Another One Down

I completed another New Years Resolution this week.

This one was to complete the list of books I had set myself to read this year.

Being unemployed for the first two months of the year meant that I got through a lot of them quite quickly. And then the rest took, well, longer.

This is the list (and I added one while I went along that I had borrowed from a friend):

1. We Need To Talk About Kevin
2. Fifty Shades trilogy
3. Cary Grant - In Name Only
4. The Descendants
5. Enduring Love
6. Pride & Prejudice
7. Anna Karenina
8. Gulliver's Travels
9. Huckleberry Finn
10. Freakonomics

Of these I enjoyed The Descendants, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Pride & Prejudice the most. Enduring Love was also very, very good.  My least favourite were Gulliver's Travels and Huckleberry Finn.
And I am now looking forward to watching various film and television versions of Pride & Prejudice, as well as the more recent film adaptations of We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Anna Karenina.

Now I shall have to make a new list of books...

**

I also completed all the things on my April To Do list bar one - watch 6 1001 films (I've managed 5, though I still have two days to go and I have some on my iTunes that I could put on my phone.)

One thing I did achieve was my first real piece of DIY. I've put together beds and such (yknow, with those IKEA-style instruction manuals) but today I just guessed what I needed to do, learned from the mistakes I'd made last time I tried, and went for it.

And I managed to put up my bag hooks.
Hoorah!

Shaving, and the grand scheme of things.

I have a small dilemma. I have now worn the same stuff to the gym twice in a row and it needs washing. I bought myself some nice little gym pants that are 3/4 lengths and I plan to wear them to the gym tomorrow.

The only thing is, I haven't shaved my legs for as long I can remember. 

The gym is not somewhere I'm desperate to look good. But I feel that nagging feeling that it would be so crazy for me to go and people not be able to tell where my trousers stop and my legs begin.

I haven't joined a gym because I care what I look like. I haven't joined because I want to change my weight. I have come more to terms with my body recently than ever before. I am learning, relearning in fact, how to value myself as a person, independent of my weight, independent of my hair, my skin, my clothes. Basically independent of my appearance and more for the qualities I possess as a person (albeit a hermity-type person). I've always believed in working hard to gain success, and the same goes for going to the gym (though I am yet to determine a goal other than "be healthier"). I just need to put my head down and do it. 

Which is one of my main problems: discipline. Self-discipline to be more precise because I never really misbehaved in school (the one time I got sent out of class was because I was protesting that we had yet another History teacher that year, and I just wanted some consistency and quality in our education...) 

So the exercises that the chiropractor sets me, the yoga workouts and now gym attendance, really depends on a self-discipline that I am lacking. Eating healthily depends on it too. I'm lacking the discipline that gets me beyond the 2nd week of a fitness kick (I'm in the 2nd week and I'm struggling, mainly because I was so ill at the weekend).

I need to have the structure in place that means I do not automatically go for a chocolate bar when I feel peckish. It means I need to learn how to cook and feed myself more effectively, more healthily. I need to educate myself about food, fitness, carbs, fats, reps and gosh knows what else.

So in the grand scheme of things, I don't have time to shave my legs. I've got so much reading to do!

Although I have already learned that being healthy does not require me to get an overpriced juice from Westfield when I walk home.

And what I've learned from my two sessions at the gym so far is that I need a gym bag. And a bigger towel. And I have such puny, puny arms! 

Learning Curves

This weekend I have achieved one New Year's Resolution, and failed one.

I have 'achieved" going on the Bluebell Railway.

Here's me with a glass of champers in the Chelmwood carriage of the Wealden Rambler, travelling from Sheffield Park to East Grinstead.

And I failed to complete my 'Before 24' list.

The state of my 'To Do Before I'm 24' list when I turned 24:
- Play Monopoly
- Visit Belfast
- Learn how to light a BBQ
- Learn how to mow the lawn
- Get 4th tattoo
- Get a credit card

I played Monopoly for about an hour before I became a bit of a sore loser and didn't want to play anymore.

I applied for a credit card and got rejected - no surprise, as I was unemployed at the time. Now I'm too scared to apply again. I will try before I leave the country.

Claire and I tried to learn how to light a BBQ on Thursday night (my birthday eve). We didn't really succeed. At all. Ah well. We gave it a go.



Another year older, and another year wiser.
Well, another year older.




Things I've learned in the last year:
- I am gifted (in a very special, impossible way) at knitting
- How to live with my father
- How to live without my mother
- I love working in casting
- Plymouth has it's own version of the London Eye
- Alcohol is banned in Monument Valley
- What it's like to be on the other side of depression
- My sister isn't fluent in Italian
- Pubs in Belfast kick out at about half midnight

Things I haven't learned in the last year:
- What alcohol goes into a New Orleans Hand Grenade
- To knit properly (i.e conventionally) and without adding or dropping stitches with every row
- How to successfully light a BBQ
- How to make hummus without a blender
- How to make the perfect banana bread
- How to control my chocolate habit

Ch-ch-changes

I am trying to discipline myself and work towards a new, better lifestyle.
More water, healthier food choices, more stretches and exercise that can help me towards a better body.

And I'm doing all this because I feel I need to for my health, to combat my headache. Not because I want to be slimmer, or prettier.

But when I think about a healthy diet and exercise, I automatically think of it in the context of caring about your appearance. Being thin, good-looking. I think this is because of all the magazines I used to read, and all the "fat" stories in the press (you know, the ones that say how so&so lost a million stone because they cut out biscuits).
And celebrities, including actresses, are held up as role models because they do this or that type of workout to keep that slim & toned figure, or they restrict their diet to only cabbage and tomato juice. I wonder how many articles there are about an actress' weight in comparison to articles about her acting career, her life, her other interesting traits (e.g charity work)*.

And even if a famous figure moves beyond their role as a body on screen to look at, how much is their appearance actually ignored in favour of what might be more important?

This article about Angelina Jolie at the G8 summit leads with comments about her appearance. How is her GREY hair and pearl jewellery more important than her mission to end SEXUAL VIOLENCE against women and children in war zones? (yes ok, it's the Daily Mail. But my point is that there are articles out there doing this sort of thing all the time - and the Daily Mail is the most read online news site.)

Are we not giving the impression that these actresses, celebrities, are worth very little beyond their looks? Are we not giving this impression to women, teenagers, and little girls?

Are we not giving the impression that no matter what you might achieve in your career, your life, you will only be deemed successful if you manage to be good-looking at the same time? I feel that the value placed on women in society, by men, women and the media, is that women need to be slim and beautiful in order to be looked up to.

Surely we should not be looking at Kim Kardashian because she got fat (OMG SHOCK HORROR WOMEN PUT ON WEIGHT WHEN THEY GET PREGNANT). Surely we should be looking at Kim because of the shrewd business woman she might actually be. (I'm not saying the pregnancy is part of a game plan, I'm talking more the fact that a leaked sex-tape led to a reality TV show and a clothing line amongst other things).

So I have to change my thinking. I am not drinking more water because I think 2 litres of water a day will lead to having beautiful skin and therefore I'll be more attractive. I'm drinking more water to be better hydrated and try and help my head.

This morning I made the first choice towards a healthier life style, green tea over coca-cola as a nice refreshing start to the day. It is small choices like that which will help me change my ways. Wish me luck.

* I am not counting the many countless articles there will be on a woman's love life. How many times a week do we need an exclusive on Jennifer Aniston's love life? Why is it even our business??

The Nostalgia of Childhood? Or a Recurring Nightmare?

I'm currently working round the corner from where I saw Fightstar when I was about 15. I somehow got a day off school to go to sit outside the entrance from midday, just so we could be at the front of the stage. I still have a guitar pick that Charlie Simpson used at that gig.

But when I was that age I couldn't even imagine getting another year older. I didn't know why I existed, what I was here for. Those were darker times, but that feeling still persists for me and for many others in varying degrees. A feeling of futility, wondering what the hell the point is.

How many of us said or did things when we were younger that we later regretted? That we still regret? I sure as hell do. When we're not sure what life has in store for us, life as a young person leaves you feeling vulnerable and desperate to make your mark in anyway possible. To leave an impression on everyone you know, just to have a reason for existing.

Paris Brown, the 17 year old Youth PCC should have been allowed to learn from her mistakes before she was so roughly treated (and in my opinion attacked relentlessly by the press *cough* Daily Mail *cough*) and forced to step down less than a week into the role. As she put it so eloquently, she fell into the "trap of behaving with bravado on social networking sites". How many of us did that when we were younger? How many of us still do it on social media sites? The internet allows us to act harder than we really are, hiding behind the screen. She wrote them between the ages of 14 and 16. Whilst she's now only a year older, that is exactly my point - she is older. And she'll have continued to get older and learn and grow. If an established MP made those comments then yes, fair enough, they should resign. But the fact is the young woman was brand new to this game of police, politics and paparazzi. The fact that she understands the reason she behaved in that way would in fact put her in an even better position to work with young people.

And like some of us, the things we did when we were younger may haunt Paris Brown and follow her throughout her life. Like a recurring nightmare. I still feel grieved when I consider the impact of my destructive actions as a teenager. I didn't know what I was doing then. I was acting up, and acting out.

Why are we so blood thirsty now? Why are we turning into a society of Malvolios and desperate to see people failing? Does it really make us feel better? Should we not concentrate on feeling better about ourselves because we are winning and not because others are losing? (Does this extend to oft-used phrase "I could be worse off"?) Why should our happiness depend on others unhappiness?
Maybe we should all focus our energies inwards, and rather than wasting them on hatred, or jealousy, or contempt of others, use those energies for love of ourselves.

**
I had a thought:

Skin is our largest organ right? And yet we think nothing of picking scabs, popping spots and ripping hairs from their roots.
That's weird, isn't it?

Theoretically...

...if I get over my fear of commitment, I could have kids.

Theoretically that is.