Things that have happened

16 weeks a year

2010-08-01T03:42:00.001-07:00

My new job will see me working in these places 16 weeks a year. Could be worse.

Bunnai speaks

2010-01-07T13:10:00.001-08:00

In the Loop

2009-11-30T09:47:00.001-08:00

It took me a while to understand what they were saying. I laughed hard when I got it.

In the Loop: you just took a shit with your clothes on.

Music and mobile phones

2009-11-30T09:28:00.001-08:00

Whole essays could be written about people playing music off their mobile phones in public (and I imagine the Daily Mail and the Diana Express have both spanked plenty of cash on this type of story), but the fundamental issue is the fact that it’s so annoying not because you are forced to listen to music against your will, but because the sound quality of modern phones is so completely unacceptable. If I had a mobile phone that produced such tinny and abrasive noise, not only would it remain in a perpetual state of silence, I’d be far too ashamed to want to play music out of it, even in my room, let alone on a bus full of people who would scowl at me and take pity on me for having such a piece of shit phone. No, the problem isn’t the fact you don’t want to listen to music. That happens everywhere. Hollister, as well as using pretty much every other commercial gimmick in the book, positively blasts the shit out. I went past a branch of the Principality today which was pumping out something that could have been classified as dance or something. The Principality isn’t a high street shop aimed at wannabe-hip teens, it’s a Welsh building society geared towards offering either an extremely low interest rate if you want to entrust them with your hard-earned cash, or an extortionate rate should you wish to ask for a hand buying a house. Having music – good or otherwise – thrust into your earholes when you’re out and about is not something new, not something necessarily unpleasant (although I’d think twice about visiting the Principality today), and definitely not something to whinge about. What should be held up for inspection, however, is how the fuck these phones get produced, get through testing, get bought by customers of their own volition and how the owners drum up the courage to force some naff tune out of their tiny little speakers.

Cool photo

2009-11-15T07:24:00.001-08:00

Just found this very weird and wonky photo, taken in Sardinia out of the car.

The last two weeks

2009-11-15T07:06:00.001-08:00

Have been filled with thrills and spills.

We said goodbye to these two

Clarke and I flew

Clarke looked for hats to suit the inhospitable Irish weather

We had afternoon tea a few times

I had the most excellent hot chocolate of all time

Overall, Dublin was a rip off

At home, I found an excellent new drink

Holiday snaps

2009-11-03T03:03:00.001-08:00

Much overdue. Taken in Sant’Anna Arresi and Porto Pino, Sardinia.

Weird flowers

One of three, India maybe?

Sant’Anna Arresi from the house

Olives

View from the garden

Porto Pino

The beach car park flooded

dnekeeW ehT

2009-09-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

Epic clouds

Craft afternoon

Roasted vegetables

Mozarella madness

Hai

stuff my iphone has helped me remember

2009-08-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

Lou and Marc got married

They had cool place settings

We went for a picnic

at Wayne Manor

None of us could work out how much money to put in

I saw the Apollo 10 lunar module

Loads of horses went for a wander past the office

Clarke's cat fitted perfectly into the indian delivery box

Amy and I found ourselves at the whim of a cruel man

Bill Bryson wrote for the Daily Mail

2009-08-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Disappointing.

My mum and sister saw a ferret race yesterday. I missed out big time. They also went to a prize pig competition.

This week has consisted of:

Zombie feelings

Anxiety

Presentations

Appalling standards of communication

Dumping a load of old shit at the charity shop and replacing it with a load of new shit

Exploring new depths of sedatedness

Next week:

payday, despite not having started the job yet

Lego Star Wars

Rush hour, Friday night, bank holiday weekend M4 traffic

wants

2009-08-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

To re-read A Capote Reader
To read all the books I bought when working next to the best charity shops in Wales
To re-start and finish Crime & Punishment
To have time to do all this shit
To be able to get on the caffeine train again
To get my cider diary back on the go.

pathways

2009-08-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

The summer has been spent waking up at 5.30am, commuting for 3 hours a day, getting the crampons on to climb the learning curve, finding out living in a studio just isn't a reality and wondering wtf I'm going to pick for my career in September. I have some options:

Job

MRes Speech, Language & Cognition

MSc Neuroscience, Language & Communication

I do want to get my neuroscience on but I think I'd rather save a wad and spank it finding myself around the world (specifically Utah, Massachusettts, California and China).

Been thinking loads this week about:

My most favouritest place on earth

Zion, Utah

The great salt lakes, Utah.

Monday 21 September:

Hours and hours and hours

2009-07-08T12:05:00.001-07:00

Because I'm a forgetful idiot, yesterday when I ordered a coffee at Starbucks I forgot to ask for decaf. I realised before I drank it but because I didn't want to waste it (even though I'd wasted £2.25 on something I didn't need already), and lo, how I paid. I slept from between 2-4am, then zombied my way to work where, incredibly, I managed to stay quite alert. I tried getting some kind of make-you-drowsy medicine, similar to what I'd taken on a nightmare flight between San Francisco and London, but apparently taking stuff like that isn't conducive to staying seizure free. This means I am stuck tweaking my already pretty perfect sleep routine of warm milk with amaretto, breathing exercises and reading. I am ready to drink the bottle of lavender I bought if it'll take the edge off.

I do have one reason to be thankful, however: because I've been going in hyper early and leaving at 4pm this week, I missed the months worth of rain that fell over London during the rush hour yesterday. I did, however, cut the roof of my mouth later that night on a bit of pastry made, in retrospect totally, by the mirana.

This afternoon on my trek home from the station, I sawa dog that looked like a shaved old English sheepdog straddling the front and back seats of an old Mercedes. I tried not to look suspicious, but not taking a photo was absolutely beyond my restraint.

On the way I also saw a man whose face had the expression I can only liken to that of a crazed loon (eyes popping out of his head, teeth like something iron-aged and generally a look of discomfort in his own skin), and a man who appeared to have stolen a child. Of course, I did nothing about any of these because by the time I'd reached ye olde Welwyn Garden City, I'd lost all speech skills. I grunted my request for dinner; thankfully my younger sister is also a grunter so she was able to understand that I wanted a jacket potato with beans and cheese.

Success

2009-07-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Having snaffled an internship at Cancer Research UK's internet and new media department, the last week has been spent looking out of train windows, organising nightly search parties in my wardrobe to seek out things that are a. office-suited and b. do not make the obscene heat in London any worse, and trying to remember lots of names.

The first two days were spent watching lots of presentations about the company and participating in lots of 'interactive' activities with my fellow interns, but since properly starting in the office I've found myself working on a few genuinely interesting and challenging tasks. I hadn't expected to find myself at the photocopier for eight hours a day, but it's been a pleasant surprise to be given real responsibilities and the freedom to choose how I should work. While I value my previous work experience, it is really nice to not be tied to the administrative side of things. That said, the project I'll be working on takes some serious getting your head around, and sometimes I'll be sitting there working and I'll suddenly realise I don't know what I'm doing. My background is completely arts and admin-based, so to find myself in a more businessy-marketingy position feels quite strange and it will take some adjusting.

This week I'll be trying to get up at 5.30am to get the early train to work; if things go to plan I'll be home by 5.30 to catch some Friends and try to smash the shit out of Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

Decisions

2009-06-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

Last night I found myself complaining that I had nothing to do all day. At countless times in the past this is what I've wished for, but now I have it, I'd much rather have a job or something. So, to that end I am seeking out something to do. I would like to inventory my boyfriend's Warhammer stuff but apparently it's something he would need to supervise, and unless we're going to get our webcams out, it's not going to happen. I have had an interview for an unpaid internship at Cancer Research UK, and with any luck will get it. I'm awful at working out the odds of stuff but by my calculations, I have a 1/3 chance of nailing that beauty. My bank balance won't look so beautiful for it, but it's much better than losing my mind wandering the house until October.

I've also been considering WTF I'll do once I finish my degree. I'm seriously tempted by some masters courses, but also by the money being offered by some of the graduate schemes out there. Of course, if I pursued the latter I'd probably turn into some unfeeling, corporate automaton, but right now, the money alone would make it worthwhile. I've previously whined about some of the ancient educational requirements of such schemes, but there seem to be a few who don't require a specific set of A-level grades. What ALL of them do require, however, is for the hundreds (thousands?) of applicants to jump through a series of hoops, generally conforming to the following system:

1. Seemingly endless application form requiring educational details, work info, why you want to work there, competency questions (which are The Worst), etc.

2. Online tests - numerical, reasoning, personality.

3. Telephone interview - basically an oral version of stage 1.

4. Assessment day - a day spent with the other brown-nosers who've managed to get that far. More tests, group work, interviews, presentations.

5. Offer.

I know the whole process is designed to filter out the wheat from the chaff, but the prospect of going through that once is bad enough. But to have to go through that for every job you apply for? WAH.

All this said, I'm not sure I could come up with a better way of doing it.

Domesticity

2009-04-26T02:00:00.001-07:00

Amy and I made some bags after being told to do something creative. I took the pics, Amy blogged it. laughinghardcryingharder.wordpress.com

Silly cat

2009-04-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

WTF?

2009-04-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

The easter bunny came early and, because everyone had cleared Tesco out of easter eggs, brought me a march fracture instead. This is what happens when you spend 15 hours walking the streets of London in a crappy pair of Topshop pumps.

Discoveries

2009-03-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

Aspall makes absolutely loads of different ciders. Last night I had a single bottle of the Aspall Draft Suffolk Cyder which was dreamy, but man I felt dodgy this morning. ONE bottle. Don't mess with Aspall.
My sister just pushed the boundaries of experimental psychology by determining that reverse psychology works effectively on cats.
I discovered how deep-rooted my honesty is. I had the opportunity to print off the exam that I'll be sitting in a few weeks while my lecturer was out of the room, but did I?

Weekend

2009-03-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend will be spent

getting my Nigella on
chowing on tiramisu
doing frequency analyses until I put my head in the oven
cider hunting.

This is life on the egde.

All I need

2009-02-05T14:05:00.001-08:00

Innocence

2009-02-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

On the canal bridge just behind Kings Cross, a policeman took a huge snowball full in the face and - I couldn't quite believe this was happening - giggled delightedly (it must have really hurt). His three colleagues gathered snowballs and pelted the mob of school boys and girls, quite sensibly avoiding head shots (think of the lawsuits). But they were outnumbered and outgunned. And anyway, they were easy targets, these coppers in their fluorescent jackets. And the school children, those alleged dysfunctional products of our greed-obsessed, low-serotonin, broken-homed, intolerably lardy, TV-ruined society, were in a snowy wonderland where there was no school, no rules and nothing to worry about. I've never seen London secondary school kids look filled to the brim with such girlish glee. "See if you can knock his helmet off," I yelled at one girl (which probably made me an accessory to something but I don't care: the delirium is infectious) and she pitched a curve ball that would have hit had the copper not ducked.

It's a scene one barely witnesses in London: one of innocence, albeit momentary; of snow in a city that doesn't do extremes of weather; of hostile battle lines suspended and replaced - just for the day - by playful ones; of gratuitous wonders that fall from the sky and blindside you. Yesterday, London was filled with such wonders. The headline said: -5C and we're all going snowhere. Yesterday, London went on a trip to snowhere, which sounds like oblivion, but is infinitely nicer.

That sound snow makes as it packs under your boots! The velvety swish of car tyres on untreated side streets! That numinous glow that greets you as you open the curtains and realise that even though it's Monday, you are quite looking forward to walking to work, especially if you can make a snowman with strangers you meet on your journey! The way your fingers swell after throwing snowballs while wearing functionally useless woollen gloves! (We need poets to invent names for all these things and write sonnet cycles to their joys). And, above all, the snow's silencing of the great roar of London: usually, I keep my iPod on as I walk to silence London's racket: yesterday I didn't want to. Every side street I strolled down yesterday offered - if this doesn't sound too pretentious in a Karen Carpenter-meets-Immanuel Kant kind of way, which I know it does - an unexpectedly sublime kind of hush.

Yes, yes, I know so far this article this sounds a little like those photos of the Notting Hill carnival, with a white policeman dancing with a nice old Caribbean lady. A deluded paean to an interlude that misses what the real London is like, with its quotidian meanness, stabbings, lonely deaths, rapes, intolerance, greed and woe. But, just for a moment, cram your cynicism and yield, as London did yesterday, to the seduction of snow.

Other cities - Winnipeg, say, Moscow or Bergen - cope with snow, subdue it and go to work through impeccably gritted roads. London isn't like that: it rarely copes with anything; these days, it masters nothing. Equipped with a loveably tragi-comic public transport system, our capital fails on a daily basis. The poor suckers who live here get - at best - inured to this hopelessness. Yesterday London was so hobbled by the snow that the situation was even worse than hopeless: usually six million Londoners get to work by bus; yesterday there were no buses; the tube was even more spectacularly unreliable than usual. Even gnarly cyclists in all kinds of crypto-pervy winterwear were laid low (the nameless gent who I helped back on to his bike on Mecklenburgh Square after a comic slo-mo tumble really should have left his wheels under the stairs). Just for a day Londoners got hit by something special.

For a day at least, Londoners returned to a forgotten innocence. Yesterday the headlines howled about how £2bn would be lost yesterday thanks to public transport disruption. Two words: So. What. We're in the middle of a credit crunch and £2bn is the sort of money a hedge-fund trader might find in the lining of his Armani suit. Yesterday we stopped measuring our lives in coffee spoons, overdrafts and balance of payments deficits. It felt good.

We needed the snow to remind us of that innocence. We needed it to remind us of who we are. We are not just homo-economicus, we can't be defined by the size of our negative equity, the burden of our personal debt, or numbers of en-suites. We need something more this winter than cowering at home noting down how many times Gordon Ramsay swears on Channel 4. Our new year resolutions are broken, our jobs insecure, our pensions worthless, our spirits crushed by January's post-Christmas gloom. We needed something to lift our spirits, to give us the excuse to play to no discernible economic benefit.

And yesterday here it came, free as air, falling on to my bare head as I walked down the canal towpath. I was doing what a human being should do now and again: stare. A Spanish man and I watched a heron dive from the ice into water that is starless and bible black. Would it ever resurface? What could it find down there to eat? We did what London hardly ever allows: exchanged the conspiratorial glances and then resumed the satisfyingly economically unproductive business of staring.

In London, this doesn't happen often. We trust our dour reflexive, self-poisoning moaning as a lifestyle philosophy instead. We like it that way: strangers are strange and Britain, damn everything about it, doesn't work. Why don't the buses run on time? Why are we so hopeless? Why can't something be done (usually by someone else who we can blame for their shortcomings)? And this chorus of self-immolation is taken up countrywide: why, non-Londoners ask, is the capital brought to a standstill by a little snow? Why can't you southern ponces get your act together? And the cry is international too: as I walk through the St Pancras Eurostar terminal, a French couple consulting the warnings about the tube, roll their eyes as one. He said: "Typiquement anglais. Rien ne va plus!" They both laugh, as if to say their Gallic expectations had been confirmed.

And so we surrendered to delight. We found better questions to ask: how do you roll a snowman? Where the devil are my galoshes? What have you done with my sledge? Can one get to work by sleigh? Doesn't Prokofiev sound lovely when it's snowing outside? After leaving the canal, I walked down through virgin snow in quiet back streets nestling right next to the Eurostar train line. A snowy bucolic idyll at the heart of the metropolis. I looked from Camley Street through the snow to the gothic tower of St Pancras - a Caspar David Friedrich painting had suddenly leapt before my eyes.

Over on Tottenham Court Road, there was slush and crowds bustling. Here people were shopping and barking into mobiles, like they do every day. So I took the tube up to Hampstead. I remember an old cartoon depicting gents with handlebar moustaches and ladies in thick bloomers tobogganing (we don't use this word often enough) in Parliament Hill Fields, above the caption "Les Pistes d'Hampstead". I wanted to find out if these legendary pistes still exist. A voice on the tube PA announced: "Due to adverse weather conditions [I think she meant snow, which is not adverse to my borderline hysterical sensibility] there will be delays on the Northern Line." Nobody on the platform batted an eyelid, except for one guy who said: "Delays on the Northern Line, eh. How very unusual". A ripple of giggles passed down the platform. At Hampstead, the lift that took us from the stygian depths to the winter wonderland was filled with giggling students. Everyone was jaunty, striking up conversations with strangers.

As I walked towards Hampstead Heath, I heard whoops and cheers. The heath was like Narnia (though with none of CS Lewis's unwonted Christian allegorising). My God, I told myself as I walked through a heavenly avenue with snow-laden branches bejewelling my steps, this is the most beautiful city in the world! (I was delirious, high on pheromones, snow bonkers, and in need of a good slap).

I stand on Kite Hill, looking across the London panorama below and remember the ending of Joyce's The Dead. "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." My soul was swooning (there, I admit it) yesterday as I stood and saw the snow falling, not on Joyce's Ireland, but on dirty old London, reborn as a thing of beauty. It was snowing from Epping Forest to Heathrow, Upminster to Uxbridge, on duke and dustman in a way that it hasn't for ages and probably won't for a good while. Savour it, I told myself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/03/london-snow-weather

Breaking news

2009-02-03T01:10:00.000-08:00

Found this morning on the Guardian's home page. Credit crunch? Credit schmunch.

Get ready for wintry war with these instructions

Moisture and air content

Light powder snow is the driest kind, containing lots of air. This snow makes for terrible snowballs because it won't pack – and it won't pack because of its low moisture content. Try looking for a place where you know the snow will be slightly warmer. The heat given off by a house, for example, could make snow just moist enough to make it good for snowballs. Be patient. If all else fails, lie down on some snow for a few minutes; your body heat will begin to melt the snow just a bit, providing that moisture you need to pack it better.

Temperature

The ideal temperature for snowballs is right around freezing. If you know the temperature is around 32F (0C), then don't waste your time scooping snow from near a house; the world's your oyster!

Depth of the snow

If you have more than a few inches, skip the snow on the very surface; your strategy should be to scoop snow out from underneath. Why? It has already been packed together gently, which means less work for you. Even the lightest snow, after an accumulation like this, will be easier to pack after being buried beneath snow layers.

Gloves or mitts?

For a snowball fight, choose gloves. Avoid mittens for a couple serious reasons. If they feel warmer, it's because less heat is escaping them. But a little bit of heat from our hands helps immensely when it comes to packing snow into a snowball (especially when the snow is a little lighter and less moist), so gloves make more sense. Not only that, but have you ever tried to throw a snowball in mittens? It's reminiscent of those childhood nightmares in which you're trying to defend yourself from some villain, but you have absolutely no physical strength.

The delicate art of packing

Scoop up enough snow to fill your cupped hands. You'll inevitably lose a little of it as you pack, and the packing will condense the snow as well. From this cupped position, slowly close your hands together and begin rotating them as if you were trying to trap an insect without killing it. Apply increasing pressure as you rotate your hands into this position, and once they are hiding most of the snow, increase your pressure. Rotate your hands back and forth slightly as you do; you'll hear the muted sounds of friction as the snowflakes compress.

Be careful not to pack too forcefully. If you don't apply enough pressure, the snowball will never be firm, but too much force applied too rapidly will cause the snowball to fall apart. Gradual pressure allows you to withdraw pressure as you feel resistance.

When you feel that the gradual pressure is met with some resistance, withdraw a hand from the snowball. Rotate the ball slightly in your other hand to reveal the rough oval shape of the ball. Position it so that you can round out the oval into a true sphere, and begin pressing again in the same fashion. Repeat until you have the perfect snowball.

If the snowball still lacks the firmness needed for throwing, then start planning ahead. Choosing an inconspicuous location, pack some reserve snowballs. The pressure and hand heat from your packing will cause the snow to release moisture; if left alone, the new moisture of these snowballs will cause just enough firming to make them ideal. When you revisit them, apply just a little packing pressure and then strike.

A perfect snowball should leave its mark. If you have found the right snow and applied that magic amount of pressure, your snowball should leave a clinging mark, physically and psychologically – a brief mark of humiliation on your foe. But there's little time to wallow in self-admiration. You have to start all over again. You're a snowball artist, one of the most romantic of all arts – alternately pure and transgressive but, above all, ephemeral •

Being idle

2009-02-02T01:59:00.000-08:00

My failure to complete even the most basic tasks is getting more and more noticeable. I watched neither Office Space nor Bottle Rocket, I'm not even close to finishing Snow Falling on Cedars, and I couldn't give a monkey's about reading any of Winesburg, Ohio. Instead, I have been focusing a lot of my energy on working out WTF I'm going to do this summer in order to earn some money and not be forced into insanity by working in Welwyn. It was not particularly difficult to convince the Mim that we should do something international, and we have decided upon Boston as our destination of choice, after a brief dalliance with the thought of going to France, despite the fact that our combined knowledge of French would see us being unable to buy even a loaf of bread.

.old

2009-01-27T03:35:00.000-08:00

To celebrate getting closer to that horrid phrase 'mid-twenties', I hit Wagamama twice, saw some excellent photos at the Photographic Portrait Prize (which had bucked the credit-crunchie trend and become free this year, rather than £1) then got wasted without really realising it in a pub surrounded by my friends and those who I can only describe adequately as Sloane Rangers. Gross. One of my birthday presents was a copy of Twilight which I am absolutely in love with and finished in approximately 12 hours.

Despite my overwhelming desire to make the last few days as mind-numbingly sedate as possible, I've found myself doing something almost every day, which has been quite annoying. Today, however, I had only planned to go out of the house to get something for lunch, but the thought of putting on some real clothes makes me feel queasy, so I'm going to have to sniff something out in the house so I can remain pyjama-ed all day. Tomorrow is my first day volunteering at the Oxfam Online depot which should be rather fun, then Thursday will be spent smiling about being in American Lit, chilling with my grandad and clocking up some more lazathon hours. Somewhere in between all that I'll watch Office Space and probably Bottle Rocket, try to finish Snow Falling on Cedars, order the next Twilight book, make a mushroom risotto and look forward to spending the weekend at my second home.

Disturbances

2009-01-06T03:52:00.000-08:00

Looking for recipes

Writing shopping lists

Going food shopping

Making a cup of tea

Eating a maple and walnut slice

Thinking about making lunch

The computer not responding

Emails

Blogs

Will my two assignments ever be completed? Will my revision ever start?

Cider

2008-12-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of weeks I've made the unconscious decision to improve my knowledge of cider. For years my primary experience of the stuff has been Strongbow-based, although during a summer of total indecency I did dabble with a bit of White Lightning, and along the way I've had one bottle of Magners which was remarkably vile. I've always considered myself to be very 'into' cider, but my ignorance of the world of cider out there made me question this claim. So, in order to become more learned and wise, I'm on a cider journey.

My first bottle was Weston's vintage cider, at 7.3%. It had a hint of Magners about it (although that incident happened years ago, it's still to leave my taste-memory), but was really quite refreshing and mellow. I didn't realise it was so strong until I drank two pints of it at the pub the next evening, the morning after which I felt like a sack of shit.

While I was at the pub having those two pints, I also tried a bit of my friend's rum-cider (also Weston's, I think). Maybe I was breathing out at the time, but on that first sip I didn't realise the absolutely revolting odour permeating from the glass. It was, and this was confirmed by everyone in the group, unearthly, although if it's got to be earthly it's got to be a smell that's come out of a place directly related to a very poorly-maintained pig's toilet facility. D.i.s.g.u.s.t.i.n.g. But yeah, I didn't smell that at first so my initial reaction was based purely on taste. That wasn't great either.

So next on the list were Sheppy's Goldfinch Dry and Aspall's Premier Cru. I didn't get a chance to try either before my next visit to the pub but it was offering the latter, albeit at £4 a pop. Knowing the barman allowed me to have a few of these, and they were absolutely cracking. Light, refreshing, pretty strong (7%). Yum. I had a reasonably intense headache the next morning. I've just opened the Sheppy's (10/10 for bottle presentation) and it's got that same Magners twang as the Weston's, but once you get past that it's also quite light and tasty.

So yeah. I like cider (and discounts at the bar).

Would

2008-12-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

Apparently 'would' is a past-tense form. When I was comparing answers for my coursework with my friend this morning my ignorance of this fact was laid bare. I don't even understand why it's past tense. I absolutely love grammar but I get the feeling now I've opened the grammatical pandorian box I'll never be able to go back to the days when verbs were doing words. The more I learn, the more I realise there is I don't know, and it makes me wonder whether I should do syntax next semester rather than psycholinguistics which is bound to be absolutely amazing, or linguistic analysis in which I'll do my own research project. Syntax looks solid but amazing.

Today was the last day of term and I didn't even realise; I wrote down today's date but my head didn't do the festive math and compute that when I write 19th Dec, I'm 6 days from Christmas. I'm not feeling even remotely festive; I am trying to remember whether I have bought the people who are going to get presents their presents, I'm calculating how much time I can reasonably spend working on Christmas and Boxing day and I'm intensely bummed at the absence of two of my favourite people on the planet.

I am, however, pumped about the following festive components:

Getting the Paramore CD

The White Horse, Christmas eve

Inventive christmassy mushrooms

International phone calls on Christmas morning

Seeing how pumped my family are about the Christmas presents they expressly requested for (without lists I'm not sure what they'd end up with)

The last week

2008-12-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

Has been dominated by this bitch. Clauses are going to redefine difficult.

Current

2008-12-09T03:26:00.001-08:00

Reading:

The Inimitable Jeeves

K-PAX

Some 19th Century American junk

Excited about:

Thursday evening

Christmas

Weddings

30th December

Studying American Psycho next semester

Finishing coursework

Getting coursework grades

Enjoying:

Recipe experimentation

Lentils

Linda McCartney sausages

Muesli

Fuck Shell.

2008-12-09T02:23:00.001-08:00

I last posted on 4 November. Crimany.

The last month has been utterly absorbed by assignments, moments of sheer panic, disappointment, concern for the future and intensely excellent breaks from reality in Cardiff. I've also used the time to make a few applications to get an internship next summer, but in both instances I haven't gotten past the gatekeeper. What made me particularly mad, however, was an email I got back from Shell, outlining the things they were looks for in candidates. It's these standards that they reckon I didn't meet.

Capacity: The intellectual, analytical and creative ability to learn quickly, identify issues, make judgements and propose solutions

Achievement: Enthusiasm, resilience and confidence - someone who can always get things done

Relationship skills: The character and ability to work effectively with others in a diverse team.

Technical candidates are also assessed on their Technical skills: Understanding and approaching technical issues coupled with an enthusiasm for technical challenge.

I just don't understand how I don't meet those standards, especially when I'm compared with what will probably be the majority of applicants whose life experience is limited to a summer of temping between finishing sixth form with three A-levels and starting a degree. I spent over three years working and perfecting exactly those skills that Shell seeks so desperately in their interns. Where would people who went from sixth from straight to university get those attributes? I know I'm generalising but I can't help but feel Shell have overgeneralised also: they're looking for people who fit into this totally archaic box that only fits students who followed everything their head of sixth form ever said about going into higher education to the very word. So I did three years at sixth form - who cares? These recruiters should be looking for people who make serious changes and personal sacrifices when they aren't completely satisfied with things. All it means is that as well as knowing about English and photography, I have an AS-level standard knowledge of chemistry, biology, French and media too. How can that ever be a bad thing? Further, I will never apologise for realising how much of a financial investment university is, and therefore not going straight into a degree I wasn't certain I wanted to do. So many people do this and realise what a mistake they've made when they come out with a worthless degree. Instead, I moved away from home, stood on my own two feet and worked really hard for three years. The feedback I got from my employers during this time was always positive, so positive that it made me think I should apply for these internships. But because I don't fit into a model of conformity I don't even get an invite to an assessment centre.

FUCK SHELL.

Powerbrain

2008-11-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

The imagination of some people I know just totally blows my mind. This is a perfect example.

We were elaborating upon this really bizarre stream of consciousness I'd had about acts of vigilanteism in his apartment block and as a method of punishment he reminded me about the boo box. Remember that, from Hook? Well instead of throwing in a scorpion (as, like he reminded me, there aren't many of those to hand) he said that a handful of earwigs (something I don't think I've heard mentioned since primary school, when they were the essence of all things fearsome) would go in instead. And you'd lie on a bed of old teabags. Instead of a bed of nails, which is what any other person would choose. But no, his strange imagination just leapfrogged over such obvious sources of discomfort and landed on something that took a few moments to realise was totally horrendous. And he did it in a flash. He is truly bizarre.

Goodbye Latin, Hello Egg

2008-11-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

BBC News:

A number of local councils in Britain have banned their staff from using Latin words, because they say they might confuse people.

Several local authorities have ruled that phrases like "vice versa", "pro rata", and even "via" should not be used, in speech or in writing.

But the ban has prompted anger among some Latin scholars.

Professor Mary Beard of Cambridge University said it was the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

Some local councils say using Latin is elitist and discriminatory, because some people might not understand it - particularly if English is not their first language.

Bournemouth Council is among those which has discouraged Latin. It has drawn up a list of 18 Latin phrases which its staff are advised not to use, either verbally or in official correspondence.
The council denies that it places a ban on Latin words.

A council spokesman said: "We advise against using certain words, particularly when staff are writing to those whose first language may not be English.

"The advice is intended as a guide only, not a direction."

However, the council's Plain Language Guide lists Latin under the heading "Things To Avoid".
Other local councils have banned "QED" and "ad hoc", while other typical Latin terms include "bona fide", "ad lib" and "quid pro quo".

But the move has been welcomed by the Plain English Campaign which says some officials only use Latin to make themselves feel important.

A Campaign spokesman said the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word "egg"

Who confuses an abbreviation (complete with indicative punctuation) with something that comes out of a chicken?

Progress

2008-11-03T04:03:00.000-08:00

2637 words. Riddled with notes in bold to remind me what else I need to research and include. 2 days. I win.

The Northern Lights isn't really doing it for me. I'm speeding up my reading of Woody Allen and might ditch the Northern Lights books and ask someone to paraphrase them for me. I really want to read the Jeeves and Wooster books.

Change of pace

2008-11-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

In response to the change of pace that the second year has brought, I am trying to work hard. Evidence of this is my attempt to complete a 2000 word assignment on the social history, successes, failures and struggles of the Welsh language. In about two hours I've written 618 words, but I've started to realise that about 400 of those consists of pretty poor paraphrasing of the information the Welsh Language Board's website spews out. Which might be (read: probably is) biased. Which I shouldn't be paraphrasing anyway.

I've also spent a fair amount of time distracting myself on the internet. I laugh at the mim talking about being addicted to the internet, but it's about time I realised I'm following the same path. It's not as if I go to any exciting websites, either. My favourites are the BBC news website, Facebook, my online banking, a website I use for a module I'm helping out with, Myspace, Gmail and my university intranet website. How boring can I get? Internet banking? Work-related sites? What a yawn.

A much more fun and definitely more stimulating means of distraction would be reading. I have an overstuffed bookshelf, approximately a third of the contents of which I haven't read. Haven't even opened. I like to think these are all books I picked up in charity shops on the cheap (and a great deal definitely are), but not all. Lots of them aren't. Lots of them are brand spanking new, and while I rarely buy at full price, I've still paid for them, and instead of furthering myself by reading them when I can't be arsed to write assignments, I go on the internet instead. This is because when I read I think I should be doing work. This is a total nightmare and I need to put these thought-processes into a Magimix and get rid of them altogether. I love reading. I hate wasting time on the internet.

On that matter, I am currently extremely pumped on reading the following:

The rest of Northern Lights, then the other two books
All ten of the Jeeves and Wooster books I bought recently. Yes, that's right: TEN books. In one fell swoop.
The Little Friend: I haven't yet bought it but I most certainly will be doing so shortly.

This is what else has been going through my puny brain lately:

What class of word is 'yes'? I really just can't work it out.
How did I not hear about The Wire until just a few weeks ago?
Should I go back to camp next year or intern(et) somewhere here?
Will the G1 phone take off?
At what length should I stop growing my nails?

Experiments

2008-10-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've given the whole driving lesson debacle some thought, and think that rather than being a complete fuck, my instructor was using me as a guinea pig in experimental driving instruction.

Rather than responding with the due patience and calm demeanour I expected, he would just get irrationally angry when I got things wrong, which, despite the fact that I hadn't been behind the wheel in 15 months, didn't happen all that much. I learned jack, naturally, but having thought about it I think that maybe if I carried on learning with him, I might get so used to being told off when I do things wrong that I'll get scared I'm going to get shouted at (he also had a habit of clapping his hands together and saying 'bang' rather a lot when I messed up), and will drive perfectly.

But I don't like pets, and I don't fancy much being a test animal for his Pavlovian driving lessons.

Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: Frequently there must be a beverage

2008-10-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

My driving lesson was shit. My intructor was a total prick. However, Woody Allen saved the day by deciding that as well as creating absolutely hilarious scenes on film, he would do so on paper also. Maybe if I'd gone to Katz's deli I wouldn't have walked to the Strand bookstore and bought his complete prose. If that hadn't happened, maybe the anger would have run away with me and maybe I would have thrown a pillow across the room in anger. But I did buy it, and so my pillows stayed where they were. Obviously I've read further than the Gossage-Vardebedian Papers, but it's particularly hilarious.

My Dear Vardebedian:
I was more than a bit chagrined today, on going through the morning's mail, to find that my letter of September 16, containing my twenty-second move (knight to the king's fourth square), was returned unopened due to a small error in addressing—precisely, the omission of your name and residence (how Freudian can one get?), coupled with a failure to append postage. That I have been disconcerted of late due to equivocation in the stock market is no secret, and though on the above-mentioned September 16 the culmination of a long-standing downward spiral dropped Amalgamated-Matter off the Big Board once and for all, reducing my broker suddenly to the legume family, I do not offer this as an excuse for my negligence and monumental ineptitude. I goofed. Forgive me. That you failed to notice the missing letter indicated a certain disconcertion on your part, which I put down to zeal, but heaven knows we all make mistakes. That's life—and chess.
Well, then, the error laid bare, simple rectification follows. If you would be so good as to transfer my knight to your king's fourth square I think we may proceed with our little game more accurately. The announcement of checkmate which you made in this morning's mail is, I fear, in all fairness, a false alarm, and if you will reëxamine the positions in light of today's discovery, you will find that it is your king that lies close to mate, exposed and undefended, an immobile target for my predatory bishops. Ironic, the vicissitudes of miniature war! Fate, in the guise of the dead-letter office, waxes omnipotent and—voilà!—the worm turns. Once again, I beg you accept sincerest apologies for the unfortunate carelessness, and I await anxiously your next move.
Enclosed is my forty-fifth move: My knight captures your queen.
Sincerely,Gossage

Gossage:
Received the letter this morning containing your forty-fifth move (your knight captures my queen?), and also your lengthy explanation regarding the mid-September ellipsis in our correspondence. Let me see if I understand you correctly. Your knight, which I removed from the board weeks ago, you now claim should be resting on the king's fourth square, owing to a letter lost in the mail twenty-three moves ago. I was not aware that any such mishap had occurred, and remember distinctly your making a twenty-second move, which I think was your rook to the queen's sixth square, where it was subsequently butchered in a gambit of yours that misfired tragically.
Currently, the king's fourth square is occupied by my rook, and as you are knightless, the dead-letter office notwithstanding, I cannot quite understand what piece you are using to capture my queen with. What I think you mean, as most of your pieces are blockaded, is that you request your king be moved to my bishop's fourth square (your only possibility)—an adjustment I have taken the liberty of making and then countering with today's move, my forty-sixth, wherein I capture your queen and put your king in check. Now your letter becomes clearer.
I think now the last remaining moves of the game can be played out with smoothness and alacrity.
Faithfully,Vardebedian

Vardebedian:
I have just finished perusing your latest note, the one containing a bizarre forty-sixth move dealing with the removal of my queen from a square on which it has not rested for eleven days. Through patient calculation, I think I have hit upon the cause of your confusion and misunderstanding of the existing facts. That your rook rests on the king's fourth square is an impossibility commensurate with two like snowflakes; if you will refer back to the ninth move of the game, you will see clearly that your rook has long been captured. Indeed, it was that same daring sacrificial combination that ripped your center and cost you both your rooks. What are they doing on the board now?
I offer for your consideration that what happened is as follows: The intensity of foray and whirlwind exchanges on and about the twenty-second move left you in a state of slight dissociation, and in your anxiety to hold your own at that point you failed to notice that my usual letter was not forthcoming but instead moved your own pieces twice, giving you a somewhat unfair advantage, wouldn't you say? This is over and done with, and to retrace our steps tediously would be difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, I feel the best way to rectify this entire matter is to allow me the opportunity of two consecutive moves at this time. Fair is fair.
First, then, I take your bishop with my pawn. Then, as this leaves your queen unprotected, I capture her also. I think we can now proceed with the last stages unhampered.
Sincerely,Gossage
P.S.: I am enclosing a diagram showing exactly how the board now looks, for your edification in your closing play. As you can see, your king is trapped, unguarded and alone in the center. Best to you.
G

Gossage:
Received your latest letter today, and while it was just shy of coherence, I think I can see where your bewilderment lies. From your enclosed diagram, it has become apparent to me that for the past six weeks we have been playing two completely different chess games—myself according to our correspondence, you more in keeping with the world as you would have it, rather than with any rational system of order. The knight move which allegedly got lost in the mail would have been impossible on the twenty-second move, as the piece was then standing on the edge of the last file, and the move you describe would have brought it to rest on the coffee table, next to the board.
As for granting you two consecutive moves to make up for one allegedly lost in the mail—surely you jest, Pops. I will honor your first move (you take my bishop), but I cannot allow the second, and as it is now my turn, I retaliate by removing your queen with my rook. The fact that you tell me I have no rooks means little in actuality, as I need only glance downward at the board to see them darting about with cunning and vigor.
Finally, that diagram of what you fantasize the board to look like indicates a freewheeling, Marx Brothers approach to the game, and, while amusing, this hardly speaks well for your assimilation of Nimzowitsch on Chess, which you hustled from the library under your alpaca sweater last winter, because I saw you. I suggest you study the diagram I enclose and rearrange your board accordingly, that we might finish up with some degree of precision.
Hopfully,Vardebedian

Vardebedian,
Not wanting to protract an already disoriented business (I know your recent illness has left your usually hardy constitution somewhat fragmented and disorganized, causing a mild breach with the real world as we know it), I must take this opportunity to undo our sordid tangle of circumstances before it progresses irrevocably to a Kafkaesque conclusion.
Had I realized you were not gentleman enough to allow me an equalizing second move, I would not, on my forty-sixth move, have permitted my pawn to capture your bishop. According to your own diagram, in fact, these two pieces were so placed as to render that impossible, bound as we are to rules established by the World Chess Federation and not the New York State Boxing Commission. Without doubting that your intent was constructive in removing my queen, I interject that only disaster can ensue when you arrogate to yourself this arbitrary power of decision and begin to play dictator, masking tactical blunders with duplicity and aggression—a habit you decried in our world leaders several months ago in your paper on "De Sade and Non-Violence."
Unfortunately, the game having gone on non-stop, I have not been able to calculate exactly on which square you ought to replace the purloined knight, and I suggest we leave it to the gods by having me close my eyes and toss it back on the board, agreeing to accept whatever spot it may land on. It should add an element of spice to our litter encounter. My forty-seventh move: My rook captures your knight.
Sincerely,Gossage

Gossage:
How curious your last letter was! Well-intentioned, concise, containing all the elements that appear to make up what passes among certain reference groups as a communicative effect, yet tinged throughout by what Jean-Paul Sartre is so fond of referring to as "nothingness." One is immediately struck by a profound sense of despair, and reminded vividly of the diaries sometimes left by doomed explorers lost at the Pole, or the letters of German soldiers at Stalingrad. Fascinating how the senses disintegrate when faced with an occasional black truth, and scamper amuck, substantiating mirage and constructing a precarious buffer against the onslaught of all too terrifying existence!
Be that as it may, my friend, I have just spent the better part of a week sorting out the miasma of lunatic alibis known as your correspondence in an effort to adjust matters, that our game may be finished simply once and for all. Your queen is gone. Kiss it off. So are both your rooks. Forget about one bishop altogether, because I took it. The other is so impotently placed away from the main action of the game that don't count on it or it'll break your heart.
As regards the knight you lost squarely but refuse to give up, I have replaced it at the only conceivable position it could appear, thus granting you the most incredible brace of unorthodoxies since the Persians whipped up this little diversion way back when. It lies at my bishop's seventh square, and if you can pull your ebbing faculties together long enough to appraise the board you will notice this same coveted piece now blocks your king's only means of escape from my suffocating pincer. How fitting that your greedy plot be turned to my advantage! The knight, groveling its way back into play, torpedoes your end game!
My move is queen to knight five, and I predict mate in one move.
Cordially,Vardebedian

Vardebedian:
Obviously the constant tension incurred defending a series of numbingly hopeless chess positions has rendered the delicate machinery of your psychic apparatus sluggish, leaving its grasp of external phenomena a jot flimsy. You give me no alternative but to end the contest swiftly and mercifully, removing the pressure before it leaves you permanently damaged.
Knight—yes, knight!—to queen six. Check.
Gossage

Gossage:
Bishop to queen five. Checkmate.
Sorry the competition proved too much for you, but if it's any consolation, several local chess masters have, upon observing your technique, flipped out. Should you want a rematch, I suggest we try Scrabble, a relatively new interest of mine, and one that I might conceivably not run away with so easily.
Vardebedian

Vardebedian,
Rook to knight eight. Checkmate.
Rather than torment you with the further details of my mate, as I believe you are basically a decent man (one day, some form of therapy will bear me out), I accept your invitation to Scrabble in good spirits. Get out your set. Since you played white in chess and thereby enjoyed the advantage of the first move (had I known your limitations, I would have spotted you more), I shall make the first play. The seven letters I have just turned up are O, A, E, J, N, R, and Z—an unpromising jumble that should guarantee, even to the most suspicious, the integrity of my draw. Fortunately, however, an extensive vocabulary coupled with a penchant for esoterica, has enabled me to bring etymological order out of what, to one less literate, might seem a mishmash. My first word is "ZANJERO." Look it up. Now lay it out, horizontally, the E resting on the center square. Count carefully, not overlooking the double word score for an opening move and the fifty-point bonus for my use of all seven letters. The score is now 116—0.
Your move. Gossage

Learning.

2008-10-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

Today I have my first driving lesson in over a year. I called my sister and asked her how to do it, and I'm pretty certain she gave me incorrect instructions. Apparently I keep the clutch down all the time I'm in first. I'm sure that's not how I did it before. I told her I'd found out this afternoon.

I hope my new instructor thinks it appropriate to inform me whether I'll be driving a diesel car or not. My last instructor didn't think this was essential info, and couldn't work out why I was stalling all the time. Despite not being even vaguely familiar with cars, let alone the differences between petrol and diesel, it was me who asked her, "Umm...this isn't a diesel car, is it?". "Ohhh." She did, however, have some plus points: she kept a bag of murray mints in the car, and didn't have the corpse breath my previous instructor insisted on maintaining. That was my primary reason for finding a new instructor. One can only take so many two-hour sessions breathing through the mouth.

Anyway, I'm hoping to pass my test after about 4 hours. I've had plenty of practice - I drove (erratically) a golf cart all summer, and Amy taught me how to reverse after we went to the cinema one time.

Dr Pepper

2008-10-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Some of my favourite drinks are Dr Pepper, Coke and Amaretto. If you add the last two together you get an alcoholic version of the first. This is excellent. But not when you have one after a lager and lime. It makes you feel sick the next day and not want to read about critical metaphor analysis. It doesn't stop you from having seconds when mushroom risotto's on the menu for dinner, though. But I'm not sure that anything could stop that.

Today the mim ate pancakes for breakfast and dinner. I ate some for lunch. I never have pancakes, but the one time I do have them I'm having them after she eats them for breakfast and before she has another load for dinner. If my Dr Pepper exploits weren't making me feel so terrible I might be able to work out whether we were eating them at the time, seeing as she is 10 hours ahead.

I am pumped on the following few things:
Francis Bacon's Head VI
FRIDAY
Driving on Tuestag
Getting a copy of The Onion
Bookbags
Mushroom risotto

Eggs - WTF does 'over' mean?

2008-10-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

During my travels in America I found myself eating breakfast out quite regularly. Being a fan of the egg, but knowing how my idea of a good scrambled egg differs with that of the majority, I often went for a fried egg. I would be asked how I'd like it cooked, and it was at this stage that my ignorance of egg terminology was laid bare. I know how I like it cooked, and could probably draw a picture, but this isn't a convenient method, ever. So I would ask for 'medium', which would always be corrected - apparently the word 'over' is necessary also. So over medium it was, every time. Although the cookedness of the egg would differ in each establishment I ate in, one thing remained reliable: there was absolutely nothing medium about an over medium egg. I kept reminding myself to look up the different terms used to order a decent fried egg, and today finally got round to it. Apparently an over medium egg is "cooked on both sides; the yolk is of medium consistency and the egg white is thoroughly cooked." This was precisely the consisency I was after, and yet it would seem that I was getting an over easy egg each time. Urgh.

I could, of course, have bypassed this issue at the first hurdle by simply asking the server what the different names mean, but I didn't want to sound like an idiot. So instead, I just ate a lot of partially cooked eggs. How I've learned my lesson.

The last day of the tour

2008-10-05T13:28:00.001-07:00

Las Vegas is shit.

Monument Valley, Page, Grand Canyon

2008-10-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

After leaving Gooseneck we drove two hours to Monument Valley, leaving Utah for Arizona. We had a look in some of the gift shops then went on a jeep tour of the Valley. Some parts were interesting - there was this one rock feature that you lay back on and looked up at the 'ceiling', and because of some pretty flukey wind the shape of an eagle's profile had been sculpted. It was very cool and something I wouldn't have even noticed had our guide not pointed it out. It made me wonder what else we might be able to see if we looked close enough at the things around us. I had hoped our guides might have told us about what significance the rocks held for their people, but they didn't.

On leaving Monument we drive to Lake Powell, a dammed lake in Arizona. It was really clean (at least in comparison to Recapture Resevoir, the last place I'd had contact with water), and refreshing after being in the dusty valley earlier. When we dried off we drove to Page, and went out for dinner. I ate half an enormous calzone. We went from the restaurant to this total dive bar where we played pool and some members of the group got wasted and did kareoke. I sat that one out. It was a surprisingly brill night. The cheap drinks helped.

We left Page at 1am, driving through the night to the Grand Canyon and after getting about four hours sleep we arrived at the park. My immediate concern on our arrival was to seek out the showers. It had been a LONG time. Once showered, walked along the rim with Julie and Christie until we reached the Bright Angel trail viewpoint. The trail looked amazing, but VERY long. In the evening we went to listen t a ranger talk about 'extreme beauty and extreme danger' in the park. It was ace! It was in this open-air aphitheatre in the dark, and we took beers. The ranger was really enthusiastic and knew so much. When the talk ended I walked with Julie and Vicky to the rim in the moonlight; we couldn't see a lot but could just make out the other side of the canyon.

The second day I took it pretty easy and after making lunch I walked from the campsite to the rim, then from there to Pike Creek Vista and ate my lunch on the edge under a tree. It was a really quiet trail - everyone else had seemed to go in the other direction.

I had different expectations of the canyon to how it actually is - I had expected a huge drop beneath the rim but it's more gradual. I think we have been spoiled by the other canyons we've visited on the tour - to someone who hadn't been to Zion or Bryce or Arches the Grand Canyon might seem incredible, but those other parks are just as, if not more, beautiful.

Gooseneck

2008-10-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my tent in Gooseneck State Park, possibly having the most amazing night of the trip.

We arrived, started on dinner (chilli, polenta and steamed vegetables), put up our tents, kicked a football around and had drinks. The view, even at that point, was stellar. We are on the rim of an entrenched meandering river and can see Monument Valley in the distance.

We have a 360 degree view of the surrounding land, and have watched a whole catalogue of different weather unfold around us.

There was a lizard in this toilet

Tonight there was an epic storm over in the Monument Valley direction, but it hasn't moved this way so far. It was so cool having a conversation with someone and seeing a huge flash of lightning over their shoulder. As I write the lightning has diminished and and thunder is less frequent, having been replaced by Wild Bill playing Brown Eyed Girl on his guitar. What a night.

Arches, Moab and Gold Bar

2008-10-05T07:41:00.001-07:00

After Bryce we drove again to Mystic so the new group could have a go in the springs. We left at 1am and drove through to night to Arches, where I woke up with a heavy cold. I wasn't really up for hiking but Julie convinced me to walk for half an hour or so, just so I could see it. So we ate breakfast then drove to the trail head.

Once I started the trail I knew there was no going back - it was beautiful and I had to see it all. The trail was described as 'primitive', and that translated as a sandy track leading to a trail with very few markers, requiring the walker to scrabble up and across rocks. It was absolutely brill, the best trail I did on the whole trip.

After leaving arches we ate a yummy lunch in Moab before leaving for our camp ground. En route we stopped for another photo-op. I almost didn't get out of the bus but I'm so glad I did, because we had stopped at the site of some ancient petroglyphs, made by native Americans.

The camp ground wasn't far, at this place called Gold Bar. It was a super quite spot right next to the Colorado River. It did have some really prickly plants which, when paired with flip flops, caused some aggro. Everyone was starting to get pretty tired by this point, and most of us had an early night. We left the camp at about 10am the next morning, stopped at Moab again to get last minute supplies for the Grand Canyon, then drove to Recapture Resevoir where we swam and made sandwiches. The water was muddy, really deep and filled with plants but it was fun and I felt vaguely clean when we left.

Bryce Canyon

2008-10-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

I missed a few days...

We went to Bryce Canyon and walked for about three and a half hours between Sunrise and Sunset points. Bryce was really, really beautiful, in some ways similar to Zion but with a lot less vegetation, and it was more 'canyon'y.

6 August 2008

2008-10-05T07:10:00.001-07:00

As I write I am in the campground we're staying in at Zion National Park. Last night we arrived in Kodachrome which was the first real desert place we've been to. Enroute we stopped at Red Canyon and hiked for about a mile there. It was very beautiful and very red. When we got to Kodachrome I helped to make a huge stir fry for dinner, then we sat around the fire drinking and talking, knowing that tomorrow a lot of people would be leaving us. It was a really fun night, with a lot of drinking. That night the toilet had truly stank, but with the hangover I woke up with I thought I was going to pass out when I got in it. I slept my hangover off on the bus to Zion.

The trip took about three hours, and when we arrived at the park we drove through this totally dark tunnel (The Zion-Mt.t Carmel Tunnel) - so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face (I tried). The tunnel had a series of enormous holes on one side, so one minute you were in total darkness, the next you were getting a sneak peak of one of the canyons at the park. It was the most incredible and exciting thing.

We arrived at the park in time to eat lunch and say goodbye before starting to walk the Angel's Landing trail. At the time we started the temperature was 105 degrees Farenheight, and this teamed with the gradient I flaked after about an hour. This was an intense bummer because the trail is meant to be pretty amazing. Still, I reached a height where I had really great views.

I walked back down to the bottom and took the shuttle to the riverside walk, which takes you up to the Narrows. It was a really great walk and so beautiful - all of a sudden these enormous canyon sides shoot up beside you. After finishing there I took the shuttle back to the camp site, feeling pretty exhausted.

5 August 2008

2008-10-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Mystic Hot Springs in Monroe, Utah, which belongs to this hippie who used to be a film maker and illustrator for the Grateful Dead. There are two massive pool type things which the water just flows into.

We made dinner, set up tents then went into the tubs at about 10pm. The sky was perfectly clear so we had the most incredible view of the stars. Because there's very little unnatural light we could see the haze of the milky way. I stayed in until about midnight, and got out feeling the most relaxed I've ever been. The word sedate doesn't cut it. That night was the first I'd spent in the tent, and it was nice to have my own space after sleeping with my face right up in someone else's feet for several nights.

This morning we're driving to Kodachrome via the Hard Rock Candy Mountain, where we're stopping for ice cream. Tonight is the last night with some members of the trip which is a bummer.

4 August 2008

2008-10-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

Last night we drove through the night and ended up in Antelope Island, Utah. We woke up early (about 6.30am), and I helped make breakfast (banana pancakes) and heard cayote howling nearby. The landscape was amazing, like we were on another planet; there were so many pastel shades and it was so still and quiet. After breakfast we walked down to the lake and it was so salty (1o times saltier than the Pacific) that we could float. Yes, we were in Utah's answer to the Dead Sea. It was bloody freezing but an amazing experience. The cold meant we stayed in the water for only half an hour.

After showering all the salt off (which became intensely prickly almost instantly) we drove for an hour to Salt Lake City. It was so beautiful, really clean and peaceful, with incredible architecture. We walked to the Salt Lake Temple, I stood and watched as Liz attempted to negotiate the pond out front, then we tried to get into the temple itself for a wander round. An incredibly friendly woman told us it was only open to members, so went to find lunch. On our way to lunch we saw 3 couples in wedding gear, and we were later told that 90 couples come to the temple each day to get married. Impressive.

This afternoon we're driving to some hippy's hot springs somewhere in Utah - they're open 24/7 so it should be a lot of fun.

Driving through Utah is just amazing, it's such a beautiful state. At the moment we're driving on this plain between two stretches of massive hills. The sky is the most perfect blue. It looks like we're driving next to a painted backdrop.

We just drove past a lorry that had 'Jesus Christ is Lord, not a swear word'. Epic.

Yellowstone - 3 Sept 08

2008-10-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Today is our second day in Yellowstone - yesterday we walked around a small area of the park (it's HUGE) and saw Old Faithful and some other geysers and hot springs. This really deserves a whole slideshow of photos, but here's a couple. The rest are available in my picasa area, under Green Tortoise.

After we left the Old Faithful city (it's swarming) we drove to an area of the park called Fountain Paint Pots which was far more impressive than Old Faithful. We saw a crazily energetic geyser which seemed to last and last, but I think we might have just been lucky and caught it at the right time of year. I guess the rest of the time Old Faithful is the winner.

Last night it was cold, and this morning it was even colder - 27 F which is just below freezing.

The day before we were at Grand Tetons still. The scenery was really incredible, as Ansel Adams well knew. We camped in the park for two nights, and on the second day we did a great hike up one of the mountains. We walked around 5 miles around Jenny Lake up to Inspiration Point, via Hidden Falls.

Hidden Falls

View from Inspiration Point

The Tortoise Begins

2008-10-01T08:22:00.001-07:00

Right now I'm in a cafe In Jackson Hole, WY. The first night of the tour was a bit strange: nobody quite knew what to expect and it seemed like there were far too many people. I couldn't sleep for hours.

The next morning we woke in Lamoille Canyon, Nevada, and we ate breakfast and then I did my first hike. We walked about 2 miles up the canyon to a FREEZING lake (two words: run off), but it was unbelievably refreshing in the heat. After swimming about for a bit, we got out and walked back down to the bus, and drove off to our dinner destination - I have no idea where we were. Before dinner a group of us walked 2 miles down this path to some natural hot springs. It was pretty cold and rain seemed to be on the horizon, but we got in anyway. It was full of algae but was brill - really really warm! We left when we heard thunder and by the time we arrived back a dust storm was beginning. Helpfully, I hadn't been able to dry off and therefore became a magnet for all the dust. Dinner was dusty.

We drove through the night and woke up here, where we're doing a bit of shopping, admiring the antler arches and going swimming.

The bus is pretty good to drive on - when sitting on the back pads you get the most incredible panoramic view.

Later we're driving to Grand Tetons NP and will camp there.

Day 5 in SF

2008-09-23T08:44:00.001-07:00

The pub crawl was so good! We went to three bars, the first of which was this really excellent wooden lodge type affair. It was absolutely roasting and desperately understaffed, but pretty cheap, with a fine selection of booze on offer. There was also a jukebox which is always a bonus. After drinking a couple of beers there, the group walked en masse to the next place, having been fore-advised of the $2 beer offer they do. I didn't drink any, but was introduced to the wonder that is vodka and ginger ale, with a wedge of lemon. I had several of these, dropped about a dozen pieces of lemon and got pretty hammered. There was a really excitable old Hawaiian guy at the bar who was fun to talk to. I stayed at the third bar for one drink and then decided it was a good time to get a cab home.

The next day I got up early, knowing that the kitchen would be empty. It pretty much was, although there were some people in their looking a bit pale after the night before. I had pancakes then chatted with Giovanna about what to do on my last day. We were both pretty shattered, so we decided to go to Ocean Beach with Marie once I had checked out. We got there and stayed for about an hour before the fog rolled in. While we were on the beach we chatted with a guy who surfs there regularly, and he told us that last year a blue whale had gotten beached there, and after it died they buried it in a massive pit on the beach. It'd be ace if in a few years they could dig up the bones.

When the fog hit we decided to make a move, and went back to the hostel. Giovanna and I went down the road to get more pancakes then chilled on the hostel's excellent sofas for a bit. I didn't fancy doing much before leaving the city, so it was nice to get some relaxing done.

After undergoing intense hassle relating to withdrawing money from my bank account, I managed to get to the bus stop in time. Everyone looked a bit wary; there seemed to be loads of us, each eyeing the crowd and then the bus, wondering how we were all going to fit in. After a lot of fannying about we managed to get on and get moving. We stopped later that night at a Walmart 2 hours down the road to get some last-minute supplies and to do 'The Miracle'.

Basically the bus was separated into three sections: the back pads, which was basically one big bed that was always out, day and night. 12 people would sleep on there. In the middle were 2 dinettes - a table and 2 benches on each side. In the front were two benches, with a gangway in the middle. The Miracle involved turning the dinettes into four bunks, and the front section into one big bed. Eight people would also sleep in the luggage racks. It sounded unbelievable, but it happened. It was a real sight.

I was really bummed to leave San Francisco; I'd had a really amazing time there and was starting a tour I knew very little about, with 35 people I'd never met before. I felt sad when we crossed the Bay Bridge and left the city behind, but I soon got talking to Julie, Amy and Nancy, who would become my buddies, to stop me from being left behind at a 4am toilet stop.

SF was truly amazing. I had seen the most beautiful architecture, had fantastic weather, had eaten great food and met some really fun, friendly and interesting people. I cannot wait to go back.

Day 4 in SF

2008-09-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up early, ate a pancake breakfast and embarked upon an epic shopping trip to buy supplies for the trip. I trekked to REI and got talking to one of the sales guys. He asked me where I was from (something that rarely happened) and said just outside London, because if I say Hertfordshire it is generally met with a blank stare. So then he says he's going to study at a university just outside London, and it turns out he's at Hertfordshire! We agree to add eachother on Facebook so we can meet up when he arrives.

I wasn't able to get a tent in REI but I did buy a ton of other fun things, most of which were mis-priced so I ended up paying less than I had expected. Bonus. I managed to get a tent elsewhere. The rest of the day I relaxed, in preparation for the pub crawl.

Day 3 in SF

2008-09-22T12:45:00.001-07:00

Today can be summed up in one word: walking. I took the bus to a street near Ocean Beach, and walked to Louis' Diner. I had an amazing breakfast with the most incredible views of the ocean and Sutro Baths. After stuffing my face (washing it down with some Dr. Pepper),

I walked down to the old baths to look around and take some snaps. From there I walked to Ocean Beach, watched some surfing, reacquainted myself with Dashboard Confessional and continued walking until I reach Golden Gate Park. It was absolutely roasting so I was glad to find myself walking alongside some water sprinklers. The park is beautiful and absolutely enormous - I walked for 2 hours before reaching the MH de Young Museum. I had asked a gardener at the park how to get to the Japanese tea gardens but he insisted I go into the museum to see the city from the top of the tower. I did, and how glad I am.

After leaving the museum I walked up to Clement Street to go to the Green Apple Bookstore. They have a pretty impressive collection of used and new books on pretty much every subject going.

On leaving the bookstore, in an attempt to get to the Presidio and from there the Golden Gate Bridge, I went up a series of dead ends. Eventually, after consulting my long-ignored map, I found the way. Or, one of the possible routes I could have followed, but one which nobody else seemed to know about. There wasn't a path and the cars drive pretty fast on that road, but I had it to myself and there were some great views. I stopped a couple of times along the way, and eventually reached an established coastal trail to the bridge. A sigh of relief might have been heard at home when I finally saw it behind the trees.

After trekking all day I didn't have the energy or inclination to cross the bridge, so took the bus home. I met Swiss Chris who IS Ed Red, hung out with Giovanna then went out for dinner with both of them near the hostel.

Day 2 in SF

2008-09-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

This place is ace! Last night I met a load of other people staying at the hostel and drank an entire bottle of wine. I didn't eat dinner and the cheese didn't show up until about 10pm, by which time everyone was hammered. It was great and I laughed a lot. This morning I got up really early to make my way to the ferry terminal to get to Alcatraz. My hangover and lack of public transport knowledge saw me flagging down a cab.

The island was good, it is weird to think that it was a prison once. It was quite touristy and the staff were rather stern (paid actors, perhaps?), but it was an interesting place to visit. From the island I got the most incredible views of the city so far - I could see from one end of the city right to the other, where the Golden Gate Bridge started. It looked so big that I didn't think I'd ever be able to see all of the city.

When I got back I walked to Chinatown and up loads of hills and up Grant to the Coit Tower - AMAZING VIEWS! It was just totally immense and it meant the epic walk so worth it. You could see so much: the Golden Gate, other land across the water, so so much! It was a very 'wow' moment.

After chilling there for a bit, I walked down to the bottom and then climbed up Lombard Street; that was exhausting.

Then I walked to Fisherman's Wharf and fell asleep on the grass for a bit. I was so shattered I took the tram home and chilled at the hostel that night.

Day 7 - travelling

2008-09-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm currently on the plane to San Francisco. Yesterday was spent catching up on things I'd meant to do - I ate a pretzel, walked on the Brooklyn Bridge, went to the Jewish Heritage Museum (which was really, really excellent and made me cry). I got back to the hostel at about 6pm and, after packing, treated myself to a Ben & Jerry's. I'd bumped into Lucy earlier outside the Apple store (where a lot of this story seems to take place); it was great to see a familiar face.

I think that although I have enjoyed being able to go at my own pace, maybe the reason I didn't have the amazing time I'd hoped was because I was there alone, plus the fact that I was exhausted after camp and kind of wanted to go home.

Anyway, after the Jewish Heritage I walked along the Hudson to the Brooklyn Bridge, walked to the halfway point, took some snaps then walked back. I took the subway to Times Sq to return something, managed to get a free Jamba Juice then did some walked around 5th Avenue.

I'm still feeling pretty neutral about SF, but I know that I should be feeling really pumped and that I'm so lucky to be going. Although I am looking forward to going home, I am more excited than I was about the tour.

----

First impressions of SF: everything is different, it's ace! I like all the buildings - on the drive from the airport even though the areas we went through weren't amazing, the houses looked beautiful. It feels really nice to be close to the sea, especially when you can go to the top of one of the hills in the city and see it. The hostel seems really nice too - although the NY hostel was nice, it didn't have a lot of character. Here, though, seems really different. The staff is all really young, there's music playing, and it just seems nicer. At the moment I'm sharing a 4 bed room with one other girl who seems nice. The room is clean, and the hostel itself is about 5 minutes on foot from Union Square and loads of posh shops. I had a wander around Union Sq for a couple of hours, and am looking forward to tonight's cheese and wine night.

Day 6 in NY

2008-09-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Today was more chilled. I ate breakfast at the hostel, then walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim. However, owing to the absence of a map or any navigational skills, I ended up at the top of the park, at 110th St. I walked down to the museum from there. There was a big exhibition on Louise Bourgeois all up the spiral, with items from the main collections in rooms at each level. She had made some very cool hanging sculptures and somescary looking enormous spider sculptures. It's mental that she's still so active.

After I left the museum I walked a little around the Upper East Side, just to the subway. I rode down to Bleeker Street with the intention of going to Katz's Deli, but when I arrived it was frantically busy, so I opted to eat in a café I'd passed earlier. I had a delicious a very cheap breakfast ($3 for 2 eggs, toast and homefries), and they had a great cake selection which I took advantage of. I left the café and walked into the Lower East Side and through the East Village, eventually getting to the Strand bookstore (I'd been told about the store while in another bookstore in the UES. In this store I'd had a look at a signed, first edition of In Cold Blood. It was a Dear Diary moment), where I bought Woody Allen's complete prose and Blindness by José Saramago. I walked from the store to Union Square where there was an ace food market taking place, and read there for a while. I decided to walk up to the Flatiron Building, but again owing to my lack of on-board GPS, completely missed it. I subwayed to 57th &5th and sat in the park for an hour, at first on the top of this hill, before getting scared by a man shouting about killing babies. I went back to the hostel, grabbed some dinner and chilled. Chilling is good.

I've missed home today and am looking forward to going back. It feels weird to think that I haven't seen anyone I know in over 2 months. I am feeling quite numb and neutral about the rest of my travelling, but am constantly reminding myself that I'm on HOLIDAY. I am forcing myself to be more pumped; I think I'll be moreso when I get to SF - NY is draining.

Day 5 in NY

2008-09-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

Another exhausting day. Had a bit of a lie-in (up at 9am), then got up and went to the Natural History Museum. It was good - better than the London one. I saw a cool showing of a film about collisions in space in the museum planetarium.

From New York

Next I looked for some lunch, and decided to try the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien. Waited 30 minutes in line, almost on the verge of fainting, only to find it was cash only. Scumbags. I went to Hooters.

The Burger Joint is behind this big red velvet curtain in the lobby and while I was in line nobody came out - it was a lot like a David Lynch set. After lunch I trekked to Coldstone (I'm hooked) then down to the Jewish Heritage Museum near Battery Park. I arrived an hour before closing so, on the advice of a woman workin there, blew it off and did a round trip on the FREE Staten Island Ferry. It was pretty ace - I got a great view of the city and the Statue.

From New York

That done, I headed to the Met which was ok, but not amazing, then walked down 5th to the Apple store to check my email, etc. I got back to the hostel at 9.30pm, exhausted!

From New York

I am enjoying it here, but I don't think it's sunk in that I'm actually in NY, the place I've always wanted to go to. I think after camp it feels so hard to properly relax, especially since I want to fit so much in. Tomorrow I'm going to chill.

Day 4 in NY

2008-09-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Today was good! We met by the Plaza at Central Park, then walked down Madison and Fifth Aves and did some window shopping. We walked around for a couple of hours, then took Alice back to the hostel and saw her off. Ed and I ate lunch at the subway across the street, then walked and shopped some more. He left mid-afternoon, and I came back to the hostel to do some laundry. Once done, I subwayed to 50th & 9th to get some Japanese take-out and took it to Central Park to eat while watching Strangers on a Train. It was a great film, and such a fab way to watch it! They're showing Moonstruck tomorrow, which I might watch also.

The cab ride home was great - the Upper East Side is amazing! It's on my plan for saturday, if only to do some wandering.

Day 3 in NY

2008-09-22T08:19:00.001-07:00

Today was fun, we started by meeting at MoMA (big momma), stayed there for a couple of hours, saw two really ace Bacon paintings and some Lichtensteins I hadn't seen before, then headed out to get some lunch. We went to a cafe near 5th Ave and had burritos and fountain Dr. Pepper - amazing. Dr. P never fails to rock my world. It's actually my favourite drink. Afterwards we walked around for quite a while, went into some shops (including Bloomingdales - USA department stores continue to disappoint) and walked around Soho and the Meat Packing district. They were two very distinct areas, the latter especially - it felt like we had left the city. We had a drink in a rather posh restaurant, checked email in the Apple store then ate a pretty crap dinner at a diner.

Feeling full, we went back to MoMA to watch this film, it was weird, but a bit interesting. After it had finished we walked to Times Square, had NY cheesecake, took some night time photos then said goodnight. Tomorrow we're meeting at Barneys, then Alice is leaving at noon, Ed later. I am a bit nervous at them leaving because it's nice to have company, but I think I'll be fine. I have bought a copy of Time Out and am going to make a plan.

Day 2 in NY

2008-09-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today was so much better. I feel much more confident and comfortable here now. I think using the subway helped - it's made me feel sure that I'll be able to see loads of the city, and won't be confined to one small patch.

I met Alice and Ed at their hostel, ate a cheese and egg roll on their steps for breakfast, then we took the subway to Battery Park and joined an epic line to get onto the Liberty Island ferry. We waited for maybe an hour, but it was warm with a nice breeze, so we were comfy. The trip to the island was good: we saw the city from a new perspective. The statue of libery was good to see, and especially on such a fine day.

Next we sailed to Ellis Island and looked at the exhibition showing the process immigrants had to follow when they arrived on the island. it was pretty interesting, but the way some of the literature was worded gave the impression that the people arriving were treated really well, when the opposite is true.

Once we arrived back in Manhattan we ate a late lunch before taking the subway to the Empire State building, where we joined about 70 different queues. It was worth the wait and effort, though: the views were amazing and I took loads of photos.

Afterwards we looked around Macy's (BORING) then hunted down dinner. After much walking we found a great little Japanese place where a bento box cost $7. We finished with a Coldstone - yum!

2008-09-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

The first few bits will be taken from the journal I took to America. After that will be taken from life.