Have just realised I won't be able to bring my laptop to the Ukraine with me. I don't actually have a clue how I am going to cope not being able to write for two weeks. I need my blogs, I need my play, I wanted to document the trip, I wanted to be able to relax and get some work done on my writing. This writing lark is oxygen for my soul and I've grown so accustomed to the ease of the laptop that thinking about the mess of pen and paper makes me feel unwell. I hate the desperate hand-can't-keep-up-with-my-thoughts scribble that I write freehand.
Plus I can hardly do reviews on my phone, or long blog posts, I can barely send a text message or update my facebook status on that little touch-screen nightmare. I actually feel anxious, unhappy and I can't really think straight or sleep knowing that I won't be able to do this stuff or that I'll have to catch up on it all when I'm back. Fuck. And a half. With great big fucking knobs on.
Apparently not reminding my father every day for the last month to bring home a back-up drive means it is my fault that my laptop isn't backed up. I've said it to him a hundred times but it should have been a thousand. It may sound very childish and petty and almost bratty from an outside perspective but I cannot cope with the idea that this is another two weeks of no work on my costume budget, no work on my play. Two weeks of blog silence. No way for me to write up my trip. I don't want to have to sit in some dinghy internet cafe desperately trying to finish a scene and a save the document before my time runs out on a computer.
I know the saying is supposed to be 'A writer writes', but it has become 'a writer types' and frankly I haven't found a better way to do it. Adventure is going to be somewhat ruined by the fact I'm going to be setting off in a state of blind panic at this drastic change to my plans. Cannot deal. No thank-you. Goodbye. Help
Friday, 30 August 2013
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Sex and the TV
For a very non-sexual individual I have an odd obsession with Sex and the City. I hate the puns, I hate some of the outfits, I hate how dependant on men it makes women seem. But I love it. It's my guilty pleasure. Like Busted, or snickers, or over-knee socks.
I kinda like that it's all about men and relationships and sex. It allows me to live vicariously through a bunch of fictional characters, and I don't have to deal with the backlash when things go wrong. I'm out of relationships right now, and enjoying it, but as a women relationships are something we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about. That and sex. Every young person (and Carrie Bradshaw regardless of her age..) thinks about sex. Whether they're having it, not having it, thinking about having it, or wondering why they don't feel like having it. Even if they've never had it, or they had it yesterday. I find myself wondering about it simply because I know other people are thinking about it.
Maybe that's why SATC appeals to me. Because unlike my friends' sex lives, those of Carrie and the girls do not require my advice, opinion or, god forbid, involvement. No one on the show is asking me whether they're a slut, or complaining about needing to get laid and hoping I know someone who can help. Best of all no one on the show needs to be rebuffed for sexually advancing on me.
While some people blame the likes of SATC for the over-sexualisation of society, I personally find it a trivial and harmless form of escapism, where gingers, prudes and blonds get their kicks in a fun, safe and mature way. Plus they get to be 'fabulous' in between hopping into bed with people. There's even some interesting relationship advice, and women-empowering moments.
It's relaxing to allow some other people to deal with all the sexual tribulations of their friends. It's like a silly chat with your girlfriends, except you don't have to actually solve any of the questions-that's Carrie's job!
I kinda like that it's all about men and relationships and sex. It allows me to live vicariously through a bunch of fictional characters, and I don't have to deal with the backlash when things go wrong. I'm out of relationships right now, and enjoying it, but as a women relationships are something we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about. That and sex. Every young person (and Carrie Bradshaw regardless of her age..) thinks about sex. Whether they're having it, not having it, thinking about having it, or wondering why they don't feel like having it. Even if they've never had it, or they had it yesterday. I find myself wondering about it simply because I know other people are thinking about it.
Maybe that's why SATC appeals to me. Because unlike my friends' sex lives, those of Carrie and the girls do not require my advice, opinion or, god forbid, involvement. No one on the show is asking me whether they're a slut, or complaining about needing to get laid and hoping I know someone who can help. Best of all no one on the show needs to be rebuffed for sexually advancing on me.
While some people blame the likes of SATC for the over-sexualisation of society, I personally find it a trivial and harmless form of escapism, where gingers, prudes and blonds get their kicks in a fun, safe and mature way. Plus they get to be 'fabulous' in between hopping into bed with people. There's even some interesting relationship advice, and women-empowering moments.
It's relaxing to allow some other people to deal with all the sexual tribulations of their friends. It's like a silly chat with your girlfriends, except you don't have to actually solve any of the questions-that's Carrie's job!
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
The World is my Oyster
I recently worked on my bucket list with my best friend. We had the scary realisation that 10 years from now we will be on the cusp of our thirties and - shock horror- adults. Hopefully with jobs and a partner and maybe even a house or kids, who knows. So we reckon we have 10years before all the things we're going to do become all the things we should have done.
Now to anyone older who is feeling horribly offended by that statement I am not making the assumption that life ends at thirty, only that real life will have kicked in by then, complete with taxes and bills and a car and cooking all our own meals and only visiting our parents on special occasions or when we're lonely.
I feel like I have a finite amount of time where I can indulge my childish side to the fullest extent and I am terrified of wasting that and becoming one of those middle-aged creeps with no friends their own age because of their inappropriateness and lack of responsibility for their own life.
While looking through things that other people want to do before they die I've discovered that I've done plenty of interesting things already. I've swum with dolphins, been snorkeling on a coral reef in the Caribbean, I've gone on a trip with friends, and one with a special someone, I've done a spiderman kiss, I've made something from scratch, I've been to a ball, broken a Guinness world record, had a bonfire on the beach, jumped from a cliff and even milked a cow.
I want to make sure that, even though I know my best adventures will be the normal ones, the family, the house, the job and the future, I want to be sure that I do all the things I might not be able to do when I have other people to think of, or when I'm too old to enjoy them. I don't know when my muscles will get old and tired or my joints start to ache or whether I'll have an accident so I want to expose myself to as much culture, adventure and excitement as I can!
I want to be sure I appreciate the years between childhood dependence and grown up responsibility where pleasing only myself isn't to anyone else's concern or detriment. After all, the world is only my oyster while I'm able to treat it as such.
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Off into the great blue yonder
Soon I will be creating a new blog about my travels. It will be mostly be to act as a time capsule of my trips (I plan to take many during my next few years of college) and also to act as a way to keep my family and friends here in Ireland updated on how I'm getting on and the adventures I'm (hopefully!) having.
I am overcome with nerves as the one week countdown to my language course in Ukraine starts. I received info about my homestay and my class timetable but am very much throwing myself in at the deep end with next to no clue what it will be like there or even whether I will be fed of be able to go to the gym.
I am also extremely excited for my first trip to Eastern Europe as this is going to be a huge part of my life in the next few years. I can't wait to actually try to communicate in a language I've been learning for less than a year, to experience a new culture, new foods, new sights, a new way of living. I'm glad to be going with friends but nonetheless being thrown into things while still more than a bit unprepared. It's exhilirating in the way a bungee jump or a sky dive is- a heady mix of mild terror and anxious excitement mingled with the thrill of the unknown.
I am overcome with nerves as the one week countdown to my language course in Ukraine starts. I received info about my homestay and my class timetable but am very much throwing myself in at the deep end with next to no clue what it will be like there or even whether I will be fed of be able to go to the gym.
I am also extremely excited for my first trip to Eastern Europe as this is going to be a huge part of my life in the next few years. I can't wait to actually try to communicate in a language I've been learning for less than a year, to experience a new culture, new foods, new sights, a new way of living. I'm glad to be going with friends but nonetheless being thrown into things while still more than a bit unprepared. It's exhilirating in the way a bungee jump or a sky dive is- a heady mix of mild terror and anxious excitement mingled with the thrill of the unknown.
Giving
I have a friend who I have reached the stage of being near unable to hold a conversation with. Every interaction causes me pain, sadness and sometimes downright misery. Despite having struggled, hard, to get myself to a stage of independence where I have made myself an item of priority in my own life, and knowing that this person is a detriment to my happiness, I refuse to give up on them.
This person claims to know both depression and happiness, but would rather accept depression that refuse to continue placing conditions on their happiness. I am proud of myself every time I amn't sad, not only when I'm genuinely happy. Being able to get out of bed feels like a win when there was a time in your life when life was something you didn't feel you were able to manage. This person sees every misfortune as a crippling loss and a sign never to strive for anything, while I try to tell them that the only way you can get of these hurdles is to keep sight of the fact it is a hurdle, not a brick wall fathoms high.
This person claims to know love and to have been destroyed by it. But I know love to be the only thing that can only build you up. Knowing that I have people I care about, who's happiness is my happiness, who's achievements are my delights and who's tribulations are my opportunity to build them up is a constant reminder that I have a value and a purpose.
The worst thing about this friend of mine is that, they do not know how love should work. I love them, so I do my best to be supportive despite the fact that for months now they have done nothing but tear at my fragile happiness, that their lack of awareness of their effect on me makes me realise constantly that they do not love me, nor do they seem to know how. This person does not want my help, they practically push my friendship away and crush my emotions constantly while reminding me that if I go they have no one, guilting me into staying because I am so desperate for them to appreciate the other things they cannot see, if only to allow myself some piece of mind. Being a part of someones happiness is a gift. Being responsible for it, is a terrible pressure. Especially when nothing you can say or do will make them realise the pain it is causing you to care. The great expense to your own happiness it is to keep them just a millimetre from total misery.
But that is love, you care til it hurts, you care some more, and you sometimes have to be content with nothing in return. The fact that this person doesn't deserve your love doesn't stop you trying to give them what they need. Even if they don't appreciate how much you are giving.
This person claims to know both depression and happiness, but would rather accept depression that refuse to continue placing conditions on their happiness. I am proud of myself every time I amn't sad, not only when I'm genuinely happy. Being able to get out of bed feels like a win when there was a time in your life when life was something you didn't feel you were able to manage. This person sees every misfortune as a crippling loss and a sign never to strive for anything, while I try to tell them that the only way you can get of these hurdles is to keep sight of the fact it is a hurdle, not a brick wall fathoms high.
This person claims to know love and to have been destroyed by it. But I know love to be the only thing that can only build you up. Knowing that I have people I care about, who's happiness is my happiness, who's achievements are my delights and who's tribulations are my opportunity to build them up is a constant reminder that I have a value and a purpose.
The worst thing about this friend of mine is that, they do not know how love should work. I love them, so I do my best to be supportive despite the fact that for months now they have done nothing but tear at my fragile happiness, that their lack of awareness of their effect on me makes me realise constantly that they do not love me, nor do they seem to know how. This person does not want my help, they practically push my friendship away and crush my emotions constantly while reminding me that if I go they have no one, guilting me into staying because I am so desperate for them to appreciate the other things they cannot see, if only to allow myself some piece of mind. Being a part of someones happiness is a gift. Being responsible for it, is a terrible pressure. Especially when nothing you can say or do will make them realise the pain it is causing you to care. The great expense to your own happiness it is to keep them just a millimetre from total misery.
But that is love, you care til it hurts, you care some more, and you sometimes have to be content with nothing in return. The fact that this person doesn't deserve your love doesn't stop you trying to give them what they need. Even if they don't appreciate how much you are giving.
Self-deprecation
She will always be far more appreciative of others than she is of herself. In fact, most of the things she likes about herself she credits to her parents, either genetically or for encouraging her when she was growing up. She never takes full responsibility for things she thinks she might be good at, though she accepts as her own any and all failures, weaknesses and troubles in her life.
She has always accepted others much more readily than she accepts herself. She tend to rarely be critical of others, even though she notices the flaws in others almost as much as she notes them in herself. She forgives those imperfections, irritations and issues much more readily in people who aren't, well, her.
She doesn't have a reason why. She knows most of us are more critical of ourselves, but she is pretty much exclusively critical of herself, which is perhaps why it can be so vehement. She just assumes that everyone judges her as harshly as she judges herself and if they don't that they are simply being overly kind.
She can always think of dozens of things wrong with herself, yet struggles to think of things she is genuinely bad at. She punishes herself for mediocrity and refuses to reward herself even for things approaching impressive.
I wonder sometimes why I am the first to praise, support and nurture everyone but myself. Even now I am criticising myself for writing this where people will have to read it only to discover I'm a boring, self-deprecating fool with a laptop. I'm also criticising the lack of literary flair in this destruction of my character, I should really have made it a poem, or a tale or woe worthy of pity. But it isn't sad, simply true. It is no dreadful thing, only something I cannot reconcile with the logical part of my brain.
She has always accepted others much more readily than she accepts herself. She tend to rarely be critical of others, even though she notices the flaws in others almost as much as she notes them in herself. She forgives those imperfections, irritations and issues much more readily in people who aren't, well, her.
She doesn't have a reason why. She knows most of us are more critical of ourselves, but she is pretty much exclusively critical of herself, which is perhaps why it can be so vehement. She just assumes that everyone judges her as harshly as she judges herself and if they don't that they are simply being overly kind.
She can always think of dozens of things wrong with herself, yet struggles to think of things she is genuinely bad at. She punishes herself for mediocrity and refuses to reward herself even for things approaching impressive.
I wonder sometimes why I am the first to praise, support and nurture everyone but myself. Even now I am criticising myself for writing this where people will have to read it only to discover I'm a boring, self-deprecating fool with a laptop. I'm also criticising the lack of literary flair in this destruction of my character, I should really have made it a poem, or a tale or woe worthy of pity. But it isn't sad, simply true. It is no dreadful thing, only something I cannot reconcile with the logical part of my brain.
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