diving

Firstly, let me apologise for the shitty quality of these underwater pics. (A) We were learning to dive and had bigger things to think about than taking pretty pictures, like breathing (B) we didn't really know what we were doing and taking underwater pics is a whole new ballgame.


This is us after one of our dives, not our first one I don't think but then it hardly matters.


These are little cleaner fish that hang out at cleaning stations. It was the first time I got to see a whole mass of fish moving in the way you see schools of them do on TV. We were hoping they'd come out to clean us but obviously we didn't need it.


NEMO!


blue spotted ray


Ayman, our dive instructor, took this pic because none of us were brave enough to get close enough to take the snap. This moray was hiding in a crevasse in the coral and was huge. How big exactly I have no idea, especially as everything is magnified by about 33% underwater due to goggles. He was a big mo-fo though.


I'm pretty sure this one was taken after our final dive. Left to right, Ali, me, Becs and Clara.

Learning to dive was awesome. I'm also really glad that I did it in a group, especially the girls from work because we were all really supportive of each other and it meant you didn't mind making a dick of yourself because everyone would laugh good-naturedly and you'd know that someone else would be looking gamby with something else. Because we were just learning, we didn't really get to go to any supercool areas but that was okay because most of my attention was on my buoyancy and not knocking in to coral and just getting used to everything. I've definitely caught the bug though and am already planning how I can keep this up and when I can get back. In my mind, I'm thinking November for setting my advanced but we'll have to see how things go. Ever since finishing my course, I've had severe water withdrawal and am looking in to joining a pool near me (when I find one) which, for those who know me well enough, is a pretty big thing because I don't do public pools. Two main factors in this are, in no particular order 1- little kids pee in pools (in fact not just little kids) 2- swimming togs. I don't do togs. I don't do skintight and I don't to skimpy. Well I can't do anything about #1 but urine is sterile and it's not like I'll be bathing in concentrated pee and #2 is fixable by shedding some pies and getting over myself. ;-) I think what I love about being underwater, ignoring all the cool wildlife and the peace and calm, is that you can move so freely in all dimensions. It's made me realise how limited I can feel being stuck to the ground so I need to get back in a pool and soon so I can just get underwater and fool around.

desert

To make things easier for me, I've broken my photos down in to sections so I'll photoessay them as I go. Oddly enough, first up are my desert pics- odd because it was the last thing I did.


After we finished our Open Water Course, we decided to take a trip in to the desert. What we ended up with was a morning trip in to the hills with quad bikes. On the whole, it was a pretty tame trip which I guess it had to be because none of us were experts and there were safety things to take in to account. Not that that mattered too much to me when all I wanted to do was go fasterfasterfaster....


This is a view of the desert looking back towards Naama Bay (where we stayed). Flying in to Sharm, I thought the desert was going to be a lot flatter and sandier than it was. I was thinking like-a-pancake-flat but it was more undulating and had lots of rocks and rubble and felt like a bit of a construction site.


This is looking back down on the little "Bedouin" place where we stopped half way through the ride. We also drove past quite a few similar structures and it was a bit of a shock for me. I didn't have anyone to ask and I'm reasonably interested to find out if these people live there through choice and lifestlye or if part of it is poverty because there were some places that were absolute shacks with rubbish strewn everywhere. I wanted to find someone and say, "Keep your desert clean! Don't you care what it looks like?"


This is us at the top of the teeny tiny hill we climbed up to get the view. From left to right: me, Ali, Becs and Clara.


I'm sure I don't really need 2 group shots but I'll put it in anyway. This one is me left, Clara in front and Ali behind right.


We saw a camel! Next time I'm out there, I think I'll try to get a ride on one. When we stopped to photograph this one, it started moving its jaws in a manner that made me a bit anxious about spit-potential but even if it was thinking about it, it kept it to itself.


This is me all kitted up on my bike looking like a terrorist. You have to buy a headscarf (total rip-off) to wrap around you to keep dust out. Don't be fooled in to thinking you can do without it. I had dust on my bra when I came away from that place. Now that's dusty.


And finally, cool rock formations along the way.

I'm definitely going back to Egypt. I want more diving and I want more desert. Next time I'm back, I'd like to do an overnight trip which I imagine would be supercool because even as we invading the place with our vroomvroom bikes, it still felt so amazing calm. And maybe that's part of the appeal of Egypt for me- you have desert calm and underwater calm which are both totally different and yet so similar and they're right beside each other, never mind the contrast of all that water right beside a desert.

whimsy

She had me worried for a second there
Coming back from a week away, there are a lot of blog entries to catch up on and so far I've only managed to skim about half of my regulars. I nearly had a heart attack though when I skimmed Autumn Zebra and came across an entry entitled why I heart Vista. My immediate reaction: WTF?!!!!?!!???? My slightly more delayed reactions: 1- let this be irony 2- if its not, remember you love her anyway and she's a PC user so really, maybe she just doesn't know any better 3- noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 4- maybe I should actually read what it says... which I only finally got around to doing this morning and thank God, all is well in the world, I will not have to disown a friend, it was irony. Vista is shit. Surprise surprise- and at this point I will totally freely admit that I'm a Mac user and one that has a knee-jerk muderdeathkill* response to all things PC. Have I used Vista? Nope. (Do I want to? Over my dead body.) Have I researched it at all and read extensive customer reviews? Nope. So am I pretty much dissing it from a point of ignorance? You betcha. But do I care? Not so much. So what's the point in what I've just written? Well mainly it's to say, "Marie, don't ever do that to me again, no ironical pro-microsoft titles in your blogs, I'm not made of strong enough stuff." ;-)

snip snap
All my hair is gone. Well for me it's all gone- this is definitely the shortest I've ever had it. It's above my shoulders and I can hardly tie it back. The weird thing is, I'm really happy with it and it isn't quite what I was expecting. It would seem that I caught myself in one of my oh-what-the-heck moods. I knew I wanted a change- well I thought I wanted a change but was totally prepared to hear myself asking the hairdresser to just tidy it up a bit. Instead, I heard myself telling him to have at it and I wanted a change. Hmmm.... Usually I've never totally happy with my haircuts but ignoring that, I love going to the hairdresser.
I love watching hair getting cut- the shaping it out of nothing kind of thing but nobody has ever been as fun to watch as the guy who cut my hair yesterday. He is without a doubt the most energetic hairdresser I've ever seen. He stood behind me and kind of bobbed and danced around and his enthusiastically hacked off my hair, I felt like I'd had a workout just watching him. Eventually I had to ask if he stabbed himself a lot with the scissors when he was learning and he said that he still does from time to time and I find that very easy to believe. He said that to get proper texture in to hair, the movement of the scissors is the most important thing in which case I must have some of the most energetic and lively texture out there. I made Sarah take some photos of it last night and although they don't really it justice (please ignore Sean in the background), I thought some photos were better than none. Also I didn't fluff it properly at the back so it looks uneven but it isn't really. Obviously. So yesterday I was trendily salon-styled Aynia but this morning I got to wake up to just-slept-on-it, low maintenance Aynia and now I remember what my hair does when it's short. In true Gemini fashion, it can't make up its mind so the left side likes to be all funky and flick out and the right side likes to be all conformist and curl in. I spent about 5 minutes running a wet hairbrush through it and trying to coax both sides to do the same thing, no matter what that might be and then gave up because it doesn't really bother me that much. So I have insane hair- so what?


*and if you don't know what movie that's from, shame on you

this one goes out to my sister

And maybe to Philip, my wannabe rap friends. xox 'nuff said

so rude

Everyone knows that when you come back to work after a nice relaxing holiday, you're gonna have to deal with Reality at some point. Now I'm the kind of girl who prefers my reality to sidle up to me in a bashful manner and hang around behind me scuffing it's feet as it coughs politely to try and get my attention and when that fails, it might, just might pluck up the courage to tap me gently on the shoulder as it cleared its throat. That's how I prefer my reality but it sure as heck ain't how I get it. My reality gives me half an hour (the half hour that I was in the office before anyone else) and then charges at me full tilt, swinging its baseball bat with malicious intent. But I refuse to let it win, I'm nothing if not stubborn, so I just don my kevlar vest, put on my iPod, then my crash helmet, and settle in.

Before I start in on Egypt I have to share a quote from Mimi Smartypant's blog because it was one of the first things I read when I got back and I laughed out loud. Loudly.

11. The other day a group of teenagers from the not-so-nice high school on my bus route boarded the bus and began some typical stupidity---throwing stuff, fake-wrestling, etc. Normally I don't care, but after one of them almost crash-landed in my lap for the second time I pulled out the headphones and tugged on the sleeve of the closest perpetrator, saying, "Hey. Please cut it out."

Maybe I delude myself in thinking that I look like enough of a mom/old lady/respectable citizen that they would be a tiny bit chastised and comply. Because I was honestly surprised when I the kid told me to fuck off. It may sound otherwise in this diary, but I am pretty chill about public space. You can skateboard or yap on your cell phone or sing to yourself and as long as you don't actually SHOVE ME or YANK YOUR ROD it is all good in the hood. But shove me AND give me lip AND you are a punk-ass no-account high school kid in the bargain? Oh, then it's on. I gave him my best stern look and started putting my book away and getting my gloves on, because we were almost at my stop.

One of the Shoving Kid's friends snickered something about his reprimand while I was standing at the back door, ready to disembark, and I heard SK say, "Fuck that. I'm gonna fucking rape that bitch."

Excuse me? Is this a figure of speech? Remember that WTF light? Blinking like crazy right about now. What I Should Have Done: walked right over there and planted my Chuck Taylor hard in his scrotum. I'd get away with it too---see me here all respectable and mom-like with my briefcase and lunch bag? What I Did Do, Inexplicably: yelled "ASSHOLE, YOU COULDN'T RAPE A WAFFLE!" right before I got off the bus. You couldn't rape a waffle. Where did that come from? I am as puzzled as you.

A long quote I know but I felt all the context was needed. "You couldn't rape a waffle?!" Oh the genius. Oh the hilarity.

best intentions

I came in to work early this morning with every intention of getting at least one decent blog entry done but what with time getting eaten up downloading photos etc....

Oooh bugger- people just flooding in and what with one thing or another, it's all hands on deck. Must dash. Don't think I'll be making it to climbing tonight.... Erck.

zzzzzzzz

Well I'm back from Egypt and I promised my Dad I'd blogged today but after going out and foraging for food and restocking the shelves, I find that I'm absolutely shattered and need an afternoon kip before I head out to meet some of the girls for dinner and a movie. So it could well take until tomorrow till I get around to writing about my trip, or anything at all for that matter. The thought of it is a bit intimidating actually because there's so bloody much to write about- I think I'll have to do it in instalments. So for now, to those who I know will be wanting to nag me to fill them in, just wait a day and then I'll have something for you.

Peace out.

xox

kids, don't try this at home

Today, on a whim, I picked up Sport and found an article in it on rap running. Basically, it's abseiling but forwards. I've never been abseiling before, the closest I get is when my climbing buddy Graeme lets me down a bit fast after I've climbed a route. And at this place is Scotland I can do it down a 150ft (about 45 meters if you think as I do, and as all people should, in metric) cliff. AWESOME I seriously didn't think any of my friends would want to do it but two are keen for rap running and one is keen for at least abseiling so it looks like we might be able get a group together. The place which is recommended in the article, Nae Limits (it's a pun- if you say 'no' with a Scottish, sounds like 'nae' ha! a pun in the title, hilarious. I want to support them already.) , provides a range of outdoor activities including zorbing which we've been wanting to do for ages. So now I just have to organise 8 girls- thankfully it will probably end up being less than that- oh joy. Wish me luck...

Oh, and I meant to ad, they had this segment in the article in Sport which I thought was really cute, it follows on from describing how you get down the cliff:

This technique gives you total control over your descent, allowing you to pay out as much rope as you want. Those of a nervous constitution can shut their eyes and pootle inch by inch downwards in a flood of tears. The more free-spirited can run, jump or somersault down while tittering with glee.

I want to titter gleefully!

maire'n'me

Right. Explanation may be needed. And indeed I could just email Marie all about this but since we started blogging about it, we might as well carry on.

I last blogged about the amazing Christian Dior designs that was I was directed to by a link on Autumn Zebra. I mentioned that I disagreed with some of her verdict but, as she pointed out in her latest post, I didn't say how I disagreed which was very unfair of me and quite a tease and mainly due to the fact that I was blogging at home and didn't want my dinner to overcook. So let me break it down- but before I do, I must say that I didn't think she was wrong just that I disagreed. And people may disagree with me and say she's right and maybe I'm just being pedantic about her wording... who knows. At any rate, here goes-

Thing 1- Yes, she did state that it was "...I think it classifies more as a gimmick, or as wearable art, than clothing..." so sorry about that but the word "gimmick" just made me twitch. My bad.

"It is pretty awesome, and crazy, and pretty awesome. The "runway review" that you can also get to from that page is idiotic, for instance, saying the designs are "delicate". Umm, no. No way are they delicate. About as delicate as an elephant I say. They are large, heavy, heavily constructed items in bright colours that try and smack you in the head with a mallet. I think they are too stiff and out-there to be called "delicate"."This is basically what I disagree with.
Thing 2- Some of these designs, in fact most of them are large but I don't think they convey weight and heaviness. I think the word 'delicate' may have been misused by the reviewer but maybe 'intricate' is better. Because they are. Incredibly. And as such a lot of delicacy would be needed in the making of them. I don't think 'delicate' in art and design necessarily has to mean something light and fragile. And so I explain with pictures:

This one is, I think 'light'. The material is flowing and there isn't a lot of it. It doesn't look like it would be terribly heavy to wear although I know all those layers of chiffon etc layered up can get quite heavy. But it flows.


This is, I think, the most real-life-wearable of the lot. I'd wear it. It's fairly minimal and 'light'. In fact this one is one of my favs. I like it A LOT. If I ever get to the stage of making my own dresses, I will try to make something like this.


This one is also fairly realistic I think and also light and flowing.


Maybe a bit much on the front but this too seems fairly normal and business-suity.


Just so it doesn't seem like I've totally biased my selection to prove my point, here is an example of something I do consider heavy and definitely 'art'.


Not something I'd wear and I'm hoping it's just netting and bunching giving this it's shape but this doesn't strike me as heavy either.


This is definitely along the lines of the stiff cardboard construction lines. And I will admit that there are quite a few designs like this where there is a flowing part and then another, usually the jacket or top half, that has large, stiff shapes which probably wouldn't be the easiest to move in.


Out of the grander designs, this one of my fav. It's beautiful and amazing. I'll admit, it'd probably be a bitch to move in and must weigh a ton with all those pleats (? are they pleats? That's what I'm calling them anyway. I mean the ruffly/pleaty/thingies) but this is I think, for me at least, the bit which explains the delicate/intricate thing. I just don't think it's fair to say that this is "as delicate as an elephant" is all...


Finally, I just want to say that I'm not being bitchy and out-to-prove-Marie-wrong. Or even that I think she's wrong as such. There's totally validity in her comments and who knows who's right? Because when it comes down to it, we both think these designs are absolutely awesome.

just fold it

Reading Autumn Zebra today, I came across this supercool link to style.com which is a site that rarely fails to disappoint for eye candy. Because I couldn't brig myself to put these pictures in small, here are my top favs from the Christian Dior collection. Marie makes some interesting comments on them (so do check Autumn Zebra if this kind of thing interests you) but I don't necessarily agree with them all. Still very salient points though. I think I have to look at this collection more as art than fashion though but by golly it's amazing. But then I'm in to my origami so they had me at Japan.















When I saw the grey dress, I was reminded of the exact same flowers I used to make so of course I had to see if I could still remember how to do it because it's been a while. Like ages. I had quite a few false starts and dead ends but I got there in the end.

The Valentin selection is also very cool but more in an hmm-look-what-they're-doing-with-white-and-is-she-wearing-any-underwear-at-all?-If-not-she-must-be-waxed e-everywhere kind of way...

oh, I get it, it was a joke...

Turns out that my friend was totally (well mostly) winding me up about tick-tock-baby stuff. The problem with email is that the finer nuances of a communication are lost. I think I've pinned her down on the no-baby-before-2009 thing though so I'll be able to influence it's poor innocent mind right from the get-go. Mwah hah hah.

But more importantly- I LEAVE FOR THE RED SEA IN ONE WEEK!!!!! Yes indeedy, next Thurs I get to get up at an ungodly hour and drag myself out to Gatwick for a week of fun in the sun learning to dive. And this is where I get to stay. Not too shabby huh? There are four of us going from work and we're all just a smidge excited about it. :-)

reality check

signs from the heavens
I enjoy reading my horoscope. Seeing as I usually only read it in the evening paper on the way home, it amuses me to see, retrospectively, how it might have applied to my day. Yesterday, the gem that awaited me in London Lite was:
Don't mistake the pressure that comes with the sun's move into the crucial midheaven angle of your chart, which accents your activities and your lifestyle, as an indication that decisions need to be made swiftly. Rather, it's time to review these, and be ready to consider in just what way things could be improved.
I beg your pardon? Am I the only one who had to read that several times? Am I then to take it that I should not rush decisions on changing my activities and lifestyle? That's how I'm reading it anyway. Why she couldn't just say "don't rush things kiddo, haste makes waste", I don't know. But then with a name like Shelly von Struncknel, what can you expect? That's right, von Struncknel. I mean I'm 99.9% sure it's a pseudonym but still, that's a humdinger. The other star signs got nothing quite so convoluted, I felt very special.

Pee in a cup
Today I finally registered with a doctor. I really only finally got around to it because if I want insurance for my diving trip, I need to be registered with a doctor here. So far, in my one year and almost nine months in this country, I have only had to go to a doctor once and for that I went to a walk-in clinic. The NHS over here is renowned for being totally shit and there are many horror stories about mis-diagnosed illnesses and generally incompetent care so I decided I'd just rather not get sick. Plus I've been back to NZ twice in that time and seen my doctor both times. Today's trip ended up being rather anti-climactic. I was told that I had to bring my passport with my visa in it and a utility bill as proof of address but when I turned up, they never even looked at them. I just rocked on up, scandalised them with the knowledge that I'd been here for over a year and not registered with a doctor (and they really were. I was given several glares), filled out a couple of forms, peed in a container and that was it. BORING! But at least I'm registered and now travel insurance shall be mine! Oh my life is complete...

Tick Tock
I realise that I am now at an age where it is not totally insane that friends of mine are doing grown-up stuff life getting married and having babies (not that they're all doing them both, or even in that order, just that those two things seem to be happening with increasing regularity at the moment...) When I was home at Christmas, I was talking to one of my closest friends who was discussing plans for the future and she mentioned wanting to do something this year because next year... tick tock... I stared at her in shock and said, "Tick tock?! What the fuck to you mean tick-fucking-tock?!!" But then I realised, it's not so crazy after all, most of us are chasing 30. And then today I get an email in which she again mentions the baby thing but now I'm freaking out for different reasons. I'm already going to miss the birth of one friend's kid but I reallyreallyreally don't want to miss my best friend's pregnancy. Given the way my plans are going at the moment, I won't be back in NZ until the end of 2008 by which time the kid could be 6 months to a year old and that's just not good enough. I mean I can still win its eternal love and be the best and craziest Auntie Aynia ever if I get them that young but I want to be there for it all. (Although given the father-to-be and uncle-to-be, I think I'd have stiff competition.)

But that's the way it goes. I have decided, for whatever reason, that this is where I need to be at the moment, and for the next wee while as well. I don't always like it but I still feel it's the right decision...

this'll learn me...

Firstly- given the massive response of 3 comments that my tulip pics generated, I an instigating a new policy: write a comment and I'll send you an email.*

My friend Sue is hosting a murder mystery evening soon- Death by Chocolate and yesterday we got sent around the character descriptions.

Lauren aka 'Chocolate' Bertrand
You are the greatest legend of the Belgian chocolate industry. Debonair, but tough.
Costume suggestion: Evening suit, elegant and understated.
Kerry aka Marchioness Duchamp
You are an internationally notorious artist, whose work has scandalised two continents, and whose private life has done much the same.
Costume suggestion: Dress in free flowing, slightly exotic clothes in rich colours (purples, deep reds) with silver jewellery and a silk scarf.
Karuna aka Maria Von Schnapps
You are a young business woman who has just taken over as head of a long established Swiss Chocolate firm.
Costume suggestion: A formal evening dress, suggesting quiet sophistication
Di aka Dame Barbara Carthorse
You are the most popular celebrated beauty in England, as well as being a hugely popular romantic novelist.
Costume suggestion: A very grand evening dress, complete with spectacular jewellery and a tiara. Nothing should be understated.
Gunning for glory aka Mike Bison
You are a rising star of American boxing, and you've come to Paris for the Olympic Games.
Costume suggestion: Jeans and a white vest, with a plaid shirt worn open on top. A temporary tattoo or two would be useful, as would a black eye (using make up).
Tania aka Dr. Doris Johnson
You are an amateur archaeologist specialising in Aztec culture, and something of an eccentric.
Costume suggestion: A long velvet coat and a floppy hat with feathers in it. Reading glasses on a chain around your neck would be good - a pince-nez or monacle even better.
Sue aka Dr. Sigmund Fraud
You are a controversial psychologist from Vienna, much distrusted by conventional society.
Costume suggestion: Brown, three piece suit with a bowtie. A beard would add considerably to the image, and a cigar (as a prop) would also help.

Aynia aka Little Fitz
You are a star of the Music Halls of Europe, where your ventriloquist act (with your dummy, Ziggy) has proved very popular.
Costume suggestion: A loud check suit, preferably in brown with a novelty bowtie. It t is vital that you have a dummy with you. This can be anything from a genuine ventriloquists dummy to a glove puppet. Even a sock with suitable adornments (eyes and mouth drawn on ) would do. But you definitely need to bring this prop with you.

WTF?!!?

My initial reaction was to think, "This'll learn me for trying to be the funny man in the group. Other people get to be slinky and sexy but not Aynia, oh no, I get to be someone called Little Fitz and a ventriloquist no less." Apparently Sue read it and thought of me immediately. A ventriloquist. Isn't that just one step away from being a mime? Me being me though, and doing nothing like this by halves, I will now have to spend weekend time I don't have trawling through op shops looking for loud check suits and I get to make a puppet. I'm still deciding whether to dress up a sock or to buy a 2nd-hand soft toy and gut it for my purposes. And of course I have to start practicing talking without moving my mouth, it sounds like my puppet is to have a staring role in the whole thing...

*provided that I have your email address and actually know you. I make no guarantees though.

tiptoe through the tulips

Yesterday I finally went to the Columbia Road Flower Market. Actually I went to a few markets in the Bethnal Green area with Willie and co. but the flower market was the one I've wanted to go to for ages. If I lived in the area, I'd be buying fresh flowers every fortnight or so. I love them. Instead, I satisfied myself with getting 3 bunches of tulips for £5 which is a bargain. I settled for yellow, pink and purple and spent most of my tuube ride home staring at the beautiful bright colours with a silly smile on my face. Someone looking at my would be forgiven for thinking that they were a present from someone special but no, I was just delighted by the colour. And the tulips, I just loveloveLOVE them, they're a favourite flower. It's a shame they don't tend to last too long. Geberas are also a big fav of mine. There's something all bright and brassy about them. And they do tend to last a while.


And in contrast, I'm finally putting up one of my pics from when it snowed. My but it's been a while since I've put pics on here.

back on the diamond rant

One of those personality spam emails is circulating around my group of friends at the moment. You know the ones with questions like:
What time did you get up this morning?
What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
What is your favourite TV show?
What did you have for breakfast?
yada yada yada

Well for most of us, the answer to latest movie seen is Blood Diamond and it is with a slight feeling of horror that I have now seen two of my friends answer the question Diamonds or Pearls? with 'diamonds'. I'm trying to calm down a bit before I write an email so that I come out with something a little more polite than:

Dear valued but obviously slightly mentally deficient friend,
Maybe I'm the deficient one here but weren't we at the same movie? Which bit didn't you get? How the diamond trade is effecting the regions? How diamonds are stored away to keep the price high? How you can't really tell if it's a 'conflict diamond' or not because of how they get processed?
WTF?!?!!
A xox

One of my friend's comments after coming out of that movie was along the lines of, "I'm glad that it was mentioned in there that part of the horror is these people doing it to themselves because everywhere you go you always here white people get blamed." She's from South Africa so I understand that they are touchy about people assuming they're all racist and yes, the people of diamond regions are killing off their own people but now I'm worried that that is all they (but they I mean all my SA buddies) saw. Are there people out there thinking, "I'm white, I'm not to blame because of what they (by which I mean the native people of the area) do to each other? It's their war/reign of terror and if I buy a 'non-conflict diamond' I've done my part of my conscience is clean." Is that what they're thinking? Sure, even if there was nothing of value in that area, children might still be made into soldiers and all those atrocities might still be committed but surely taking a demand for diamonds out of the market might help? Some might argue the two things, the war in the region and the diamond trade, are unrelated, that your £1000 necklace has nothing to do with babies running around killing people. But are you totally sure?

I've been so busy of late that I've been mega-remiss in reading my usual blogs. One that has suffered is HongKong Ham, the blog of my former boss from Critic. Reading it again today I was struck by the winsome and endearing nature of most of Hamish's entries. It's a genuinely pleasurable read (don't let it go to your head Hamham...) and it was something I didn't even realise I was missing. I was also glad to see that Hamish was also effected by Blood Diamond. Because after the reaction of my friends, I was starting to think it was just a me and Dad thing. It's not. Phew. Every now and then I tend to see things in stark black and white (a trait I know I get from my Dad) and I'm usually more of a shades-of-grey girl so when I come across these B&W issues, I can get a bit surprised at how adamant and blinkered I can be. Something is suddenly RIGHT or WRONG and people that can't understand that are STUPID or BLIND or INCOMPETENT. Which, surprisingly enough, is not my usual attitude to life.

builders
I wonder if there is some international workmen's pledge that you have to take before you're allowed to put on your high-vis vest and wonder around with your pants sitting too low and wielding a power tool. It probably goes along the lines of, "Please repeat after me: I do solemnly swear to show my butt crack to the world and stare and female passers by. I understand that it is my right yell out lewd comments or to make similar comments in a normal tone of voice. As soon as I see someone coming, I pledge to stop doing all work and take a tea break."

This morning I was walking to the train and passed two workmen just standing on a corner. I had my iPod in and was listening to a very random mix that my sister complied for me. Just as I was coming up to them, Goldfrapp's White Horse started playing and as I walked past I KNOW I heard one of them say something dodgey. This is where Little Aynia Brain branched into a Calvin and Hobbes styled reality with three options. 1- I walk back and in a movie-styled-way, the music from my iPod swells to fill the air around us and I just dance my ass off in front of them. 2- I walk back, calmly take out one of my headphones and say, "I'm sorry, did you say something?" (Delivered, for those in the know, in icy-cold Aynia Tone complete with pursed lips and raised eyebrow.) 3- I ignore them and carry off down the street but I'm kinda half dance-walking. I was pretty close to option 3 anyway. I'm pretty sure that some songs on my iPod start me walking with a bit of a skip or a strut, it seems I can't help myself. I do manage to stop short of sashaying down the high street complete with jazz hands and spirit fingers though. Thank heavens for small mercies...

when I grow up...

Well I should have known but of course, me being me, I didn't. Ms. Dressaday and Ms. Smartypants are famous. Of course they are. They write brilliantly, are semi-famous and have even published books. Mimi Smartypants' book is a collection of blog entries (or so it seems from reviews/summaries) and Erin, aka Ms. Dressaday, has written loads. (Sure, part of it is her job but still...)

Jealous? Moi? Well sure. I want to be fantastically literate and be able to voice all my comments on the world in a pithy, witty and winsome manner. (I also want to be able to do handstands without having a wall for safety, be able to play the guitar properly instead of massacring folk songs like Scarborough Fair and to look gloriously waif-like* for my diving holiday in 2 weeks but I don't always get what I want.) At any rate, in between bouts of work (it makes it sound like an affliction), I have been googling my idols and pandering to my stalker-esque tendencies.

.......I just got back from doing a circuit class at the gym with some of my fellow work colleagues. The circuit class involves going around various 'stations' where you do different exercises- sit ups, press-ups, lunges, tricep dips, skipping rope etc- and in my case, just to make it more fun, you also try to go a brighter shade of red and sweat more than anyone else in the class. I so totally kicked their asses. It was good to get the heart pumping though, especially as it's been hard to get out of bed this week as I'm fighting a cold. It's one of those really annoying ones where you don't really feel sick but when you get up in the morning and sit up, you can feel all the snot in your head shifting position. Just lovely. And then I get to climb tonight as well. Ha! I doubt I'll be pulling myself up anything in a hurry. That said, something at the gym must be working because the other week I was definitely aware of the climbing no-no which is using my arm muscles to just haul myself up as opposed to using my legs and technique. Graeme, my regular Thurs night climbing buddy, does it all the time. It was only the other week that I became aware of it though. Since we started at the same time one might think (at least I did) that we'd be at the same level but he consistently climbs a grade or two higher than me and it's really starting to glaze my doughnuts. I know he's naturally a bit stronger and goes to the gym more and is a bit taller (this helps) but last week we were climbing and I watched him climb something I couldn't finish and when he got down I was like, "You're a great big dirty man-cheater! I saw you just muscling through that. You are such a cheater!" We know each other well enough by now that he just smirked and shrugged and said he'd use whatever he could to get up that wall. Fair enough, it's my attitude as well. I'll try to remember that tonight when I'm peeling off the wall because my muscles are too tired...

*I will never look waif-like. I'm more of a solid load-bearing kind of girl but I also would not WANT to look waif-like, in all honesty. I like knowing that I will not snap. I also like the feeling of being able to sense my muscles working and how my body fits together which is something I most usually experience when climbing because you use your frame quite a lot when you twist and turn to reach stuff or crank up for holds and that's when you get to feel your muscles working. [Editor's note: bugger me but that was an awful sentence. *shudder*]

much better now

A benefit to having lots of friends over for dinner who get so full they almost fall asleep is that they leave behind lots of wine. And bless them, they drink red. So I've been able to indulge in a 'free' glass every night since Saturday. Cheers guys! I also have had lunch and dinner for the past two days although I might finish it all off tonight. That is thanks to Irish genetics- I totally blame my Mum. I worked out how much everyone might need, made a bit more and then one person couldn't come so I had, well, a lot. The laugh is that when I finally got a chance to sit down, about 20mins before the first person arrived, I was looking at all the food and suddenly has this panic of, "Shit! It's not gonna be enough! Maybe I should whip up another wee something..." But thank Christ I didn't because what with food for me for 3 days, I sent some of it home with the girls and Sean scoffed a lot when he got in and had a HUGE lot of the risotto on Sunday. So God bless the Irish and God bless my Mum. xox

I also got from Amazon, a copy of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes and Fables: Wolves. Then I came across this which fit in with the whole Fables thing quite nicely I thought. I have been absolutely, thoroughly enjoying reading Revolting Rhymes. I remember being read this as a child and thinking it was the funniest, bestest thing out. I still think this- the rhymes and language are brilliant. It's the kind of book I like to read out loud because the words are just positively delicious to say and hearing it and giving a cadence and rhythm to it all is almost as much fun as the story itself. I need to go out and find a small child who will sit and listen, enthralled, as I go through the whole thing. Or I'll corner my flatmates tonight. Hee hee hee.

Oh- and traumatically, my girly movies will probably not arrive in time for me to hole myself up tomorrow and indulge in singleton-ness. I'm hoping Sarah and Sean bugger off for a romantic meal somewhere and leave me to wallow on my lonesome. Last year the girls and I went out for a meal but this year people are busy. Me, I'm just gonna try not to hook up with Ben and Jerry.

on a lighter note...

This couple did a full-on reenactment of the final dance from Dirty Dancing at their wedding. So cheesey. So glorious. Good on them I say.

slightly doom and gloom

Once again, so much to write, so little time. I'll just have to type fast...

Last night I went to see Blood Diamond and I came out of it in what I would call not exactly depressed or pensive but maybe more... introspective. Having no time to write about the movie itself, apart from to say that it was somewhat bludgeon-esque with the politic messages and quite heavy going (in an emotionally harrowing way) but otherwise I really liked it, I will instead direct you to by Dad's blog entries about it: 1 and 2. (Because in broad brush strokes, I basically agree with what he said.)And the old fav Rotten Tomato plot summary.

But walking home I really started to think. I mean in my existential way, I'm already in a what's-the-point frame of mind but this movie, or rather issues brought up by this film, really made me put my life in perspective. I always come away from this kind of thing slightly shell-shocked and immediately want to go out and help save the world. But of course I don't want to put myself into physical danger, and well, it's a lot of effort really, isn't it? But what am I doing about anything? My job involves putting images and text on paper and I can have a whole day taken up with deciding what font to choose and how big it should be. A bad week for me involves struggling with design or office politics. That is NOT a bad week. In a bad week you get chucked out of your home, most of your village is shot, you see your mother raped in front of you, your father and brother get shot, get raped yourself and possibly have a hand chopped off. That's a bad week. Me, I'm pushing images around a page- little to the left? Little to the right? Oooh, I don't know, that's a tough choice.

What the fuck does it really matter?!

What is almost worse than this is to know that in a couple of days, this feeling will probably have worn off and I'll go back to being the kind of person who feels good about themselves because they put £1 in someones's plastic bucket and got a sticker as proof that they "care" about blind people, deaf people, cancer victims and homeless abused children. And after that I'll pay someone to shape my eyebrows and put hot wax on my armpits to rip the hair off.

WTF.

So of course I called up Dad when I got home which is what a girl does when what-is-the-point-of-it-all crisis hits. And I took this away from our talk: you can't live every day in this heightened sense of this-world-is-super-fucked-and-I-need-to-run-out-and-save-it because it would drive you insane. I had already decided that. But you can allow yourself to keep that awareness at a certain level and use it to make your decisions about things, like what food/jewelery/[products you buy. And when you start to get pissed off because you can't get a page to look "pretty", well then just get some perspective.

This also made me think about my job/career though. I used to always think that I'd be doing design forever. I like it. Making things look pretty makes me happy and it can be like solving a puzzle when you get it right. But maybe there's something else I can be doing with my life that can fulfill me but be more generally 'useful' in the grand scheme of things... I was a bit surprised to find myself thinking this because as I said, I always assumed I'd be designing forever.

Also, and this I decided on my lonesome, you get to choose to be one of three people. 1- you complain about what's wrong with this world but do nothing about it
2- you are bothered so you get off your fat ass and do something about it, no matter how small
3- you stop caring

Now I really don't want to be person 1 or 3 so maybe, just maybe, I'll have to get off my fat ass...

This morning I woke up still relatively sombre about the whole thing. I thought about trying to snap myself out of it but I've decided to wallow in it for a while. I played Radiohead's Amnesiac on my iPod on the way to work which actually made me smile, if only because I was laughing at myself because it is rather Bathtub Brigade music and I was being quite self-indulgent... Then I got to work and saw Play.com was having a 3 for 2 sale (I went in only to buy Amelie but came out with Miss Congeniality and While You Were Sleeping as well. Mainly because when I came home last night, I wanted to watch something to girly and warm-fuzzy to snap me out of it only to find that I only own action movies...

angry raging white female (on the inside)

Currently I'm meant to be in a state of ketosis. My book says I'm meant to be enjoying a heightened state of alertness and clear headedness with lots of energy. What I am is quitequite pissed off. You try to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when all you can think about it whyGodwhy are you not allowed to eat carbs (well I am but I'm meant to be keeping it under 20g a day which is sweet f*ck all so basically no bread, crackers, spuds, pasta, rice, cereal, beans etc) and what is the deal with even quite a few vegies being quite high in carbs so that when you put an amount on your plate it looks like nothing and salad is about all you can load up on. Of course I'm allowed to eat all the protein I want but I'm a vegetarian* so I'm kinda f*cked. Or, as the case seems to be, f*cked off. And lets not even START on how much I want chocolate right now...

Now before people think that I'm some psycho-obessed diet freak let me set you straight. To me, the word 'diet' defines more a way of structuring what you eat than the more traditional 'eat cabbage soup for a week' or 'eat this protein shake at every meal** For health reasons I will not go in to, I need to be looking in to a low GI diet and one vege low GI cookbook I got recommends kicking this off by at least a week where you eat 20g or less of carbs which should put you in to ketosis which helps to kick things off. So I thought trying it for a week couldn't hurt but I'm only on day 3 and I feel like I have a raging beast trapped within me. I'm sure this isn't just due to carb-cutting but I'll go in to that later...

This whole ketosis thing is quite interesting but doing some quick googling just now I'm not so sure how I feel about it. The first place I checked was wikipedia and I wasn't too keen on the term Most medical resources regard ketosis as a pathological state associated with chronic starvation. I was a bit happier with www.answers.com (Scroll down the page a bit for the definition part.) Basically I'll try to stick it out till Saturday when I'm having friends round for dinner- I'm sure I can last till then. The question is whether I've ripped off the heads of every one I come in to contact with before then...

Other reasons for me being in a foul mood (in no particular order):
1- Work stuff. But of course I'm not going to go in to that.
2- I slept like shit, woke up at 5am and went back to sleep and didn't end up going to the gym
3- Probably low on my daily endorphin jolt because of missing the gym. So I have to hang out until climbing tonight to get my fix.
4- ear piercings are probably to blame (partially) for poor sleep. And now both are a bit swollen.
5- I'm having 9 people over on Saturday and although I can feed them, I have no idea where the f*ck they're meant to sit. Or even fit. We have a rather small open-plan kitchen/living room. And it's the first time they've ever come over. What was I thinking?!!!!

I think that sums it up. I will now stop ranting and get back to work. Peace out.

*who eats seafood
**and you won't crap for a month. This happened to one of my sister's flatmates long ago- she was on this protein shake diet and the whole time she ate it she did not poop once. That is not natural.

attention to detail

I wanted to try to embed this here but as it's a separate url, I can't seem to. You all simple mustmustMUST check it out. It's absolutely amazing. Lots of pixel lunar art on this massive page. So much attention to detail. To find out more about it or add to it, go to www.x-panded.com/pixeldam/indexpixelmoon.html. I'm just gutted that you can't click on things and have stuff happen. That would be truly truly awesome.

Postscript: As a side note, look at me go! Nothing for weeks and now 4 entries in 2 days. So typical...

all types of crazy...

This morning there was an article on the Metro entitled 'Astronaut in a nappy attacks her love rival'. Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I want to be reading on my morning train ride. The only reference I've been able to find to it online is here and it reads a bit dry but to sum up, this woman drove about 1500km wearing a special nappy so that she didn't have to stop to use the loo, to meet a woman who she heard was interested in a man she was interested in. My fav bit was where the Metro said The 43-year-old was arrested and found to have a mallet, a 10cm knife, rubber tubing and rubbish bags......Nowak told officers she just wanted to scare Shipman into talking about her relationship with Mr. Oefelein and did not intend to hurt her. I'm sorry WHAT? In the world as I know it, you don't turn up to "chat" to someone carrying a knife, rubber tubing and rubbish bags. To me that reeks of body parts and a whole lot of not-talking. At least not nicely. Maybe Miss Astronaut Lady had some weird otherly experience in space which fried some synapses...

not knowing the meaning of small-scale

Ever since I moved in to my new flat, I've been meaning to have people around for dinner/afternoon tea/brunch/something similar and I have finally done it. Well at least the inviting part. And as a result, have encountered the problem with having a large circle of friends- there are a lot of them. I've just realised that I'm making dinner for 9 people on Saturday night- 11 if I count Sarah and Sean, which I feel I should. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. When I realised how many people it was, my first thought was, "I really must buy another shelf for our oven." Currently we only have one and I think we can all agree that there's no way you can cook for 11 people with one shelf!

new shiny goodness in my ears

Oh you faithful few who have kept checking this blog in the vain hope that I'll actually post something. Thank you. Who would have thought I could be so busy? All I can say is that doing a 40 hour a week job that only usually takes up 40 hours has made me soft. Back at Critic, I'd usually have done my 40 hours by the time I left on Thursday. Since getting back, it's been hella-crazy flat-tack all-out madness at work as I helped to put out not one but two magazines. Dude. But my dad has been asking, ever so nicely, when I'm going to blog again so here I am. Blogging again. Hoping not to let it slip again this badly although I do seem to periodically drop off the face of the cyber world.

Currently my latest news is that I got my ears pierced in the weekend. That's right folks, at the ripe old age of 27 I finally did it. In typical me fashion it is of course slightly in reverse as I've had my tracha pierced for years. I remember when I got that done, I went through this stage where it all felt a bit surreal and I really wasn't sure I wanted it there. I mean I'd had a piece of metal stabbed through my body. When you think about it, it seems a bit weird. And now, about 8 years later, I've done it again. This hurt nowhere near as much, in fact not at all- at least until yesterday. It seems that when I get changed, I pull my top off and brush my right ear. ALL THE TIME. And right about now, my right ear is more swollen than my left and a bit hot and burning whereas the left if totally fine. All because I happened to nastily jerk it a couple of times. When I get home I intend to hold ice to it until I can't feel it any more. On the bright side, it's not seeping or anything so I'm sure it'll be fine. But at the moment I'm a bit of a grumblebum about it. As you may have noticed...

The other thing I've been aware of at the moment, apart from the throbbing pain in my right ear, is that I'm going through another 'phase' as I like to put it. Not a personal one but rather a social one. This at least is how I've chosen to term it. You know how you can look back over your life and track fads or phases of your life? Mine tend to get defined by my social circle at the time and I can get quite nostalgic about it. Life is constantly changing but every now and then you get to settle in a pocket of time for a while where everything is basically good and it's just nice. At the moment I'm fairly settled here in London, I go to work, I climb twice a week and most weekends I usually have coffee with my friend Sue on a Sat morn and the bunch of us will do something on the Sat night. The other week I was having dinner with my friends and I was laughing so hard I was crying and I looked around at a group of 8 women, all of whom I really like and I enjoy being with. And happy as I was, I was also a bit sad because I realised that this will not last. We'll leave London, move apart, life will go on. It's just a bit sad really. The nice, or at least interesting thing about being in London is that we are all at pretty much the same stage in life but it's almost a kind of stasis in a way and back home, be it NZ for me or SA for them, friends are moving on with lives and buying houses and getting married and having babies. Which we are definitely NOT doing. Is it something about being in London, the different pace of it all, the reasons we came here? I don't know. I just consider myself lucky enough to have good enough friends back home that they can go down a different path to me and we can still have a close enough bond that we don't become strangers to each other. We still hold similar values and opinions on things- at least at the moment. Part of me wonders how long it'd take with us living our different lives before we grew so different that we no longer felt that we understood the other person. I know it's happened with some of my friends when they've gone back to SA for a holiday- they just have nothing in common with people they used to consider their best friends. And I know that's just part of life but it doesn't stop it from being a bit sad too.

no time no time no time

IT SNOWED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Too busy, too much to do. Tomorrow will have more. Plus pics of snow. ooer.

brrr...........

Abandonment Issues
Kitty has left me. Don't be fooled by the fact that she may occasionally post on here. She's left me. She now mainly bogs on the greener shores of her personal blog kittyonsafari.blogspot.com. I don't feel stabbed in the back as much as pitched out of a moving car onto the side of the road in the middle of the desert. (Just joking K, you go forth a blog where you may...)

What will I not do for a photo?
Lotte came over for tea and cake yesterday afternoon and as we were looking at her photos from Prague, we came across this one which was taken when we stayed a friend's place in Devon ages ago. There was this digger on the side of the road which we walked past every day and Lotte and me being Lotte and me, of course we had to hop in to the scoop bit to have our photo taken. Look at me being all (unintentionally) calender-girl in the digger. I'm looking a smidge hoochy-mamma-esque, well as much as you can in jeans, t-shirt and a wooly hat with a bobble on it...


so this is what winter feels like
It came out of nowhere- overnight (it felt like) an almost 6 degree drop in hit us. One week we're basking in an 11˚ winter and suddenly it's 4˚. Jesus. It is C O L D. Brilliant timing on behalf of my wonderful Mummy though- I left some clothes behind in NZ (actually it was all undies and some may laugh at me getting them sent over because yes, you can buy underwear in Britain but my Mummy knows how attached I am to my sensible cotton underwear in totally non-sensible colours so she was a honey and shipped them over) and the package arrived today and even though I said I didn't need thermals, she sent me a thermal singlet anyway which was a Godsend because when I headed for the gym this morning I forgot a jersey and was freezing my bits off in my polyprop and t shirt so THANK YOU MUM YOU ARE A GODDESS. I am wearing the thermal now.

I have stuff I feel I could/should/will write in response (somewhat belated in some cases) to stuff my Dad has written in his blog but I don't have time right now so instead write this in the hope that he at least will remind me that I have to do it. Fantasy writing/ good and evil/probably something else but can't remember what....

I did a bad thing

I've updated our blog to the new blogger thingy, I'm sorry if this actually becomes a pain for you Aynia, but they kept asking so sweetly.

SO I'm in America! In Pt Reyes which is just out of San Francisco, to be specific.
So far I have:
Eaten: Big burger curly fries, cherry cola, mexian food including tamales and tacos. Lot's of goats cheese (for some reason), granola, goldfish crackers and I just had a big piece of pizza.
Been to: Some of San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Oakland, the pacific coast, a swing dance restaurant, an american-as-heck bar, a burger joint, a fancy japanese restaurant, and a house with heated floors and a double door fridge.
I plan to in the near future:
Go to a shooting range (awesome!), horse riding, go to a roller derby (where girls on skates fight -ha!), go to live music, Vegas, and the Grand Canyon.

I've been hanging out with my brother Peter and his new wife, Bonnie, and her 3yo daughter, Sophia. I'm going to be doing some work for Pete - web and graphic design stuff, and hopefull will earn mega greenbacks so that I can treat Aynia when I come visit after April sometime.

check out my other kitty specific blog yo.

so happy that I'm jumping

I HAVE MY iPOD BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoppee! No more broken-record-Aynia-brain. No more enduring shit gym music. Oh the rapturous joy. Oh the happiness. Oh the dance of I've-got-my-iPod-back. Oh the funny looks from people on the office...

WARNING FOR DEADWOOD FANS- POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
I'm writing this in small print so that it's easier for Deadwood fans to skip over this bit. Like Julie. I was thinking of her last night when the episode from Season3 featured a fight between Dan and The Captain, Hurst's muscle guy. Now Dan isn't a nice guy but I was soooooooooooooooo rooting for him and had absolutely no idea who was going to win the fight. It really could have gone either way and would have had quite different plot consequences. It was tense. I was tense. I was also thinking of my sister because I was doing what she hates most and talking at the TV. There were lots of cries of "Oooh" and "NO!" and "Get him" as well as an almost constant chant of "Go for the eyes, go for the eyes, gofortheeyes, GOFORTHEEYES." Dan did. He won. But I had anticipated eye-gouging, (which is bad enough) but in true Deadwood style, it was an eye popping-out. Which was quite graphic- it was swinging around and everything. And of course it's game-over at that point. Kinda gross but so well done, as the whole show is. Ka Pai makers so Deadwood.

Ok, it's fine to read again now.
Just to bring you up to speed if you skipped the fine print, I was talking about a fight between two characters in Deadwood. This morning when I walked to the train, I was thinking about it and it made me think of how my martial arts has influenced my opinion of fights I see on TV/in the movies. So often, people are fighting nicely- I always want to yell, "Bite him!" or "rip that finger off!" or "go for the eyes". They don't, and I just sit there shaking my head in disgust. I learned a lot a fancy moves doing martial arts but there is a HUGE different between busting a move when the person is working in the same style as you and it's a training environment and busting a move in the real world. Real world people don't move or react the same way and although I consider myself competent, when faced with a big chap wanting to whale on me in some dark alley way, I would not use my training methods to deal with him as I might in sparring. I'd stay as far away as I could and if I got in close, I'd be biting anything I could and gouging eyes and pulling hair. And I feel no shame in that. Down and dirty is the way this girl would play it. Straight arm? I'll break it if I fear for my safety. Shove your head near mine as you try to strangle me? If you're stupid enough to leave my arms free I'll poke your eyes out. Oh I'm a charmer. :-)

Military Alphabet
I live with two travel agents and it has become a matter or pride to me to learn the military alphabet which they have to know because they have so many codes with letters in them. So I thought I'd drop it in here for the sake of posterity. Also I've been watching too much of The Unit...
A: Alpha
B: Bravo
C: Charlie
D: Delta
E: Echo
F: Foxtrot
G: Golf
H: Hotel
I: India
J: Juliet
K: Kilo
L: Lima
M: Mike
N: November
O: Oscar
P: Papa
Q: Quebec
R: Romeo
S: Sierra
T: Tango
U: Uniform
V: Victor
W: Whiskey
X: X-Ray
Y: Yankee
Z: Zulu
See? Don't you feel so much better for knowing that? And so much cooler?

And now work calls. I have a weekend looming and stuff to do. Ciao. xx

'fessing up

So it turns out that the real reason that I need my iPod back is that is saves me from myself. Left to my own devices, my brain will amuse itself (in a totally sadistic way) but doing endless broken-record-styled repeats of snippets of some of The Most Crap Songs Ever which I swear by everything holy to me* do not exist anywhere on my iPod or, for that matter, anywhere is my music collection. Yesterday I almost stopped walking when I realised with horror that the song snippet on endless repeat was , "It's getting hot in here so hot so take off all your clothes I am getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off." This may have been partially due to the fact that I was getting bloody hot walking along as I was layered up and tend to walk quite fast so tend to get a bit hot and sweaty. But still, I don't think that makes it forgivable... The other day I had a snippet of a Pink song (not as bad as Nelly but still less than ideal) and for days and days I had the song from The Lion King that Julie and I sing as a duet. Now a duet can be defined as "A piece for two performers" in which case yes, this is a duet. But in reality it's Julie singing and my piping up at the end. It's from near the end of The Lion King where Timon and Pumba are creating a distraction so they sing this song (Julie sings Timon, i pipe up for Pumba, in a faux bass tone):

Timon: If you're hungry for a hunk of fat and Jjuicy meat, eat my buddy Pumbaa here because he is a treat! Come on down and dine on this tasty swine, all ya gotta do is get in line! Are ya achin'...
Pumbaa: Yep Yep Yep!
Timon: ...for some bacon?
Pumbaa: Yep Yep Yep!
Timon: he's a big pig!
Pumbaa: Yep Yep.
Timon: you could be a big pig too! Oy!
Timon and Pumbaa: AAAAAAAAAAH!

Too much info on the quirks of my relationship with my sister? Maybe. But that tune's been in my head ever since we sung it when I was home. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. If only I could record us doing it and put it on here as an MP3. That would make it all so much more understandable. (? Really?! Oh the illogic of the Aynia Brain....)

Speaking of songs, my flatmate Sean has a ringtone at the moment that isn't entirely public-friendly. It's a sound bite from Southpark and I can't find it on the web (although if you want to see some quotes from the show, check this out. (Scroll down past the show listings.) So inappropriate but so hilarious. As is the Uncle Fucka song.) Anyway- Sean's ringtone has a bit where Cartman is going, "Who are you calling fat you fucking Jew?" Then Mr. Garrison tells them off for swearing and Kyle goes, "What? Fuck? Fuck fuckity fuckfuckfuck." It's the kind of ringtone where you want to answer your phone reallyREALLY quickly. It's embarrassed him a couple of times but I have no sympathy for him, I've told him he needs to change it. Hilarious? Yes. Suitable for an everyday ringtone? No.

*choccie, family, the beach at low tide when the sun is rising and I have it all to myself, the laugh of a small child**, the moment just as the plane takes off and leaves the ground

**so some of this is a bit cheesy. So sue me.

I'M LEARNING TO DIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it finally happened. My boss came in to office one day and announced that we were learning to dive. (We being me and three other girls from work.) We are being shipped off to the Red Sea for a week from March 1-8 for sand, sun, lots and water and hopefully some Nemo sightings. AWESOME! I've wanted to learn to dive for absolutely ages and having this trip in March will break up the British gloom quite nicely. So now I have 43 days (yes, I set up a new countdown widget) to stop eating and exercise lots and miraculously be able to wear a bikini. NOT. This body is a bikini-free zone. If God had intended for anyone to see my stomach he would given them a second eyelid or something similar to help reduce glare and help numb the pain.

I am also going to be going to the Outdoors Show which is cool but mainly because they're having the European Bouldering Championships there which I reallyREALLY want to see. I'm sure I'll be able to sneak away for the finals and to have a play on the wall. Hee hee.

So it looks like I have quite a few holidays and things to look forward to which is what it's all about really. At least it's part of what my being over here is meant to be all about.

I've been really good with the gym since being back but if I thought last week went slowly I was sadly mistaken. This week has crawled. Yesterday morning my alarm woke me up at 6.20am and as my hand scrabbled for it automatically, my brain was going, "Oh God no, just make it stop. It CAN'T be time to get up." Brain 2 chipped up with, "It's not that bad, you've only got one more day of this to go then you can sleep in."
brain1: Oh thank God.
pause for mental gears to actually start working
brain1: no wait a minute, this is only Tuesday. FUCK!
brain2: OH GOD! Only Tuesday?!!! Shit! [Editor's note: my language aint' at it's best first thing in the morn] How can we only have done this dragging ourself out of bed at an ungodly hour to shuffle to the train station like a zombie to then shuffle further to the gym to sweat and do exercise (at 6.30am that is rather like a dirty word) only once this week. ONCE. Jesus. I just can't do this. HELP! Argh!!!
brain1: Dude! Pull yourself together. Just get out of bed, it'll be fine.
brain2: oh fuck off *grumble* *grumble*

Thank God for auto pilot I say. Now that I've started doing this 25 min walk to Putney overland, I usually prefer it to my combo of walk, tube & walk or just taking for the bus (once it deigns to turn up) because it's good time to think and the walk is actually quite a nice one- plus it's far more reliable time-wise than the other options. But the past couple of mornings the love has been gone. I'm sure things will be better once I get my iPod back. The thought of doing cardio at the gym without my own music for motivation is a bit daunting. I get bored easily on the machines and the music at the gym is absolutely bollocks. But my baby should be returned to me by Monday, oh the joyful anticipation.

boo

It seems that since getting back from NZ I've been swamped. That and week one was pretty tough- motivationally wise. But I've made it through one whole week of work now and have even been to the gym in the mornings so, having proven to myself that I won't die doing it, I'm up for round two.

Once again though I seem slightly lacking on the whole time thing so today's entry consists of two links. This website I liked for two reasons, well maybe three. In no particular order:
1) The blue background
2) The supercutie robot animation. I was gutted that I couldn't make him move more
3) The way the pages link together. It's like you're moving around on a huge palette and I think it's quite a nice idea.

This site is totally awesome when it comes to choosing colours for web pages. If you click on the link it will take you through to a homepage. There will be a purple link near the beginning of the text which says 'spin the colour wheel'. It brings up a pop-up window (hence no direct link) and you spin the wheel and it randomly generates three colours for you and previews them in relation to each other. Hard to explain (at least for me) but very very cool. For someone who find the task of choosing colour schemes for websites quite daunting (as I do), this site is an absolute Godsend.

Oooh ooh ooh AND I have booked my flights to go to Portugal at Easter to stay with Cathy and co. This means I will get to witness Sean and Daisy doing their Easter Egg Hunt which will have to be übersupercutiepie, especially as this will be Daisy's first Easter being completely mobile so she'll be doing all the hunting herself.

what a Monday needs

I know that I need to do a decent entry. I really really do. I even have stuff to write about. Just slightly lacking on time and motivation... So instead I will leave you with this gem that was passed on to me by my buddy Dave:
a music video using treadmills
God only knows how they came out of it alive. I would have broken something.

I will however share just 2 pics from NZ. In the first I am cleaning my hiking boots in prep for waterproofing them. I really kinda let myself go in my two weeks at home. Who on earth would think that I am a designer and have any sense of what good taste might be? Red t-shirt, stripy polyprop, purple butterfly flannel pajamas, not to mention topping it all off with leopard-wannabe fluffy slippers. Dear God. I am a cacophony of colour.



This one is a big-small that Dad and I had fun setting up at Lover's Leap. A holiday, (not matter how rainy) is not complete without silly big-smalls.

what a jolly entry.

Before I left for NZ, I had a countdown widget. Basically you name an event and put in the date and everytime you looks at your widgets, there's a little message that tells you how many days it is till the big event. Mine was "HOMETIME!!!!!" so my message would read "2 days till HOMETIME!!!!!" which was all well and good but coming in to work today, I went to feed my tigergotchi widget and to my great horror, my countdown widget now reads "17 days since HOMETIME!!!!!!". All those exclamation marks leap out from the page and mock me. I must find something to replace it with as right now it's pretty bloody depressing.

Apart from widget horror, I have nothing to report apart from jetlag which seems to be manifesting itself as overwhelming apathy. I can't be bothered, not with anything. And I'm not really tired, at least not in the jet-lagged-I'm-about-to-drop-dead-RIGHT-NOW-I-need-to-sleep-so-bad was I'm used to, I just don't care.