelly and her beautiful wardrobe. I think it distracts me from the point of watching the films in the first place. That said, I loved almost everything about this film. It's refreshing to watch a film that takes its time to say what it wants, in the speed that it wants. So rare in these days of split-second editing.

I find it fascinating to see how Hitchcock dealt with the limitations of technology in his time. Doing effects is so relatively simple these days. In his time they had to put a lot more effort into making the film look the way that he wanted it to. When you have to build sets around unmovable cameras, set up complex rigs to allow you to pull the camera back and zoom out, or have giant wine glasses specially made to sit in the foreground of a shot to trick perspective, every shot becomes extremely purposeful. Such a contrast with the way that I've been taught in my "state-of-the-art" film production courses. We're being taught how to tweak things on screen. If you can't get it on the day, create it afterwards.

I want to learn to visualise a film the way that Hitchcock did, and to believe in my ideas so firmly that I'll happily go to the lengths that he did to recreate what he saw in his mind's eye. If he could accomplish what he did with the technology available to him at the time, just imagine what is possible now.

Twitter and celery. That's life.

2009-03-11T20:49:00.010Z

I've been talked into joining Twitter.

What is it that makes us so willing to shout every detail of our existence to anyone who will listen? Blogging, Facebook, Twitter... all ways of telling lots and lots of people all about the miniscule aspects of our lives. What am I thinking right now? Or eating? Oh look, I forgot to tie my shoelaces. Oops.. better tell cyberspace.

The thing is, I like to tell people about the interesting character I met/pretty sunset I saw/strange new food I tried/my day in general. I may complain, butI don't actually want to stop. I enjoy being able to share my joy at seeing a blue sky first thing in the morning, or seeing several different people having strong opinions about my sudden craving for celery. And I like to know what's going on in other peoples' lives, decyphering their cryptic, or not so cryptic, facebook statuses and reading their blogs.

I wish I didn't. I wish I was a quiet, private person... but no. Here I am writing a long rant about people and blogs... in my blog. Don't worry, I'm fully aware of the hypocrisy of that fact. It kind of suits the twisted mind-changingness of this whole post I think.

===

So, my shared-with-the-world news for today: We have about 10 actors coming to audition for parts in our video tomorrow. I'm nervous and excited. We have some very experienced people with good CVs coming to audition to work for us for free. I'm looking forward to meeting them...

And in the spirit of spreading pointless details across cyberspace, I'll leave you with a picture of my celery. Crunchy goodness. With peanut butter. Perfection:

(P.S. I'm Evie_Eastman on Twitter if anyone's interested)

New uses for actions.

2009-03-10T22:05:00.007Z

It's spring, and love is in the air. Even on photography blogs apparently, Pioneer Woman's in this instance. I think this is one of the cutest blog posts I've read in a while: About Actions

And the follow-up: What Just Happened?

They left me giggling and, if I care to admit it, a wee bit misty eyed... but the latter was probably just, um, dust in the air. Yes, that's what I'll blame. *sighs*

A Hitchcockian Dissertation

2009-03-09T18:30:00.014Z

So.. my dissertation has suddenly decided to begin being written at long last... after it being on strike for the last.... um.... more months than I care to work out. (I prefer to blame the dissertation itself than my own procrastination you see, there's nothing I can do about it if the writing is on strike. Not my fault, see?) It turns out that it wanted to be written about Hitchcock, and the swarm of remakes of his films, something I hadn't even thought of considering before watching "Paul Merton looks at Alfred Hitchcock" last week.

I've grown up loving everything Paul Merton. It has usually been comedy, but more recently he's been doing documentaries, which I love just as much, if not more. His style of filmmaking is so entertaining that it tricks you into taking in all sorts of information without realising that you've learned things. He has the greatest respect for his subjects, and yet manages to keep his documentaries light and fun, with touches of his own brand of silliness thrown in.

Anyway, something about this new (for me) insight on Hitchcock and his work made me think about the films differently, and when I next sat down to stress about my lack of dissertation it's what appeared in my head. So here I am a week later, finally with 500 words written (out of 10,000... eep), and a properly formatted bibliography of as yet mostly unread books. And I'm a lot more positive about it all though. And happy about my subject. I'm looking forward to looking at these great films in more detail!

Oh, and after watching the first of my Hitchcock selection I've fallen a little bit in love with them. The very very Britishness of them especially. The accents, the properness of everyone (the murderer who, when he's cornered with no escape, good naturedly offers the police a drink). The perfect hair that shines, on both men and women. And the clothes! Grace Kelly's dress at the start of Dial M for Murder especially, I want it very very much!

I wish it was still normal to dress up like this these days, it seems a great pity that we don't have the excuse:

The joy of imperfection.

2009-03-06T21:03:00.003Z

Wow, this whole non-perfectionist thing is a lot of fun!

I'm discovering little things I never did before. Today I was waiting for my train and, as usual, I skimmed past the sudoku in thelondonpaper. Then I flicked back and decided that for once I was going to give it a try. I never do because my brother is amazing at them and I'm not as good as him, so what's the point. Well. The point is that it's fun. So I tried, and I mastered it. Sure, so I did the easy one, and made mistakes on it in the process. But I mastered it nonetheless. And after a couple more easy ones I'll master the medium ones. And then up again. Then there'll be no stopping me. Or something.

What small thing shall I try next?

Love Corner

2009-02-26T14:06:00.007Z

In preparation for making our final project I've been looking at short films for inspiration. I love this one, so silly and simple.

The Procrastination Lists.

2009-02-24T17:23:00.014Z

I've been constructively procrastinating for the past two days. Instead of doing my work I have managed to tidy my room, handwash several loads of clothes, scrub the floor, get all the recycling sorted and taken out, go grocery shopping, attempt to make pancakes... and so on.

I realised that my procrastination had hit rock-bottom when I found myself writing a list of all the ways I procrastinate. To balance it out I followed it up with a list of all the things I would be able to do if I stopped doing the things on the first list.

Ways I procrastinate:

Facebook.
Refreshing Facebook to see if anything has changed in the last 30 seconds.
Looking at Flickr stats.
Pointless conversations online with people I don't actually want to talk to. (Usually what happens when I forget to be invisible)
Audiobooks.
Podcasts.
Tidying my room. (Yes it always needs doing... but somehow always when I should be doing something else)
Lengthy unneeded photo editing on pictures I'm never going to use.
Lengthy unneeded photo re-editing.
Tidying my computer files. Picture and Music folders especially. And my internet favorites/bookmarks.
Reading about and talking about all the amazing and wonderful things I'm going to do. Instead of doing them.
Writing lists.
Writing long blog posts about how I procrastinate.

What I can look forward to if I stop procrastinating:

Going for walks again
Writing. Like. Actual stories and poems, like I did in the days of yore.
Drawing
Artist dates and general me-time
Good grades in uni work
Satisfaction at jobs well done instead of scraping by on the bare minimum.
All day photo-taking excursions.
Picking up my guitar again.
Listening to music - really listening.
Writing letters to people I do want to talk to and hear from.
Real-life cooking of actual non ready-meal meals.
Lying in the grass or on my bed, staring at the ceiling or the sky, letting my thoughts ramble and frolic aimlessly - guilt free.
Sticking, sewing and every other way of making things possible.
Doing the wonderful amazing things I want to do! Instead of talking about them.
Early mornings, full nights of sleep, and full waking days to enjoy life.

I'm going to write both lists up on big colourful paper and stick them on my wall in order to remind myself of what I'm avoiding, and what I'll be able to do if I stop wasting my time. Hopefully it will make a difference!

And on the more productive side of things, we had class today and a group meeting for the video and have compleetely changed our idea to something far smaller and more suited for the video length that we're aiming for. It has more possibilities to be made into a contained, polished looking final piece. It needs work, but I'm very much happier with it. Looking forward to starting on it soon.

Disney and pancakes.

2009-02-24T15:00:00.008Z

It's a grey and gloomy day and I've been sitting inside feeling grey and bleh myself. I felt in desperate need of an artist date to brighten my spirits, but I have no time to go out, and no money to go out with (I lost my purse and all my cards on Saturday and only have the small amount of cash I had stashed in my room) and am supposed to be hard at work on my dissertation. Then I thought about how little I get chance to do actual cooking, and how rarely I find the time to listen to music as something other than a background to whatever else is going on.

Today being Pancake Day, I gathered together the ingredients for pancakes and flicked through my itunes library to see what I felt like listening to. For some reason it was my (awfully large) Disney collection that caught my attention. Usually this will be listened to one or two songs at a time in the middle of a big playlist of other stuff. I put it all on shuffle and spent a happy hour or so bouncing around my little kitchen singing along with Mary Poppins, Jungle Book, Lion King and whatever else came on.

I had a hard time making the pancakes come out right on the electric stove (I've lived here 2 and a half years and I'm still not used to it. I miss gas cooking so so much) but it didn't matter one little bit. I have all the ingredients and I'm going to try again soon and keep trying until I perfect the art, and I had very much fun. This whole non-perfectionist thing seems to be spreading from my photography to cooking to who knows where next! Yay!

Now I'm revitalised... time to get back to work.

P.S. I love this t-shirt! Or the idea of it. Best quote ever for a start. I might have to make my own cooler version on a less box-shaped shirt (because I am that vain). Yay, an excuse to buy fabric paint.

Photo-ing

2009-02-19T22:53:00.015Z

I've been having lots of fun with my camera. For once I have been managing to ward off perfectionism, a big big step forward for me. I have been taking photos of anything and everything, and when a photo isn't perfect, well, that's fine. I look at it, make a mental note of what worked and what didn't, and what I'll need to make it even better next time I meet a similar subject.

I love wandering the city with the eye of a photographer, seeing the things that I would otherwise walk past without a second thought. It may be the texture of a wall, an interesting selection of lines and shapes, a face with character... Everything becomes more colourful and intriguing.

My Flickr account is coming to life also. I'm refusing to filter through and upload only the very best photos every month or so, as I did with my deviantART account for years. Instead I'm letting it show my natural photography style, uploading anything I like that I've taken during my days out, and have been finding an unexpected amount of photos that I love. I'm happy that I haven't once regretted the amount of money I spent on the camera. It's worth every penny, and my Christmas overtime went a long way to softening the blow on my bank account.

Counting blessings

2009-02-14T20:00:00.006Z

This Valentine's Day has been a weird one for me, it's not a day that has ever bothered me before, but it's hard for it not to when you're working in a store that has dedicated half of a floor to red-hearted sappy junk for loved up couples too caught up in the commercialism of the day to realise they're being swindled out of money that would be far better spent elsewhere, at the very least on something more romantic and worth it than a heart-shaped set of measuring cups. (I ask you, what difference is that going to make to any day!) I feel like a Valentine's Scrooge. It's probably sour grapes as I watch the massive queue of people inch their way forward, taking it in turns to buy cards and gifts declaring their adoration for their significant other.

So I've been standing around at work all week feeling rather sorry for myself having no one to buy anything for me. But this weekend I've had a series of encounters that has made me change my mind about my self-pitying. I've spent so long in these last couple days talking to people who have no one else to talk to.

One of London's dreadfully many homeless people came up to my floor yesterday and was looking at the £40+ pens that he obviously couldn't afford, but asking about details and prices, saying he would come back and buy them later on. I ignored two of my managers buzzing around the floor behind him, obviously wondering what he was doing there, and showed him anything he liked and discussed the pens with him, then solid gold pens from World War II that he used to have, which all led into unexpected topics such as comparative religion, karma and the idea of trusting the universe to do what's right rather than trying to revenge yourself against people, loving everyone - even those who have done you harm, infusing pens with power that would feed through into your writing. It was a fascinating and bizarrely intense conversation. Finally, after about 20 minutes of this he stepped away, said, "I salute you young lady," wished me peace, and was gone.

I must have looked dazed because one of the girls asked if I was okay, and asked a couple times what he'd been talking about (he'd lowered his voice anytime anyone else came nearby), I just laughed and said something about pens and the war.. I don't think she would have got it if I tried to explain.

Then today I had two different people stop to have conversations with me, both of whom were obviously talking just for the sake of having a conversation. One even said almost that. The first guy was browsing, and then started a conversation about a mirror, then about eye-tests, then Kennedy and Kennedy's grandfather, and the war... and so on and on. For ages. I went to serve another customer and when she left he started talking again exactly where he left off. According to one of the guys on my floor he's been in the store every day for the past two weeks just talking to people.

The second guy was in the park when I was having lunch with my mum, I was stressing over my dissertation and was a little.. distraught. He came over to check all was okay, then stayed around to talk about my uni, tutors, the homeless people in the area, and about "his" park and how it is going to be lovely when spring comes and the wisteria blooms, and about the war (a reoccurring theme it seems) and how they were evacuated from London as kids, and how many kids lost track of their parents. He told me to be glad I have someone like my mum around because he has no one.

I don't know what my point in writing all this has been. I guess I'm still processing, and words are my way of doing that. All of these encounters one after another, following on from my forced re-evaluating of my value system earlier this week, have left me a little... shaken I guess. I suppose, in a way, it's the logical continuation of the re-evaluation system. First my value of possessions is called into question, then the very big value of the people I love and who love me is brought into focus. Along with the importance of living your life in a way that you can be proud of, living for more than just yourself.

Anyway, like I began to say at the start of this ramble. Instead of feeling sorry for myself I began to see the things that I actually have in my life. I have so much to be grateful for and I need to learn to recognise that before getting all upset about the things I think I'm lacking. That's my lesson for this weekend.

Happy things.

2009-02-11T22:42:00.008Z

I'm happy today.

My group and I had the most productive production meeting we've had yet, with everyone in sync and knowing what we want to do for our video project. We have production roles sorted, and a solid approach to making the film. We then had to present the idea to the class, which went a lot better than it could have. After our presentation a light-bulb went on in my head and I got lots of ideas scribbled out while other ideas were being pitched by the rest of the class. I'm supposed to be typing those ideas up now, preferably in script form, but I'm kind of procrastinating.

That brings me to my other happy thing. I'm in photography mode again for the first time in.... in.... forever! For ages I've wanted to take photos, but not really felt like a photographer, if that makes sense. I would get a photo here and there that I liked, but it felt like a fluke rather than skill. The other night I started a new Flickr account as a new me and have been completely hooked ever since. After a couple days of endless browsing, I'm energised and excited to go out and take more of my own photos again. And even better, for once I feel like a photographer as good as any on there. There are many who have more skill than me, but that's because they've been doing it longer. My photos are plenty good and will improve with practice. It's been a long time since I've believed that.

And lastly, a friend sent me this: Save The Words
Hours of fun and education.

Now I really must go and do some work!

Fire and life

2009-02-09T21:22:00.004Z

I hate to admit it, but with the past years of war coverage I've become more than a little numbed to the news and the seemingly endless stories and pictures of death. I gulp and change channels to zone out with something more cheerful. Yet I found today's news unavoidable, and it's been a while since any news story struck me as hard as the fires sweeping Victoria right now. It's hard to fully comprehend such a thing being real and the impact it has, until you see the footage of the fires, the survivors, and the devastation that is left. I'm still finding it hard to grasp the idea of so much loss. Whole communities gone, people and all. So many of those that are left have endured untold horror.

The shock of seeing so much wiped out in the blink of an eye has made me question the value we place on things. I've been trying to clear out the junk in my life, and finding it hard to let go of most of it because it's all so "precious" and of course I never know what I'll miss when it's gone. Looking around my room now, it all pales into insignificance. We spend our lives surrounding ourselves with collections of treasured possessions... and yet they're so impermanent. You never know what lies around the next corner.

For me this is a time to regroup and reassess what I value in my life. What do I want to spend the coming years of my life pursuing? I don't want to define myself by what I own... something I have done quite literally in one of my video projects, without thinking about what that says about my attachment to my belongings. But what does that even mean? I don't know at this point, but I plan to work it out.

I feel helpless watching the nightmare on the other side of the globe from the comfort of my room. I've done what little I can and donated to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal to help them do the work that I can't. Other than that, all I have to offer are my hopes and prayers for those affected.

Snow Day!

2009-02-02T14:53:00.011Z

On my way home from work last night the snow began to fall. This in itself is a big event for Central London. I hoped it would settle at least a little and give me chance to grab a couple snaps before it melted away mid-morning. I got more than I bargained for! Within minutes it had stuck, mostly on me waiting at the bus stop. By the time I got home it was several inches deep (again, for England.... big deal! Last time I remember more than an inch of snow was 2 years ago) so I rushed inside, changed my sodden scarf, added a hat, grabbed my precious new Canon, and dashed out again into the white night.

This morning the scene had changed to the most heartwarming I have seen in a long long time. There is next to no public transport in London today due to the snow and most roads are impassable, so instead of being at work and school everyone had congregated in the park with a fantastically innovative selection of sleds and sled replacements. Two of my favorite being the ironing board and the wok, for pure entertainment value. There were tiny babies, kids, teens and very grownups all playing with equal gusto. Snowball fights, snowmen, and people throwing themselves down the hill on the most bizarre objects, rolling head over heels and climbing back up laughing to go again, all without a thought of whether they were too old or looked funny or... anything.

Here's what Telegraph Hill looked like last night and this morning:

I love snow days.
(And finally having a camera that lets me capture people sliding down hills at speed!)

New toys!!

2009-01-17T22:15:00.007Z

As of today I am the proud, slightly stunned, and super duper excited owner ooooof... a brand new MacBook Pro (15 inch) and my very ownest own Canon 450d camera! Both of these are impossible impossible things for me to own, yet somehow I have them!

I'm going to have plenty plenty more to say about both of them, but I am still trying to work out how to actually use my pretty shiny new mac. I just wanted to jump about and cheer a little here! Hehehe.

Me and my new baby:

Welcome to a little angel.

2009-01-13T10:45:00.006Z

Yesterday was better than the day before, thank goodness. I've mostly managed to shut up the voice in my head, or just not pay it any attention, and it helps that me and my group for next semester have finally arranged a meeting to discuss how the project is going to go, so it'll be less vague and up in the air.

This morning I finally got chance to go to the sorting office and pick up a package that hadn't been delivered properly last week because I wasn't around to sign for it. I couldn't remember what I'd ordered that would need to be signed for, and I still didn't remember until I saw the return label on the little box.

It's my artist totem for week 9 of The Artist's Way. And even more adorable than I hoped! She came to my door the first time on my birthday (the attempted delivery) which just makes it all the more better. She'll do a wonderful job of reminding me to be nice to myself and stop bullying myself when I have writer's block, or things aren't going quite right.

The down from the up.

2009-01-11T19:17:00.004Z

Today's been a strange, strange day. At work everyone was as drowsy as each other and the day dragged on and on. Drowsiness I can handle though, the thing I don't like is the weird panic that kept popping up at the most inconvenient times.

I've had such a great couple weeks. Everything's been clicking into place and I've been satisfied with how it's all working out. I've been preparing for challenges, but preparing to get through them and then out the other side. Nothing I can't deal with. But now it feels like the negative thinking part of my brain has woken up with a start, realised what's been going on in its absence and is back with a vengeance, determined to beat me back down to a more manageable position.

"What do you mean you're going to have a good year?! How on earth do you think you are going to actually pull a proper video together, let alone one that will get a good grade! What's that... you think you have a good group sorted? Are you sure about that? Look again and see if they're all still there, or have they perhaps gone on to better things? Oh, and if by some miracle you don't flunk the video unit... well, how's your dissertation going? Aaand, no matter what happens with the course, is anyone going to actually like you by the end of the year?"

Ouch! Whatever that part of my brain is, it's evil! I don't like it one little tiny bit. It's harsh, spiteful and viscious like anything! But the worst is that at the moment I can't help but think that just maybe it knows what it's talking about and it's not being cruel as much as realistic. And I can't quite fully convince myself otherwise. I've had such a hard time at uni during the past year and I'm so so scared that this last semester will just be more of the same. I don't think I could take it if it is. I want to believe it'll be better, but until I can actually see the change I just can't accept it...

Bleh.

Okay. I'm going to find a cheery-up film to watch, then I'm going to do some writing and get an early night. Hopefully it's just a weird day having its effect on me and tomorrow I'll feel less doomstruck.

I get a whole day off tomorrow to get my Big Clean underway and my room into a liveable condition. Mmm, and time for a proper walk methinks. That's something to look forward to anyway. No matter what may or may not happen in the future, I can have a nice day off.

Out with the old!

2009-01-07T17:52:00.015Z

As this year began I wasn't really feeling the whole planning and resolutions thing. People asked what I was going to do this year and I just shrugged. It's not that I don't want to make plans, it just all seemed strangely pointless this time around. But anyway, as I expected, I didn't have much time to think about it in the middle of work and revision.

This morning I woke for the first time with the exam pressure of the past few weeks behind me, and it was like a switch had been flicked in my head. It's no wonder simple, "I will tidy my room and keep it tidy", "I will stop procrastinating and hand in all my work ahead of time", lists didn't seem to be doing the trick this year. It's just not enough for me right now. I don't want to make feeble attempts at fixing petty things in my life. I need so much more.

Suddenly my many boxes of accumulated junk have changed from comfy reminders of the past, into anchors holding me back, keeping me from moving on to bigger things. I've stashed mountains of trival bits and pieces over the years, and now it's piling around me, taking up all the space that should be clear for the new things I want to allow into my life. Forget tidying my room, I want to go through it and get rid of everything I don't need right now. No more holding onto things for some unforeseen future, just in case.

I think it's like stepping out from under a security blanket. For the first time in a long while I want to write, really write, without worrying about who sees the result. I want to go out and find my perfect career, something that will provide me with enough money to live comfortably and be able to travel and have all the adventures I dream of. I want to meet wonderful people and be proud as I tell them what what I'm doing with my life, instead of just going, "Well, I'm, uh... going to graduate and I guess I'll keep working for now, and uh, I dunno, maybe I'll find a job in the media sometime, but, well, who knows... we'll see." I'm sick of doing things because I'm "supposed" to, and then doing them half-heartedly because I don't know why I'm doing it in the first place. I want to live big, because what's the point of living small and timidly and watching life sweep on past without me?

Now to work out how I'm going to go about all this.
Ah well, at least I'm a step closer, right?

Christmas tree, oh Christmas treee.... and revision.

2009-01-05T12:09:00.007Z

Lookee look! I have a baby Christmas tree! I planted it on Christmas Eve and came home on Friday to find a tiny little baby thing emerging from the compost. It was maybe 2 and a half millimetres high. Today, a day and a half later, it's quadrupled in size to over a centimetre! Magic! I wonder how big it'll be by next Christmas. And if it will still be small enough to live on my windowsill..

In other news.
Desperately trying to find anything that will help me in my upcoming exam, I dug out my class notes from the dreaded Ethical Media lectures.

The only notes I took before giving up in Week 9's lecture read:

"It is actually quite common.

It seems to happen more often than it does,

so it isn't really that common. But it does happen."

Direct quote from the lecture. Is it any wonder the entire class is panicking about tomorrow's exam? Worst. Teacher. Ever. *sighs*

Happy 2009!

2008-12-31T13:39:00.006Z

Firstly I wish you all a very very happy New Year, full of fun and happiness and lovely things!

I've actually started to be excited about 2009, instead of merely terrified. It's the start of the rest of my life. That can be a good thing, not a dreadful occurance. I have the chance to start it consciously and right, and continue like that. So my new plan is to use this year to make the most of, well, everything. I can build my creative confidence in making videos, films, writing stories and scripts, all of which will help me get wherever it is I end up wanting to get. So that's my plan.

Love and joy and adventures to all for 2009 and beyond! xXx

Wherefore art thou brain?

2008-12-20T21:55:00.002Z

Why, oh why, is it always the case that the powers of normal conversation (not even smart, witty conversation... normal would do fine!) fail when you need them most? And, of course, they only return once the situation is well past and you've been left opening and closing your mouth like a goldfish. Then you're flooded with hundreds of the clever things you could and should have said.

*sighs*

Typical.

Another year...

2008-12-18T20:18:00.010Z

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass
it's about learning to dance in the rain."
Author Unknown

As 2007 rolled into 2008, I was too ridiculously busy to be able to pause and contemplate the change and what it meant to me. By the time I had the chance to look around me, the year was already several weeks old, reasonably well-established, and had lost its new-born vitality. I sense the same thing beginning to happen this year so I'm doing my "end of the old/start of the new" thinking now, while I have a moment or two to breathe.

During this past 12 months I have been through big, big ups and big downs at uni. Fun and stress, often at the same time. I started my first real job as a temp, made sure I was kept on permanently after Christmas, then moved on to become senior sales 10 months later. I went to Paris, my first self-planned trip in several years. I survived the production workload of at least 4 people during the summer semester, and came out stronger and wiser instead of a broken wreck. And plenty more. It's been a busy year.

To tell the truth though, when I let myself think about it, next year scares the hell out of me. This last year was nothing in hecticness compared to what is coming. I will be graduating in the summer with no idea yet of what to do next. My calender can only help me up until June, then it is merely a stack of blank pages stretching on into eternity. I want big and wonderful things in my future, I want more than a daily 9-5 job that just about makes ends meet. Most of the people I tell that to act as if it's a nice, albeit slightly naive, view of the world and I'll soon learn that that's not how things work in real-life. I refuse to give up the idea that it can, and will, work for me... but a big part of me is terrified that they're right.

I don't seem to have worked out what I want from 2009. I think I'm going to go off and think about that awhile, maybe it'll make me panic less. Actually, scary as it may be, it is kind of exhilarating to know it's about to be time to do something with my life at last. If I shoot for the moon, at the very least I should land somewhere in the proper general direction, then I can continue from there... right?

A friend in need.

2008-12-17T01:05:00.007Z

Firstly, an advance apology for the following cascade of sentimentality!

I know I only recently wrote a post about the importance and joy of friends, but I have an addition to make to it. In this past couple weeks, during my ups and downs of work and deadlines, I have been overwhelmed by the amazing loveliness of the people around me.

Since moving to the complete opposite side of London from everyone I know in order to be closer to uni, I sometimes complain that I'm isolated and am living all on my lonesome.. but during this time I haven't felt like that once. Every single time I had a problem, when I was stressed, when I wasn't sleeping, when I desperately needed to get some footage for my video, when I lost something I needed, and generally whenever things weren't going my way... someone stepped in to help me in big or little ways, and at the very least provide me with moral support and encouragement. I am indescribably touched and grateful to discover how many people, both friends and family, were willing to go out of their way to make life easier for me without me even having to ask.

Through all this I also learned something about myself. Not a good thing, but a good thing to learn so I can begin to erase it. Despite how much I pride myself on my understanding of people, I have a habit of judging unfairly. Some of the people who helped me over the past couple weeks, one in particuar without whom I would have had no work to hand in, are people I have not always been particularly fair to in the past.

Having so many people readily jump to my aid has made me feel very small. Grateful and loved and touched and many other wonderful things. But a lot more humble. It's been a pin in my over-inflated pride. However much I like to think so, I'm not actually better than everyone around me (but shush, that bit's a secret). And for every thing I am better at, someone else will have a handful of their own personal areas in which they exceed. This is fine and this is how the world works.

I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, everyone who has helped me through this past month or so. I cannot begin to say how grateful I am, not only for the help that I was given but for discovering that I am blessed with so many wonderful friends. From now on I'm going to work on being as good a friend to my friends as my friends are to me.

Much love to all, xXx

All the little fishies...

2008-12-12T21:58:00.010Z

It's amazing how you don't always fully realise how something has affected you until it's past. I woke up today feeling entirely lost. It's like I'd forgotten that life exists outside of work and uni and couldn't remember what I used to do in all that unscheduled time... All I could think of was that I needed to tidy my room and go food shopping, which I refused to let myself spend the day doing. Then for some reason I thought of the London Aquarium. I've walked past it plenty over the past two years and promised myself that one day I'll go inside, a promise I'd never actually fulfilled. Twenty minutes and a bowl of porridge later and I was out the door.

As I walked into the aquarium I realised again just how shell-shocked I've been left from the past couple months of hecticness. The instant I walked into the first tunnel my phone signal cut out and my first thought was panic. Focusing on the tanks around me was impossible because all I could think of was that I was cut off from the world, I should be doing something else, I shouldn't be there wasting time, what was I thinking being there on my own instead of being of some use somewhere.

I took some deep breaths, told myself to cut it out and relax dammit. I found some lovely watery classical music on my ipod and sat against the glass of the shark tank for ages, watching them swim serenely to and fro, and I felt myself calming down at last. After that I had a lovely visit and enjoyed myself greatly. Two and a half hours of strange and wonderful creatures and complete peace, knowing that no one could reach me or knew where I was, and that it didn't matter. It was truly my own time.

I picked my camera up this morning but forgot to put it in my bag, so I had to make pictures the old fashioned way instead. My pencil can't capture the velvet of the sharks' skin, but it was beautiful, so smooth and perfect. As of today I have a new found appreciation of these creatures.

Sunbeams and Daisies

Delicate

Beating the Block

Wait, so the *cake* was filled with custard?!

My mini St Albans adventure

Not so Alone... and changes.

Alone

Spring!! And new ideas.

The one left behind...

Forward, onward, upward.

Candytree and Power Failure - or, making videos once more.

Hey Jude - baby style

Back in the land of Dare

My Guest Post on Christine Kane. Plus my Word for 2010.

What's Next?

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Bring It On

First Snow!

In the Land of the Northern Lights

Home-Grown Silent Movies

A kick into action.. or inspiration in the form of "that should be me!"

The butter to my bread...

VrindaWebb.com - my little web baby

Christmas in Retail. (never again)

Candyfloss of Dreams

Chance Meetings

Website, coming soon. (no, really this time!)

Clean Slate - plus Bike, Work and Skating.

Life

Moving, plans, and writing.

Sometimes...

Moving, and NaNoWriMo.

Phase One

A fresh start...

Graduation!

Titles get hard to think of after a while....

I hate shopping. Am I allowed to say that?

Another day.

Taking a Sick Day

Website, coming soon.

Preposterously Positive.

And now I can draw.

Writing, writing.

Page after Page - a review/love letter

Buttons 2 - AKA The Button Torment

Old Friends and Soup Disasters

Home Sweet Home

Doing things the hard way.

People Watching

And then the police were summoned...

Results!

The joys of clean clothes.

Flickery internet...

Techno Goodies

Habits

Venice - and lots of pictures

Venice!

Uni.... Done? Huh, what?!

Imperfection and Life

Dissertation - complete!

Focus.

Tickets and tickets!

"Dear Windows Live User"

Globe Dancing

It turns out there's such a thing as Too Sure.

Writing and fluffy friends.

Procrastination. Again.

Reclaimed Mornings

37days + Filming

Another day.

My time. And filming plans.

Bring It On.

37 Days, and the future.

37 Days

The End is Nigh.

What is Love?

Maps and Spies.

"Trouble with Twitters"

Rear Window, and actors.

Twitter and celery. That's life.

Wait, so the cake was filled with custard?!