It has been nearly a month...

I have yet again been remiss in my blogging duties. I shall use this time (arguably) wisely in a little bit of a rant.

RANT 1:

Now I love my family hugely. Like really a lot. From talks with pals and things I really don't think I know all that many people who get on as well with their parents as I do. I think we are more friends really now that I am grown up (ish) than parents/daughter, brother/sister. It does remind me in some ways of living back at uni. We only put out the trash when it really gets ridiculous, there will be those who avoid doing the washing up/stacking the dishwasher, the same ones do the cooking, there are those who do their laundry more often, and finally there are those who will not clean at all be it lounge, bathroom, kitchen, or other....

Of course, it raises the same contentious issues as it always has. There are little wrangles about people doing more from time to time, and arguments about the state of a room *not naming names -RJ's bedroom-gross!* I think some of us have to come to an equilibrium. Dad cooks, Mam washes clothes (except mine- my clothes always come back far too small- even so my mam can't get into them!), I will stack dishwasher, do my ironing and washing, occasionally clean the bathroom and lounge as and when the scummy-ness dictates! It is not as gross as it seems... I promise... I am just a bit of a neat freak- although I have far too much clutter to be really tidy all the time, I do have to have everything CLEAN and in the right place. It annoys me when I can't find something.

Anyway there is a point to highlighting the strange housework arrangements... I am feeling a little bit aggravated at the moment with my brother, who is still unemployed but doesn't seem to do any housework unless he is getting paid for it. Now, I pay housekeeping and I do my own washing (which he doesn't) and I still have to participate in household chores without payment. I am just a little bit bitter about it, so I have been on strike for the last few months and have refused to do anything but my own washing.

This week I crumbled. I cleaned the bathroom. I could stand it no longer, especially since I like baths. I am annoyed at myself. Now I know why my Mam and Dad give up trying to make things happen by striking. Like strikes in general.... they rarely pull off the desired results. :(

OK rant 1 over. Love ya Bruv, but sort it out....

RANT 2

Another rant on the reason I haven't blogged in a while. As weird as it sounds, I find blogging a rather personal thing despite broadcasting it on the Internet to a mix of some random strangers and those I know. I used to use my laptop in my room and blog there for privacy and space to think. Since my Mam has changed jobs, her company laptop had to be returned and my laptop has been put in its place in the office. I am not used to sharing my laptop and I do not like it. I usually share well but not my baby, Ethel. Having had two crashes since it has been downstairs in the office, once because someone had "accidentally" downloaded cartoon porn *unimpressed face*, I have been unable to get on it...

my Mam works on it for her private Health and Safety jobs she doe

+

my Bruv is addicted to Facebook, Bebo, Friendz (?), and other Internet activities

+

my Dad is always playing either poker or snooker on it

=

No time for me to get on it

Pants.

Sucks.

:(

I need to learn how to share.

I think that is the only two problems I am having difficulty adapting to. Considering I have been home for ten months these are the only two things I have a problem with, one of which was constantly a problem whilst I was in digs whilst at uni. I guess it is just a case of flexibility and adaptability. I feel better for just getting it out of my system!

Love ya Family really XXXX

De-Fuzzing My Hair Brush and Auschwitz...

What on earth....

Ok, so I was de-fuzzing my hair brush this morning, washing all the crud that hair products leave in between the bristles- it is a time consuming job, plus the enthralling nature of plucking wilting, greying hair that has merged to become blobs of grey matted stuff is a pleasure I could well forgo. In addition it has a very ominous connotation for me.

So... as I was de-fuzzing the hair brush this morning... it reminded me of the stacks, piles and hills of hair in the Auschwitz museum that I visited when I was 18. Now I went round this museum looking at the bits and pieces and of course it was horrible, but the amount of stuff that was around you, you did kind of become sensitised to it. In the end, at about ten o'clock at night when I was on the plane home, a sense of disappointment welled up in me. It didn't move me like I thought it would. Millions of people had died there. That was their stuff. That was their hair that was cut forcibly from their heads. Nope. Not a tear. And I am quite an emotional person, though I have realised over the years it will come into play at the most bizarre and inconvenient time for me. Other times when I could really do with a bit of a cry I stow it up and appear uncaring.

I went home, went to school, began writing the speech to present to the school about "our experience" of Auschwitz. Huff. Well, I was merely jumping through the hoops of what the teachers wanted to hear, what the first years wouldn't think too traumatising and what the older years would think boring.

I was still fine. So come Monday morning I brushed my own hair and went to go and do this stupid little oratory number. There I was standing in front of the school and WHAM! Bloody wonderful timing. Photos were being shown I think, or I remember looking at some photos before I went on to do my bit and I think I was saying my part when my mind went blank. I hated speaking in public then. It was all a blur, all I know was it didn't go very well... I think a traumatised rabbit caught in the headlights with a very annoyed fellow student who had gone on the trip with me, saying "What IS wrong with you!"

I think it had something to do with my brushing my hair in the morning and then seeing the photo being paraded in front- then, just like in the movies, the fast forwarding effect with flashes of memories taken like photographs. A pile of shoes. Knitted baby clothes. Suitcases. Hair brushes. Glasses. Etc.

So on defuzzing my hair brush, like today, it always reminds me of the greying hair that had been lopped off those poor individuals- once brown, blond, red, black- now sits in a museum slowly rotting whilst unfeeling people parade past it with some ignorant dutiful sense of importance.

Another thing that often sparks me to remember a) the horrors of Auschwitz and b) the humiliating spectacle in front of the school is my friend Jenny's porch. They used to have shoes piled either side of the doorway as you walked through their front door. Really creeped me out. There were old shoes from when they were kids stacked just like those in the cabinets in the museum.

I suppose it makes me feel bad when looking at those shoes or de-fuzzing my hair brush that I associate mass slaughter with half an hour of intense humiliation at school. No comparison really is there?

Anyhooo that is all folks. I think I have probably depressed you all enough for the time being :)

Five Updates

1) I have decided not to apply for Newcastle Uni funding thing for studying a MA in the History of Medicine. It is too far away, I have neevr even been there and I think I was doing it for the free scholarship rather than actually wanting to go there/study that, so I think some other deserving fellow can have the spot.

2) I STILL have not accepted Royal holloways unconditional offer :( in a dilemma you see- they have postponed, for some reason, the fundign deadline till 29th june which puts back when we find otu about whether we are funded till it is essentially too late to accept a place there, so essentially we have to accept it with or without knowing our funding application was a success or not. *anger* So in summary, I am still dithering. Should I put it off another year? Do it part time? I havethe money now to pay for one year of a part time Masters course, but the funding will still be an issue next year when I still can't afford to pay for the second half....

3) I PASSED MY THEORY TEST TODAY. Enough said.

4) I have been feeling really rather ill lately but I am getting better- just a little sniffle and a cough now, so I have been proactive today. So apart from passing my Driving theory test, I have hoovered, bought my nan a birthday card, intend to sort out a huge pile of filing (bank statements, pensions information (yes, I have a pension at 21), and toher bits and pieces that have been building up on my desk for quite a while... so yay! Proactivity!!

5) I have learnt how to sell tickets at work, though I am awful and tend to lose in the region of £5-£10, I do make a profit (I think) with gift aid and books so yay! However, cashing up = nightmare :(

Right, thats a summary for you...

BTW, can't believe I missed my Blog's first birthday.... twas at the beginning of March, so Happy Belated Birthday, Blog!

Remiss

Sorry, I have been remiss in my blogging of late.

I have been reasonably busy and the thought has not crossed my mind to blog, though I think i will post something properly soon. I am still alive! Work and overtime has been manic of late, and I could really do with a break away from work and life and clear my head, but that shall have to wait! Back to domestic duties liek washign my work clothes haha!!

hope you are all ok!!

speak soon!

"I Am Not Yours" by Sara Teasdale

I am not yours, not lost in you,

Not lost, although I long to be

Lost as a candle lit at noon,

Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still

A spirit beautiful and bright,

Yet I am I, who long to be

Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind,

Swept by the tempest of your love,

A taper in a rushing wind.

The conflict between personal strength and the need/want to be completely enveloped by love is something that I think many late Victorian/Edwardian women felt. It had something to do with how they were brought up in the Victorian period (and yes, although Sara was american, the same moral standard applied in the U.S.). With the beginning of the women's movement and the liberating experience it produced for many middle class women there was a vacancy for how to act and a way to channel one's feelings. It had been a problem for a long time, but with changes like this occurring it is hard to know how to adapt. I like this poem because of the way she is battling with herself, her emotions versus her self-control.

Sarah Trevor Teasdale (08/08/1884- 29/01/1933)
Born in St. Louis, Missouri. Teasdale was always very frail, and caught diseases easily. For most of her life, she had a nurse companion that took care of her. Teasdale grew up in a sheltered atmosphere. She was the youngest child. Because of that, she was spoiled and waited on like a princess. She never had to do normal chores, like make her bed, or do the dishes. She was known to have described herself as “a flower in a toiling world”. Because she was so sickly, she was homeschooled until she was nine. She never had communication with her peers. Teasdale grew up around adults. She was forced to amuse heself with stories and things that she made up in her own lonesome world. When Teasdale was ten, she had the first communication with her peers. Her parents sent her to Miss Ellen Dean Lockwood's school for boys and girls. When she was fourteen, she went to Mary Institute. She didn't graduate there, but switched to Hosmer Hall when she was fifteen. There, she began to put the thoughts and dreams that amused her as a girl onto paper. Thus, she wrote her first poem. Teasdale's first published poem was "Reedy's Mirror", and it was published in a local newspaper. Her first collection, "Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems", was published in 1907. In 1911, her second collection, "Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems" was published. She published many other collections including "Rivers to the Sea", "Love Songs", "Flame and Shadow", "Dark of the Moon", "Stars To-night", and finally, "Strange Victory".
In 1913 Teasdale fell in love with poet Vachel Lindsay. He wrote her daily love letters, but she ended up marrying Ernst Filsinger in 1914 when she was 30; he was a rich business man. Teasdale and Lindsay remained friends throughout their lives. In 1918 her poetry collection Love Songs won three awards. Teasdale was a product of her upbringing and was never able to experience the passion that she expressed in her poetry. She was not happy in her marriage, becoming divorced in 1929 and lived the rest of her life only for her poetry. In 1933, Teasdale caught chronic pneumonia and it weakened her not only in body but also in mind and spirit. No longer able to see the beauty in simple things, Teasdale committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills at age 48 in New York. Her final book of poetry was published that year. Her friend Lindsay had committed suicide two years earlier.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


This poem was in Stephanie Meyer's 'Eclipse' and it got me thinking. She used his ideas very well in her characterisation. Bella loves both Edward (Vampire and cold, often described as ice) and Jake (a werewolf and hot, often described as on fire). In the end both of these sides (vampires vs werewolves) come together and save their world. So, I am thinking Fire is desire and Ice is hate. Is the poem supposed to be interpreted as literally the world ending? Because fire suggests that the passions, the fever and fevour of war perhaps will destroy the world, whilst hate which stimulates apathy means we will destroy each other without thought. So are they supposed to work together or separately? If separately, which one will cause man's downfall?





Lovely poem...

Pride and Prejudice: My Ideal Cast

Here Old Fogey discusses his Top Ten Screen Adaptations of Jane Austen and since then I have been costructing my ideal cast for Pride and Prejudice.

Elizabeth Bennett- Jennifer Ehle (forever and always!!) Sorry Keira :(

Mr Darcy- Colin Firth (naturally! Though Matthew Macfayden is growing on me.)

Jane Bennett- Rosamund Pike 2005(I really like her, she is young enough, pretty enough and has the right style and bearing to be my Jane.)

Mr Bingley- Simon Woods 2005 (I like his awkward attitude and fumbling nature, which makes him just perfect for Jane, and Mr Bennett's comment that they will be so nice that they will be overrun by bad servants is believable!)

Lydia Bennett-Julia Sawahla 1995 (Great character and in the 1980s and the 2005 versions Kitty and Lydia were very much indistinguishable for me.)

Mr Wickham-Rupert Friend (2005 version- he is particularly dashing and I am quiet taken with this naught cad!)

Miss Bingley- Anna Chancellor 1995 (excellent, though Kelly Reilly does an admirable job!)

Mr Bennett-Donald Sutherland (2005) is excellent but I do love Benjamin Whitrow (1995) but he is overshadowed by the extraordinary performance of Alison Steadman.

Mrs Bennett- Brenda Blethyn (2005) is ace, just the right amount of hysterics and silliness.

Mr Collins- Although I love Pirates of the Caribbean and Tom Hollander (Mr Collins in 2005 version), I think David Bamber has the right amount of sleeze and made me really squirm. He pulled it off excellently!

Charlotte Lucas- Claudie Blakley (I love this lady. She is also in Lark Rise to Candleford. Great actress and I love the scene in 2005 P&P where the altercation between Lizzy, who is on the swing in her back yard and Charlotte.)

Catherine Du Bourg- Judi Dench was amazing in this role, but the way it was done in the 1995 production I think was slightly better (in the garden). All in all, I am almost certainly sure that Judi Dench is my choice... almost...

Although character-wise the 2005 version comes out top, there is no denying my love for the 1995 version. The way it is filmed won it for me, plus the wet shirt addition was greatly appreciated (like all women!! See Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding when she is interviewing Colin Firth and she really can't get off the topic of his wet shirt in that film!!) I think 2005 is an admirable adaptation but 1995 all the way for me!!

Ok, I sent it in...

If something says five to ten days before I know that they have received it, does that mean it is five to ten days late and therefore not acceptable? This online Embark nonsense is a little silly. Either way. I am submitted. I don't care now... I am going to go and finish the last two chapters of the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series and see if there is another book coming out. I don't think she can finish it all off in this book... but then I think I just want the series t continue :P

Anyways, with one final check online then I am signing off. My part is done. What will be will be. What isn't destined isn't meant to be, etc etc etc etc

Toodles for now!

tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock...

Half an hour to the deadline for Royal Holloway Masters Funding Applications have to be in... and one reference is "In Progress" but not submitted. RHUL admin haven't replied to query whether I can submit this thing online without one of my referees and whether this referee can upload her form later... sigh, its gonna be a tight one!

I hate having things done last minute... my heart is genuinely up in my mouth... I havent actually managed to eat anything today which is unusual to say the least, usually because I am always eating something! I never ever like to leave things to this last minute!! I don't know how people stand the pressure.... then again I just remind myself that if it all goes belly up, I probably wouldn't have got the funding anyway... some consolation? Meh...

Argh.... the stress and all the clock is doing is tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock....

Apologies to one and all... well actually just one...

I just want to atone really in this blog. I may have just diss-ed my lecturer who wouldn't giv me my reference. I now feel really bad since I have learnt on contacting another lecturer that she has fallen off her motorbike and broken her collarbone which wasn't diagnosed for three weeks. So I apologise for my rants, sobs of frustration, unreigned anger and pestering emails! On the upside... I shall let you know if I get my application done tomorrow!! EEP deadline... I never EVER leave anything this close to the deadline in my life!! This is scary! I don't know how people do it. I have been so organised with this for sooo long... now it is all coming together at the last minute!

Also, I had a lovely email from potential dissertation supervisor, who was really enthused about my topic "Feminist Eugenicists" and ACTUALLY suggested articles and arguments, and directions to go. This is really new for me. I have guidance. I am really thrilled and very excited at the prospect of studying all this again! Bring it on, I say! Or as the advert goes, "Bring on the trumpets!"