Winds of change

There are days when you wake up and there is a distinct feeling that things will never be quite the same again. You get up as normal, get ready for work, get on the Tube and everything seems the same.
There is a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, a small knot of anxiety. As the minutes tick by, I find myself in a state of anticipation - yet nothing. Perhaps it is me who is supposed to be the catalyst?

The List

There is an episode of Friends which I always remember - the one with Isabella Rossellini and the 'lists'. The Friends have a list of celebrities that they are 'allowed' to sleep without anyone getting upset. Ross has Isabella Rossellini on his, but he subsititutes her out for a local celebrity because he thinks that the chances of meeting her are higher. Ironically, Isabella walks into the coffee house after he does this :) (Chandler has Jessica Rabbit on his - an unlikely encounter in the land of the living methinks but a worthy choice nonetheless)

Anyhow, I thought I'd compile my own list except I have 10 on mine rather than 5. And I have both a list of female and male celebrities.. It's more a list of the celebrities who I find most attractive.

It's taken me over a month to compile and still I'm not 100% happy with it. That just shows how fickle I am I suppose :) The names aren't in any particular order (that would take even longer)

The Gents

Tom Cruise
Brad Pitt
Edward Norton
Orlando Bloom
Joaquin Phoenix
Aidan Gillen
Jonathan Rhys Meyer
Aaron Kwok
Jude Law
Ralph Fiennes

The Ladies

Keira Knightley
Scarlett Johansson
Catherine Zeta Jones
Uma Thurman
Tia Carrere
Monica Belucci
Linda Fiorentino
Marisa Tomei
Rachel Weisz
Avril Lavigne

It's amazing the things you can think about when at work and really not interested in what you are doing :)

Turning a corner

I seem to have hit a bit of a reading frenzy of late - I am buying more books than I have time to read. Finally having finished Non-Fiction (pure genius), I have hit an experimental phase of books.

One book, more of a comedy read than anything, opened my eyes to a new stress-release channel that I had not really considered before. It is just a published collection of website postings, chosen to titillate and amuse - but the concept fascinated me no end. The website allows you to post anonymous confessions.. Some are rude, some are crude, some are pretty sad. I read one that I can't get out of my mind:

"I don't use tampons....
or pads......
I use bread."

Another example:

"I just swore on my kid that I'm not sleeping with my friend - but I am, and I might
leave my husband to be with him. But probably not. I really hope the baby wakes up in the morning."

I have been wondering what sort of confessions I would post. And whether they would be truth or lies.

I bought another book today - "in praise of Slow". It's a study in the hectic lives we lead - rushing everywhere, not appreciating those precious moments, going through life at warp speed. It claims to introduce a lifestyle revolution. I could do with one of those. I spend so much time replaying things that happen in my head wondering why I didn't pay more attention at the time. Wondering if things may have happened differently had I done so. Things that I could have said before turning away, things I could have done to prolong a precious moment. I'm not a great believer in self-help books, I don't tend to read non-fiction as I am heavily into escapism, I seek solace in denial despite the cynic in me crying to escape. 4 chapters into The Corporation and I am wondering what hope there is left for us mere mortals.

But with time comes change, and change can lead to progression. My change is to wake up to the truth, perhaps one day I might be able to do something about it.

Happy New Year

I have re-emerged from the depths of nowhere - 3 days holed up in a quaint little cottage with a log fire, ample food, an excess of alcohol and access to a heated indoor pool has rejuvenated me. On New Years Day we all went down to the beach at Westward Ho! (the only place in the UK with an exclamation mark in it's name I believe) despite the bitter cold winds and pouring rain. Glorious.

Now that we've reached 2005 I feel that I should at least commemorate the highlights and lowlights of last year before I can fully start to appreciate the new year so here we go:

Highlights of 2004

• Dodging rockets in Prague on New Years Eve 2003 (also a lowlight as I am petrified of fireworks)


• Singing Bohemian Rhapsody in a Hello Kitty Karaoke bar in Tokyo with Nao and Akiko-san


• Basking in the sun outside the tinfoil marvel that is the Guggenheim in Bilbao


• Meeting my hero Gordon Ramsey at a booksigning in Canary Wharf (mmmmm)


• viperx's leaving drinks - witnessed events that made my jaw drop - even for someone as liberated as me


• Standing on top of a mountain in Jasper - feeling like I was on top of the world - so beautiful it made my heart ache


• Meeting my brethren in the most amazing festival I have seen in Hong Kong. Family is everything.

Lowlights of 2004

• My grandad finally passing away in Hong Kong and not being able to attend the funeral


• The wedding of my uncle to a girl 7 years my junior


• The re-election of George W Bush as US president


• Too many champange hangovers


• Watching so many people I like leave the company I work for


• Turning 25


• Having to quit japanese class as my teacher was crap (gomenesai Nishimura-sensei but it's true)

Hopes for 2005

I have lots of hopes for this year. Some are more realistic than others.
I hope that:

• the process of evolution will speed up and I will grow another 4 inches so that I can reach things


• alternatively sprout wings so I can fly


• Get to JLPT4


• Take a sabbatical and go travelling. Possible destinations: 3 months across China, the Inca Trail, Cambodia, Thailand


• Learn to read maps so I don't get lost whilst travelling


• Learn to pole-dance. Just so I can. (also may come in handy whilst travelling as it earns more money than waitressing)


• kiss someone who thinks I'm wonderful (I copied this from someone else's blog - I think it's lovely)


• The world celebrates the achievers, not the dreamers. I would like to stop thinking and start doing.


• Stop drinking champagne. I am convinced that this will improve my life.

Xmas is over

I had another one of those epic dreams last night that seem to go on forever,
you wake up in the middle of it, and it continues when you fall asleep again.
In this one, the company I work for had organised a trek through the desert. For everyone and it was compulsory. (viper if you are reading this, you made a cameo appearance. For some reason you decided to join us and afterwards disappeared off to eastern europe for some sort of orgy) I don't remember much of the trek - just the sand - and we all piled into tents afterwards for a meal. The whole thing reminded me of the school fun runs we used to have.

The stranger part of my dream was that I was running some kind of zoo in my back garden. It was a very small garden, with a circle of cages running around it, I had a lion, baboons, a gorilla, and other animals that I don't quite remember. I also had a chipmunk.Sadly,it died. The baboon also got sick - but I managed to nurse it to health.

I am so glad that Christmas is over. I ate solidly for three days, so much so that I seem to be permanently hungry. I also lost 2 pounds - I must have a tapeworm. I did pretty well for Christmas this year - I am now the proud owner of a purple candlyfloss maker (a machine which totally exercises ones patience), a chocolate fondue kit, that candy g-string that I asked Santa for (untested), glow-in-the-dark seamonkey aquarium (brings back terrible memories of my uni days) and of course, what every fashionable girl needs, a guide to Minge Topiary.
Oh, and I also got the LOTR Extended Edition box set that I have been waiting 3 years for. That should fill up any spare 12 hours I have going.

So that's it. 2 more days until the end of 2004. And what a year it's been! Probably the busiest and most memorable year of my life. I started this year dodging fireworks in the Czech Republic, I'll be finishing it in a cottage in the West Country - a friend of mine will be bringing his 7ft power kite so watch out - anyone living in Devon :)

Twas the night before Xmas

There are 10 minutes of Christmas Eve left. I find myself wishing that I was someplace else. Despite the fact that we're all supposed to be jolly and festive, I feel less happy than on any normal day.

There is something about Christmastime that makes me feel awfully dejected and lonesome. It's not that I'm alone, my family are at home, but at this time of year I often find myself feeling lonely even though I am surrounded by people. I wonder if that will ever change? I wonder if perhaps it means that I am disconnected from my family, that we are on different wavelengths. Or if it's just this particular holiday.

I also feel wretched as I have been suffering from a cold for 2 days. I haven't been sick at Christmas since 1999 when I had tonsilitis and laryngitis in one hit.

So I'm sitting here trying to think of the things that comfort me when I'm feeling low. My piano. Lying on top of the bed with music on full volume and the lights off. A bath scented with lavender bubbles - temperature so hot I can barely stand it.
Jelly and whipped cream from a can....

2 days and counting

My worldly colleagues explained the 'Wingman' principle to me last night. I guess it could also be called the 'pack pulling' technique. I was rewarded later by not only seeing this technique in action, but by actually experiencing it first-hand.

The principle is simple. Guys pull in pairs, one guy acts as 'wingman' and diverts the attention of the the girl accompanying the 'victim' so that his friend can work his magic on the girl he wants to chat up.
It's a noble sacrifice though I suppose it can also be rewarding for the wingman if the friend is attractive.

My own experience was enlightening to say the least. Whilst chatting to two girlfriends who happened to be having their christmas party locally, a smooth talking guy sidles up and starts on one of my friends. Obviously wanting to broaden his chances of success, he attempted to lure me into his web at the same time. Not wanting to be unsociable, we relented and asked his name and profession to be told that his name was Barry and that he was a dancer. Not just any old dancer but 'MC Hammer' no less. Ever the sceptics, we asked for a demonstration and
were very much disappointed by his moves. Minutes later, his 'friend' appears (with a pint) and pretends to prise Barry away. Unsuccessful, he starts to apologise to me on behalf of Barry and introduces himself. At this point I find out that Barry's real name is actually Dave (?!). Busted!
This duo moved on later to another couple of girls but only managed to hold their attention for 5 minutes.
Guys - it pays to show a little honesty!

Whilst waiting for a tube train home, a guy sitting on the same seat as me remarked on the presents I was holding. Amused (and drunk), I described my gifts - one of them being a small jar of sand from the Sahara that my best friend gave me. I expressed curiosity on the colour of the sand as my memories of the Sahara were of grey sand, and not the beautiful yellow sand in the jar that I was holding. This guy, who was also drunk, told me that he had read recently in a book that the climatic changes in the desert meant that the colour of the sand could change,
and also told me that apparently sand can hold water which means that it is possible for plants to grow seasonally. I haven't as yet verified the facts that he told me but it was kind of surreal to have this kind of conversation when both parties are drunk. We had a further chat on the train about the evolution of men versus animals
and how life boils down to simple binary logic. I never found out this guys name, (although he told me all his children's names), but nevertheless I wish him a very happy Christmas and New Year.

Subtitled in..

It seems that foreign language films have featured pretty heavily on my viewing choices recently.
After the frustrating non-end to the Danish The Kingdom, I followed it up with Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita on Saturday evening. It was the first time I'd seen it - though I have watched the remake (The Assassin avec Bridget Fonda)
quite a few times. The original is, of course, far superior to the remake with exception of Gabriel Byrne who makes a more enigmatic Bob.

Last night I moved to a somewhat more obscure film directed by Jan Svankmajer (Czech) called Little Otik. Now this film was weird.
A similar kind of story to Pinnochio, the film is based on a story about a couple who are infertile but really want a baby. The guy digs up a tree stump which looks a bit like a baby and prunes it down to make arms and legs... It's less of a live action film than an animation with live action scenes - the stop motion sequences give the whole film a deliciously grotesque 'underground film' kind of feel.
I am definitely going to look up some of Svankmajer's other films.

On the opposite scale, I also revisited my childhood by watching a few episodes of Dungeons and Dragons, and Bananaman. They were bad. Especially Bananaman. Good grief, if I had only realised as a child just how camp he was. Still, there's a lesson to be learnt in that as an adult, you should never try to ressurect your childhood - leave them as fond memories! You'll never be able to work out jus t
why you used to love Angel Delight (artificial gunge posing as mousse), Rainbow (smutty kids program full of sexual innuendoes), and Global Hypercolour T-Shirts (which just highlighted how sweaty you were)

lady in red

Well that's the Xmas Party over once again. Much like last year, I left the party sober but this time I stayed until the very end.
Thirsty for more, we moved on for more drinking but despite having gotten home at 3am I still managed to get into work today feeling my usual chirpy self.

This years party was themed on Austin Powers - we had some guy dressed up as Austin, a very attractive Felicity Shagwell in a black catsuit and some
lovely ladies in black and white outfits. So we had dancing and we had drinking and some eating - it was all good fun and the only vicious rumour I have
heard this morning was that a certain lady in the office got rather intimate with the shoeshine guy... Though what the shoeshine guy was doing at the
party was anyones guess - he wasn't shining shoes that's for sure.
My nightmare with outfits was also unrealised - my red Karen Millen dress was very popular and I made some new friends whose names I don't remember.

I have a quiet weekend ahead, I'm on call and have to be up at 7am tomorrow to check our overnight processing so I don't expect to be up to
much. As I'm on call, that's my excuse to avoid Christmas shopping!
An unexpected blessing perhaps.

Starbucks and software design principles

I read this great article on boingboing.net - and I was impressed. Much could be said about that institution that is Starbucks but this is not what I would have had in mind.

It made me smile.. but I am a geek.

keeping wired

Intel is right up there in my estimation - purely for this link

It lists hundreds of wireless hotspots all over the world.
Coupled with this gadget (Kensington WiFi finder) and a wifi PDA or laptop, you're well and truly sorted.

Mmm I love gadgets..

dissatisfaction

Noooooooooooooooooo.....
That is so unfair. I've just watched the remaining two episodes of The Kingdom and not only does it not end, but there is a major cliffhanger. Furthermore, they never released the final part outside of Denmark.

Bastards.

I will now be haunted for the rest of the night by the visions of a woman giving birth to a full grown man.

Bovine Blues

Argh the dilemma of having to get up obscenely early in the morning but wanting to watch the end of a very interesting series...
I just watched 3 episodes of Lars Von Triers' "The Kingdom". Episode 3 has just ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I really want to see how it ends but its almost 1am and I need to be up before 6 to get the train into London. I have bowed out and turned it off but the story and characters keep floating in my mind.
If I am unlucky I will dream about it tonight - and I say unlucky because it is a ghost story...

Haven't achieved anything whatsoever this weekend. I count that as a good thing. Today I had a roast dinner, marvelled at japanese womens wrestling on Sky, spent well over £20 trying to win £6000 on some dumb (highly lucrative) Sky quiz channel, and puzzled over my sick cow. The cow is not milking and in fact has not been 'milkable' since I bought it. Maybe she's sick.

Big feet - big shoes

Well at least Julian Clary didn't win. I was rooting for Denise Lewis personally but the majority was with the other couple.

I ended up watching Notting Hill again on channel 4. I do like this film a lot though it is an incredibly unlikely story. And I actually think Notting Hill is a bit of a dive. Guess you can glamourise just about anything and anywhere with the right camera angles ;)
Rhys Ifans is brilliant in this and for me, I thought that Gina Mckee outshone Julia Roberts in the beauty department.

Something that made me stop and think:- in the film Julia Roberts asks why men are so fascinated with breasts. I have always wondered that as well. They're fatty, functional appendages used for feeding babies. If someone could explain?

Aftermath of a christmas party

Our team christmas party last Thursday was truly excessive. I outdid myself on all counts.For my efforts I now have bruises down one side, my right bum cheek really hurts and I can't sit down without wincing. Walking is also difficult.

The venue for our drinks was the Medicine Bar in Shoreditch. I've never been there before - it's quite nice, 3 storeys with a DJ in the basement. We had the upstairs reserved for us. As it was a manager sponsored event - ie free drinks for us - we didn't hold back and started on the champagne. By now I'm thinking that I should probably have built up some sort of tolerance to that stuff but I got exceedingly inebriated anyway and ended up falling down the stairs. At the time I was more bothered about losing my champagne glass to the floor, by the time I got home I was starting to feel the pain.

The best and worst things about the 'day after' are hearing about the things that you allegedly did and said whilst grossly drunk. I was particularly embarrassed when my manager told me that he remembered picking me up off the floor at one point (absent from my memory), me feeding him pistachios whilst he was trying to talk, and me telling him how much I hated my last manager (who stills works for the bank). Plenty of blackmail opportunities there then.

So now I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend, I have come back to my weekend retreat in the country where everything shuts down at 5pm. I might have a little pasta, a glass of wine or two and settle in to the final of Strictly Come Dancing.
Please please please do not let Julian Clary win - he can't dance for beans.

in stasis

There's a knot at the pit of my stomach which doesn't seem to go away whatever I do. (and I don't think it has to do with that spicy bowl of noodles my brother just made me)

I think it's fear.

I am usually quite a confident person. I like to think that I know what I'm doing, what I want to be doing and what I need to be doing to achieve what I want from life. Today is different. I don't think I've ever felt so unsure of myself. I find myself questioning everything - does it really matter, is it really what I want, is it really that important to me. And I have no answers. I sometimes worry that I take life a little too seriously, that I always make the 'right' choices rather than trusting in my instincts.

I'm probably more than a little influenced by a friend I had dinner with the other night who has spent 18 months travelling around Asia and Australia. Listening to his stories about trekking in Nepal and learning to cook in Thailand I have the greatest urge to sell my house, quit my job and disappear for a year. I'd love to visit Cambodia, to travel through China, have fun in Australia, learn a new language or two. I'd love to do this before it's too late and I get too comfortable in my life. Fear holds me back. I'm torn between travelling, and quitting my job anyway to pursue something new, a dream of mine.

I have so many choices. So many possibilities. I'm petrified of heights, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff peering over. I can retreat to safety or grab a parachute and make the jump. Or I can do what I feel like I'm doing now - stand and falter.

I used to be so scared of ending up having a 'mundane' life. So scared I sought a reverend for advice and counselling. Now I find it staring me in the face and I don't know which way to go.

Maybe I'll sleep on this.

Rebirth

I feel totally rejuvenated today. It's like the mist that has been hanging all around me suddenly cleared this morning and I am back to my usual self.
I didn't even realise how much I have changed in the last few months, not until this morning. I feel more confident, more focussed and more motivated than I have for a long time.

I haven't had the most exciting day really, my plans of cultivating my sense of culture was rudely disturbed by the sadly lacking IT skills of my mother, and so I have had to travel all the way to the Essex coast to fix up her pc. Not the best way to spend my Saturday, doing windows updates and installing virus software, but I guess spending time with family is pretty important. And it will definitely handy to be able to email my parents from work :)
Tonight, I will be expecting my dad to accompany me down to the casino where I will enjoy a nice dinner and ogle at the male croupiers, I mean play a few hands of poker.

No doubt tonight the essex flyboys will be out in full force with their Supra bodykits and shiny blue lights. I guess there is culture to be had anywhere :)

Yuletide feelings

It's been a long old day. Oddly, as soon as I left the house to go to work I felt somewhat more cheerful - but that was probably because I'd just walked past that inflatable snowman, who has now been joined by an equally awful inflatable Father Christmas.

My day at work was the worst Friday that I've had to endure for a long time, leading to the latest that I've had to stay in the office on a Friday for months. Still, I was able to maintain my usual cheerful self despite it all. Plus that greasy breakfast really helped :)

I was soo surprised in the afternoon when I received an email from that architect guy I met last night! Obviously I must have given him my email address as well and completely forgotten all about it. It turns out that his company also kitted out our latest office down the road... Oh well, I'm sure that it's always useful to know an architect or two.

Tomorrow I have the dubious pleasure of having to sort out my mum's PC. She is a broadband newbie (and a PC one at that) and was perplexed when she couldn't access any secure sites. Well, actually, she had no idea that was the problem but thats beside the point. I spent 30 minutes on the phone to her today during my lunch break trying to teach her how to logon to windows as admin and then doing a windows update. It was no go for the windows update and too painful for words for me to continue so I will have to pay her a visit instead :( At least she lives 5 minutes from the seaside... mmmmm fresh donuts!

Right, I am now off to cook myself some dinner and then watch a dvd.
I really fancy watching The Godfather all of a sudden..

Cocoon

Sometimes this blog feels like my lifeline. No matter how bad I feel, I can let the words flow and with each word that hits the screen, my stress diminishes.

Today, early in the morning after two nights of excess, I feel like retreating into a shell. I don't feel like talking to anyone and remorse has hit me like a tornado on an open plain. I'm not even sure that these words make sense but this therapy eases a little the confusion that I feel. I guess it was yet another big night for me, in fact if I really think about it I met some very interesting people. I have in my bag the email address of an architect currently working on a big project for Imperial College, whose small Xmas get-together I crashed when I saw their table of food :) Confronted by this guy when I stole a prawn cracker - he scolded me for being so selfish and not stealing food for my friends!

At a different point in the evening, I approached a guy sitting on his own for a cigarette - now I don't smoke but being somewhat drunk, when one of my party asked me to get a cigarette off a complete stranger I complied without even thinking. Now this guy was cool - he was like a Dixons sales person who got lucky and landed a job in real IT. He was apparently waiting for his girlfriend who was a stripper/pole dancer?? And yes he gave me a cigarette no questions - even when I said I didn't smoke :)

Despite all this I feel wretched, jaded and furious. I can't sleep so I am probably going to get up. That's even earlier than yesterday when I woke at 7am and got to work by 8.30! Today I am going to go to work, shut out the rest of the world with my iPod and have an early night snuggled with my stuffed panda.

I told you I was a team player

I had some trouble sleeping last night. Suddenly wide awake at 4am I contemplated actually getting up and perhaps reading a book or something but knowing that it would wreck any chances of doing anything constructive at work today I tried to go back to sleep. In actual fact, this is the best way of getting REM sleep - thus making sure that you have dreams. And dream I did....

In one part of my dream it was snowing. I was inside a building which looked a little like a school classroom with my brother, and housemate and some other people I don't remember. We started having a snowball fight with people downstairs outside the building. Somehow we were hanging out of the windows and making snowballs directly from the falling snow...

In a second part of my dream I was stood outside in a field, well technically, on a rugby pitch. I was surrounded
by the rest of my work team who were all kitted up. One of my colleagues was teaching me how to play rugby...
Incidentally he was a really good teacher and I scored my first try in minutes :)
Impressed, the rest of my team started debating teaching me how to scrum at which point I woke up. Probably just as well - not sure I really fancied it :)