completely rubbish

My lack of blogging, that is...

Yet another whizz through my hectic life right now:

The Roots at Somerset House was AWESOME! What a great venue for a show, and we were so lucky, amidst all the rain we'd been having, it was sunny and warm that night!

Bit of an impromptu bender at the weekend after spending all Saturday afternoon in the baking heat doing timekeeping/officiating at the home match for the Southern Men's League (which my club won, as well as the league and promotion - yay!), then going for drinks at a pub to celebrate, that turned into going out in Camden with the boys to celebrate one guy's 28th birthday, which resulted in drinking and dancing at FunkinYou at Koko until about 5am... then got about 2 hours of patchy sleep and got back up, probably still drunk, and met my friend for a 10M run to Greenwich at 8am... then we got the DLR to the ExCel centre and spent the rest of the day cheering on mates doing the London Triathlon. But boy did I pay for my debauchery - Sunday and Monday were both a waste of space really. I really must learn to say NO... :-)

Tonight I am doing a one-ff night job as an extra in a film called Stone of Destiny, which is being filmed tonight at Westminster Abbey from 10pm to 8am. I get to dress up all 1950's. Now it clearly probably won't help me to stay awake in the fact that I went to bed about 3.30am and got up at about 8am this morning. Methinks a late-afternoon nap is going to have to be on the cards.

Met a couple of really nice blokes recently, and have another couple of potential dates on the cards for in a couple weeks' time when I will hopefully have time to fit them in... when it rains it pours and all that, the nice ones always seem to come along in bunches...

Ran my first road race in AGES (possibly since before April) on Thursday, and decided to really go for it and see what I could manage. It was 3.5M in Vicky Park, Assembly League. I hate this distance, but on Thursday I didn't wear my Garmin and just ran, tried to keep up with Dave and Gary. This tactic obviously worked, because I did it in 22.54, a big PB. Yay! I'm now 5th all-time in the club rankings for that distance. *big smile* Maybe it's the swimming I've been doing that's helping me to get faster??

newsflash

• Won free tix to go see Talib Kweli and Jean Grae at the Jazz Cafe last week; my mate J accompanied me at the last minute, we had delicious Japanese at the place next door before we went in, and DAMN it was a great show! Fucking awesome! Can't wait for the Roots on the 19th now...
• Did track & field in Reading on Saturday. Got sunburnt, roped into all the usual embarrassing events like pole vault and discus in addition to the usual 800m, 1500m and 3000m, and then got an hour of sports massage on my legs for THREE QUID! Marvellous! But a bit depressing too since I'm getting slower and slower as the season goes on and it gets longer and longer since I last did any speed training. Roll on the summer hols and a chance for me to take a breather and get back training at the club!
• Have started swimming a couple of times a week at the fab new London Fields Lido, it will probably get too busy over the summer hols, but right now it's just perfect. But boy do my legs and arms ache in places I had forgotten there might be muscles.
• Talked to ex-M this week. It was sad but really good at the same time: I really do miss his friendship and companionship. And - gulp - he's going to come to London to visit. Half of me can't wait to see him and wants him to get the hell over here TODAY! The other half of me is wary for my heart...
• I've relented and finally joined facebook due to Caro being in Egypt, and actually found a couple of people on there I thought I'd lost touch with forever. So if you're on facebook, look me up ;-)

Musings on men, or How I Sabotage My Attempts to Settle Down.

So I realise that since I haven't been posting much, there's much that I haven't updated y'all on. For a start, there I go mentioning my first date in a while, and then when I read back down only a couple of postings, I was talking about CIB and how well it was going with him.

Ha! Well isn't that just me all over. CIB didn't work out, like G or SB, not because of him as such, but mainly because of me. I am far too embarrassed to actually list here most of the reasons why I eventually blew cold on that relationship, pathetically superficial as they were. Suffice it it say though, that I keep claiming I want to find a man and settle down and do all the normal stuff that people of my age do (and are doing viz. my last post on all my friends having babies); but then I seem to be completely incapable of committing myself to dating one guy or getting in any way serious about anyone in the long term.

OK, so here it is: the main reason why CIB had to take a hike was because he was really really overly keen on me, to the point of being all touch-feely, wanting to see me all the time even though I was busy, and wanting to constantly kiss in public. I couldn't stand it. Is that the sign of a true commitment-phobe or what??

Perhaps this isn't as much of an issue as I'm making it out to be. But I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm searching for a perfection that simply doesn't exist in the real world of relationships, and unless I'm ready to accept imperfection (as of course I would expect from any future partner regarding me, since I'm far from perfect in oh so many ways) I'm never going to get past those first few heady dates where you still don't know enough about the other and so can blissfully ignore potential incompatibilities/annoying traits. I guess my frustrations lie in my belief that there has to be someone out there, like my ex but without the shit bits, who could be my soulmate. But finding him is proving bloody difficult. And to top it all off, I haven't really got time to be thinking about dating or even having any sense of a social life for the next year at least. I'd like a nice sensible, reliable chap to fall into my lap, not create a massive upheaval of my life, and be willing to put up with all my vagaries.

OK, but I need to be clear on this whole perfection thing. Perhaps that makes me sound like I'm out there looking for Superman. That's not the case at all. But I do have a certain tick-list of things that my soulmate will have; part of the problem lies therein, since my tick-list possibly contains characteristics that are not amenable to a long-term, settled relationship.

So with that in mind, this new date on the horizon (now postponed to next weekend due to incompatible schedules) seems to have lots of the qualities that I feel would be important for sharing a satisfying and stable relationship. Like being easy-going, a hard worker, protective, patient, loyal. Reliable. Steadfast. Secure. But those very same qualities are the complete opposite of what I am usually attracted to, even though they are the qualities I feel to be important. It doesn't make sense, I know. I sometimes think it's like I deliberately choose to be attracted to people who I know will not make suitable long-term prospects. I sabotage myself at first base. So the date with E is bound to be interesting, if from nothing more than a clinical point of view. Will he really be the complete opposite of what I usually go for, and if so, will we even make it to the end of the first date in one piece??

still alive...

...just!

Ugh, work is hard right now. Feeling run down, constantly tired, doubting that I will ever manage to complete this PhD, wondering what the hell I am going to do once I get done with it.

Running: taken the back seat as work priorities have dictated. Still getting out and about a couple or three times a week for 6 miles or so. But I am not racing right now, only the odd 1500m and 3000m for track & field.

There are things to look forward to though too:

• I have a date on Saturday, the first in quite a while: he is CUTE! Men and dating are generally a bit too time consuming right now, but I have made an exception because this boy is so darned cute.
• The Roots in concert in mid-July. Yay!
• Six weeks summer holiday so no data collection (just data analysis...)
• I might be moving to London Fields this summer, not because I hate where I live now, just because it is more central and may be a lot cheaper. I also think it will be a better environment for me to work in, since B who lives there is one of those superwomen who is always doing something or other and juggles lots of responsibilities too, just like me.

Another quick news update

Still snowed under. Will come up for air in the 6-week summer holiday!

News:

My friend Dan and his girlfriend have had twins - cue more broodiness from me!

My friend Deb is also expecting - congrats Deb and Leor - so excited for you both and for the wedding!

My friend Sarah is also expecting - more congrats! Gosh, there must be something in the air, or maybe in the water...

Running: been running regularly but no speed training sessions, just regular 5-8 mile runs. Yesterday was the first of two home matches for my running club in the Southern Women's League at Mile End, so I took a couple of hours off in the afternoon to go run the 3000m and 1500m, and was pleasantly surprised to get PBs in both events: 5:50 for the 1500m and 12:20 for the 3000m. I know I can run faster than that: at the Physical Shield I ran about 3000m up a steep hill and back down again twice and managed 11:26, and in the club 1M champs road race I ran 6:03. But for some reason, similar times for similar distances on the track seem to evade me. Maybe it's the monotony of going round and round the track. Or maybe it's because I'm always saving a bit back because I know I have another race to do, or am tired because I've already raced once. Still, though, in my current situation, two PBs on the day were a nice bonus!

OK that's all for now. Have a great bank holiday weekend next weekend. I'm going to try to make it over to my mum and dad's new home in Ealand. They've left the family home and also the village I grew up in. It will be strange going to visit them in a village I barely know, compared to the village I spent the first 18 years of my life in. The the move is right for them, so I'm excited for them, no matter how strange it might feel to me...

hiatus

I think this is the longest I have ever gone without posting.

What can I say? I've been working my ass off, and it's not going to get any less crazy until the summer hols. Argh!

Quick news round-up is in order:

Poster presentation went well, it actually made me feel that at some point I could actually get up and give a proper presentation at a conference, which has always been my biggest fear about doing the PhD. Put me in front of a group of students and I'm fine -- but in front of a group of people who probably know a hell of a lot more about literacy than I do -- yuck...

I'm v. excited about a couple of gigs coming up, feeding my recently renewed love of hip hop. I love hip hop, but I really don't know anyone else who does, so when I went to see the Fugees last year, I went on my own. For the next two, I'm off to see Nas on my own, but will get company in the form of a mate for The Roots at Somerset House in July. Yay a hip hop buddy!

Went to see This is England at the cinema last week. Brilliant. Go see it. It's set in Grimsby. Cue scene after scene of grim-north-ness. Grimsby is actually a Viking name, meaning 'Grim's settlement.' So there you go, my undergraduate degree wasn't a complete waste of time and money, I actually learned something.

Not much news otherwise, because I've been working working. Boring boring huh?

Don't be surprised if it's a while until the next post, but I'll try not to be so long this time, I promise!

yay!

Wow I can't believe it but I've actually got my poster done and printed out and everything! And I'm so proud of my first attempt at a poster that I have to share it with you (don't feel obliged to read it though!). It blows my anonymity rule, but what the heck...

living frugally

So due to an unforeseen tax bill and a general lax attitude towards budgeting, I have been left the past week with virtually no money in the whole wide world. Which meant that I had to get by on virtually nothing for 5 days.

Oh what an eye-opener it has been! Over the past 5 days, I have realised that (a) I have gotten into some really wasteful spending habits since I moved to London, and (b) you can actually survive on very little money, even in London.

Which is good news really, since my financial situation isn't going to get any better for the next 1.5 years or probably even longer than that. It was a bit of a financial epiphany really, and so I have made a list of things I'm going to do/not do in order to get my finances back in order, and my spending more in line with both my finances and my moral abhorrence of wasteful spending. Funnily enough, bessie L in Oz has also been giving herself a bit of a financial going-over:

Starting today, lynkemma and I are trying to limit our spending to things we really need. We're doing it for a month; my aims are to a) get a grip on my finances again and b) remind myself of the difference between need and want. Over the past few years I've got into a lot of bad habits with money. That means no clothes, music (wah!), unscheduled book purchases, newspapers and magazines, and I'm also cutting down on my coffee shop habit. (quoted from L's 'secret' blog)

All those things L mentioned are my very own spending bugbears.
So here's my list of financial restrictions. If I put them in writing, perhaps I'll manage to keep them!

Clothes: the wardrobes are overspilling - there is really no need for me to ever go shopping for clothes again in the next 5 years, unless I suddenly gain or lose lots of weight, and my weight since I started running has become much more stable (after the initial huge weight loss). I have what seems like hundreds of t-shirts (due in no small part to my addiction to threadless). I also have an addiction to running clothes, shoes, books and gadgets. I really don't need any more of any of those for a good while, and anyway, I think I actually now own all the books in print that are worth anything about the art of running. I also have so many pairs of jeans it's not even funny.

Though some of you might think - but won't your clothes go out of style? -- Well, anyone who knows me well knows that this is unlikely to ever be an issue. I *so* don't do fashion, and the older I get, the less fashionable I get too. In fact, most of the time I look like a scruffy student, and since I am a student, why not be scruffy too and live up to the stereotype?? Also, I find that I wear the same small sample of clothes time and time again, and nine time out of ten it's an item I bought 5/7/10 years ago in a thrift store in the US and I'm still wearing it and people still like it.

So... the purchase of 1 item of clothing per month is allowed, and 1 pair of running shoes every 4-5 months (500 miles).

Next: books. Ah, this is a toughie. And granted, I'm already quite good in this regard - as soon as I became a student again, I got my 5% discount on amazon, and I stopped buying loads of books at bookstores and starting scouring charity shops instead. However, it has to be said that due to my charityshopbook addiction, I have piles and piles of books in my room that I haven't got anywhere near around to reading yet. I could not buy another book in the next year and still not get through all the unread books I have on my shelves. And to be honest, though I love to keep books, there really isn't any good reason for me not to just borrow from the local library up the road in Homerton.


So... the purchase of 2 books from a charity shop per month is allowed, OR the purchase of one new book every other month. All other books will come and go from Homerton library.


Food: Now this is a tough one, because I do like to buy organic/fairtrade/free-range/happy animals, and so that costs more than buying Tesco value. I am also morally opposed to mass supermarket shopping, especially at Asda or Tesco, both of which are unfortunately my closest and the least expensive of all the supermarkets. Another bad habit I've gotten into is getting ready meals from M&S, takeout from the proliferation of takeaways close to my flat, and I'd got a bit lazy about making food from scratch, and about using up all the food I actually had in my cupboards. But Stoke Newington on Saturdays has a local farmer's market at which you can buy lots of stuff for just as cheap as in the supermarket, if not cheaper, and not in plastic bags. There's also a proper butchers not too far away, and these past 5 days, I' discovered that I really don't need all the biscuits/sweets/cakes/gum/cans of diet coke etc that I wind up buying at extra high rates from the corner shop downstairs when I feel peckish. A nice cup of tea works just as well.


So... I will make one weekly shop per week, give myself a spending limit, and make a list before I go and stick to it. Will also take a trip to the farmers market for veggies and fruit on a Saturday. I will search around for the value versions of products, try to limit my supermarket spending to as little as possible, and spend more time making food at home, doing what I do best - big hotpots full of thick chunky soups, stews and chilis that I can freeze and they last for weeks, and are cheap as chips to make aswell. And I will *not* throw money at Nero/Costa/Tinderbox on soya lattes. I have a coffee maker at home with a steamer attachment, so I can make them at home. I shall also invest in a flask and take fresh coffee to work with me so I don't feel deprived of good coffee.


OK there is definitely more to come, but I'm mid poster-production so I need to get back to work. So part II awaits anon...

easter miscellany

Gosh, doesn't feel like only a week since I last posted. So much and yet so little seems to have happened. Most of it in the realm of the mundane, but a few items stand out as blog-worthy...

An old friend with whom I'd lost touch contacted me this week, and brought with the contact a bombshell: Now Jenn, my old friend now lives as a woman and is undergoing hormone therapy, with the aim of having a sex change op in the coming year. She has decidede to start up a website and blog to help her friends and family keep up with the transition and her new life, and also as a resource for other transitioning transexuals and the wider community in general. I think it's really brave of Jenn to come out and contact all her old friends in this way. And she looks really good as a woman. So I've blogrolled her site, transjennder.com. Please go visit, especially if, like me, you don't have much experience or understanding of the transsexual community. Good to be back in touch, Jenn.

Things are going really rather well with CIB. After the original 11-hour marathon date, we haven't yet run out of things to talk about, which is useful. It's nice to meet someone with similar tastes and perspectives as me. We have lots of the same taste in music, movies, we are both rather 'green' - I pretend to hate hippies when I am actually really a bit of a tree-hugger, while CIB is a full-blown 'out' hippie boy. We both like cricket. We both run. We both have had problems throughout our lives with tonsilitis (how weird is that?). Our parents are scarily similar, right down to physical appearance. I'm not holding my breath, it's still very early days, and to be quite frank, I really haven't got the time or the money to be considering a relationship, but what the hell, you only live once, right? This time, I'm going to take it slowly, because taking it too quickly always spells trouble. One step at a time. Small steps.

The half marathon last weekend was good, but marred by a rather worrying bout of symptoms which could only be described as stomach ulcer-like. I suffered from about mile 3 with painful cramps that felt like my stomach (not my abdomen, like my proper stomach, just below the sternum) was balling into a fist and screaming at me. At times it was excruciating, and after the race I was doubled over in pain, and was unable to drink even a sip of tea without burning and pain, and orange juice - well, suffice it to say I had one sip and it brought me to tears. So now I'm a bit worried I'm giving myself an ulcer, so I'm trying to cut down on my coffee consumption, which I know is excessive. So far I've not had any more problems, so hopefully it was just a one off. But it really spoiled the day for me at the Half. I was aiming for 1:40 though, and even in the circumstances, I still made 1:38:34 - I think I actually ran harder towards the end because I just wanted the pain to stop!

PhD woes - argh! I just can't seem to get myself motivated at all, but I have to, because I have my first ever poster presentation at a conference in Oxford next Thursday/Friday, and so I have exactly 6 days to enter my data collected so far, do preliminary stats on the data, write the poster, make it look nice and then find somewhere cheap to get it made into a shiny bright A2 poster, and then practice my 'talk'. Not to mention get my suit trousers taken up, get a train ticket, and find someone to take over my bar duties at the club next Thursday. Yikes. So blow the glorious warm sunshine outside... I need to get down to work here!

OK, have a wonderful 4 day weekend everyone, and if you're not lucky enough to be able to thank God that Jesus died so we could have a long weekend, then you might want to consider a move to the UK ;-)

business as usual

OK, I've recovered from my bout of madness, I'm loving running again, and yay it's the Easter holidays!

Tuesday night I raced in the Physical Shield road relay in Loughton. Just under 2 miles per leg, hilly hilly, but nothing compared to Beachy Head at the weekend, so lots of fun. Our women's team came third. And I ran the fastest ever time for a VPH woman. Except the officials messed up the scoring and said I'd taken almost 30 seconds longer, and that the woman who ran after me took 30 seconds less than she really did. Boo. At least I have my stopwatch time though, so I know how fast I did it really.

Then last night I went out to the club for my first mid-week steady run in weeks. And it was pure heaven. It was still light out for most of the run, and we did my favourite route, the Limehouse loop. Fabulous. It felt so good that I just went out again and did just under 5 miles, accompanied by Mr. Kanye West. Not KW in person of course, just Late Registration on the mp3 player. Which I rarely ever do when running. But today it was just perfect.

Tonight: Making dinner with CIB
Tomorrow: Meeting W to visit the slave ship Zong and wander round Borough market. Then I might even go out with Si and his mates Saturday night, since he's always trying to pull women and I've pointed out that having a woman in the gang will substantially improve his and his mates' chances of pulling. Well, if other women are anything like me it will, anyway. Should be interesting...!
Sunday: Probably going to nip down to Paddock Wood in Kent with AG and AC to do a half marathon. Won't be properly racing, it's just for the fun of it. Because I can, now I'm not doing the marathon. Yay ;-) God I love running!

Over and out. Good weekend y'all.

Marathon dating

So yesterday, what was supposed to be a simple afternoon date of a walk and sunday lunch at a pub turned into 11 (yes eleven!) hours of hanging out, a minor pub crawl, getting takeout in the evening and then watching Manhattan, possibly my all-time favouritest movie ever, and amazingly, CIB had never seen it before. We actually got on really well, for the whole 11 hours. So it was good.

Unfortunately, today I ache really badly. Went to Eastbourne for one half of my running club's endurance training weekend on Saturday. Close to 12 miles of hill running over Beachy Head/Seven Sisters in the morning. Quick lunch. 1 hour of HARD circuit training at gym. Jog back from gym (about 4 miles). More food. Train home. Next day: PAIN. Today: SEVERE PAIN! I can't even stretch out my arms, my poor biceps are so sore, and walking down stairs is tough. I'm just glad I didn't stay and do the 18-mile hilly long run the next day. Kudos to those who did though...

Got me back into the running spirit tough, the whole marathon-quitting thing made me lose my running mojo just ever so slightly. Now I'm ready for more my next running challenge. Marvellous.

life unravelling

I have this self-destructive streak in me. When life gets too much and I'm too stressed, I kick into this self-destruictive mode. It's like my head tells me that my life is all just too much hard work and no play. So I go out to play instead. Which of course makes life and work even harder because I'm spending the little time I have running about going on dates or getting pissed or stoned and so on, ad nauseum.

So part of this whole sudden drink and dating frenzy is a symptom of me wanting to escape the current confines of my life. I'd started to get sick, a low-level cold-type of thing that never turned into anything full-blown. Sleepless nights, waking tired, feeling like I was going to fall asleep in the middle of assessing the kids. Emotional mood swings (so not me), tears at the slightest provocation. Exhausted. Simply exhausted.

So at 3am, sleepless last Wednesday, I decided I had to prioritise: my sanity, or the marathon. Because I won't get another chance to do this PhD right. I can't let down my OU students. But there will always be another marathon.

I decided there and then not to run the marathon. It's strange how when something that has dictated your life for almost 3 months is removed, you feel a strange emptiness, even though I know it's the only course of action if I were to save my sanity and my physical well-being, not to mention my studies. But at the same time, I felt like a massicve burden had been taken off my shoulders, and a sense of relief washed over me.

Of course, telling all my running friends has meant lots of attempts to change my mind. I appreciate all the support I've got, and in some ways I understand what many of them have been saying: that part of the challenge of the marathon is fitting it all around your work and life commitments. But at the same time, there has to be a point where you can allow yourself to say no. I'm bad enough at saying no as it is, but it's something I need to work on.

Anyway, this week I've had a proper cold, kind of anyway, and I'm allowing myself a week of relaxing. I've got a date on Sunday, this guy is another N so I shall refer to him as CIB instead. Guesses as to what that stands for on a postcard please. More of that anon...

date update

Oh, and the date with N? I had a great time. Haven't heard anything since Friday though. Not even a text. Hmm. Maybe he didn't enjoy it as much as I did...

Boo!

what a surprise

While cyclists and runners alike mourn the loss of our favourite (er, make that only) east end training ground, we find out that of course all the promises made about what we'd get in return is cock and bull. Surprise surprise. The legend of Wembley continues unabated...

some favourite lyrics that make me smile

Cause ya prehistoric raps is borin, the number of whack rappers soarin
like the percentages of teenagers who have abortions
these niggas make they lyrics weak, and they beats is corporate
they try snitchin on records their mouths is leaky faucets
drippin em more persistent than chinese water torture
rippin a series of events, more unfortunate than lemony snicket

From Drugs Basketball and Rap (Talib Kweli)

See my cousin's in the game, thuggin and things
He plugged me with a dame who was half-Mexicano
Gave the ass up, I'ma mack daddy Soprano
She passed me the indigo, but the imbecile
shoulda never tippy-toed, thought my eyes were closed
Openin the hotel room do', to let her goons in
But I moved in a manner, on some Jet Li shit
I let the hammers blow, wet three kids

From Get Down (Nas)

Now I aint sayin she a gold digger
But she aint messin wit no broke niggas
...
She was spose to buy ya shorty tyco with ya money
She went to the doctor got lipo with ya money
She walkin around lookin like Michael with ya money
Shoulda got that insured, GEICO for ya moneeey
If you aint no punk holla We Want Prenupt
WE WANT PRENUPT!, Yeaah
It's something that you need to have
Cause when she leave yo ass she gone leave with half
18 years, 18 years
And on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his

From Gold digger (Kanye West)

We're here to leave your ear hurtin severe
You're lurking in fear
Cause we take it back like Robin Loxley
Rockin from country sides to spots where hard rocks be
...
When I rhyme
I hit the designated area
I hope you got your shots cause this is lyrical malaria
Spreading, beheading fools with the punishment
I live in America but fuck this government
A hundred and fifty times over silk with lead
While y'all drink the similac
My rhymes are breast-fed
No artificial nipples
I flip the real skills
I thought I told you once
I kick the lyrical windmills

From Concrete Schoolyard (Jurassic 5)

I've been dope, suspenseful with a pencil ever since
Prince turned himself into a symbol
...
Though I'm not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do Black Music so selfishly
and use it to get myself wealthy

From Without Me (Eminem)

He looked at me a laughin' said my music would make F.M.
Station. You're Haitian. You'll never get nowhere.
But I sweared on my grandmother grave we'd be here.
So now when I back track
I back track far enough to make a nigga run and leave his tongue back.

From Vocab (Fugees)