Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is such a good movie. I recommend it :) Its original and really beautifully shot.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Christmas has been fun this year. It snowed and the lights are pretty :) It also helps to have people here who have never seen a lot of the things I consider normal...you kind of end up sharing their wonderment.

Friday, December 24, 2004

I feel like my optimism is slowly slipping away. I would still call myself an optimist, but so many people around me are pessimistic, I can feel it eating away at me sometimes.

I refuse to become a pessimist though. That's not a change I'm willing to undergo. At least I'm aware of it. I think I'm going to make an extra effort to be optimistic. I think it makes you a happier person. Well, it definitely makes me a happier person. :)
I've lived in the same village/town my whole life, going from one end to the other when we moved house. Up until 3 or 4 years ago, it was pretty much as it had always been in my memory, but lately recently I've noticed it being taken over by corporate businesses, and I don't like it!

The 1st thing that came was a blockbuster and tesco express, which is undeniably useful, but I would have preferred something less, well, corporate I suppose. I was happy with it though, becuase there had been talk of a Mcdonalds for the plot of land, which would have been even worse in my opinion.

Next came the redevelopment of a petrol station, which became a Domino's and something else I can't remember. A Pizza Hut has now sprung up too. That doesn't sound so bad, but because of their arrival, the more local pizza place had to shut down.

In the shopping precint down the road, all the shops used to be small chains or local ones. Oxfam and somerfield were probably the only big names. There is also a Monkhouses, which is huge, but sells sportswear and school uniforms, and has been vital to lots of parents in South Manchester! Even they have sold a part of their shop to 'Bargain Booze'. eugh.

The local newsagent in the precint, which has had the same old man in it for years has now become massive! He looks odd in there now, and all it sells is bits and bobs in large quantities, nothing better thna they used to sell. A clothes store has even appeared, and ok the clothes are kind of 30ish to middle aged, but it has proper fitting rooms! This is no village shop!

They're also trying to turn our next door neighbours house into a block of flats. (Next door have agreed to this) We've already objected once, but they've re-applied again. I just hope its not some concrete/brick monstrosity.

The final straw, is that I've heard they might be building on the one bit of land that is still green here. Its open fields with a river, and I couldn't bear to see it go. I don't know if its true. I'll have to go down and check to make sure, but at the rate things have been changing lately, I wouldn't be entirely surprised.

I think when I'm older, I'm going to live in a small village, that is near a town but surrounded by countryside. Ideally it would also be near the sea, and will take years for any massive corporate national businesses to take over. Hmm.
Do you ever get a sense of detachment? Like your life is happening to someone else and you are just a bystander. Even though I'm going out and making some of the things I want happen, I still feel cut off, slightly different from everyone else.
It's almost as if I'm walking around in a glass box, that no one knows is there because they can all see through it. What they don't realise is that it stops people getting through to the real me. People have come painfully close to breaking through my perceived glass box, but I don't think anyone has ever carried it through. Maybe I have let people see/touch the real me. Maybe I won't know until it happens.

I think everyone probably has a glass box of some sort, just of different strength and thickness glass.

Jeez, I do come up with some odd analagies.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

wow, I have too many things to say today, and they're totally unrelated to each other. But by the time you've read this one, you'll probably have read the others seeing as it publishes the last post at the top. Oh well.

I'll be impressed if you get this far though. That's quite a rant up there.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

She had, like so many others, spent her life placing her painful memories away into a little box. It was actually quite a pretty box as she imagined it; painted white wood with red and yellows swirls.
Each time a memory was stored away after a while so she could carry on with her life without constantly dwelling on the sadness in it. It allowed her to focus and surround herself with the good things, to be grateful for those.

This is how she'd survived it all, how she had appeared fine to the outside world and small talk people. Indeed, she still appeared fine. There was no reason to change her personal method of survival. It had worked until now and would most likely work for the rest of her life too.

However, the little box that already contained so much, and would no doubt accumulate more, wasn't always secure. Each experience brought an extra lock, each with corresponding keys and combinations. Only one was needed to open it, and once open, it is hard not to see the rest of the contents, so desparately locked in. It takes years of practise to ignore their cries for release.

But this girl had not had years of practise, not nearly enough anyway. Few people ever feel like they have ever had enough practise at dealing with the hard things in life; a good thing in a way.

It took only a smell or a word to open the box sometimes. Today it was the colour of a shirt she had noticed. There was no reason for anyone in the room to suspect it as a key; no one there was even aware of a box. Even your closest friends will never know everything about you.

Anyone who looked carefully at her then, would have noticed a glazed looked of melancholy come over her, if only for a second or two. In that second however, the memories and all their feelings passed before her eyes: Friends with broken lives, the deaths of loved ones, a grown man crying on his knees before God because there was no one else who could help, the tears she has shared with her lost best friend, the months of happiness she'd had lost with a single sentence, the starving child at her feet, knowing there were thousands more that she could never feed or help.
All these, maybe more passed before her eyes, as I said, we can never truly know a person's complete thoughts.

An instant later, she had blinked and re-adjusted her hair. The glaze had gone, the memories pushed back in. To the people around, nothing had happened. Even for her it was just a few seconds of thought that had passed in one day out of thousands, maybe as insignificant to world as she felt they were.

Monday, December 20, 2004

We put up the Christmas tree yesterday. Its been more fun this year, since
a) we have a real one (as our plastic one seems to be missing one of its 3 legs)

b) I have 2 cousins from India here, so not only do I have people my own age, but people for whom Christmas is new! Its never quite as fun with my brother cos he always wants to do things alone. It'll be good to have him here for Christmas day though.

Our house is full up at the moment so its hard to get time to myself, but it is fun to have people my own age here like I said, haven't had that for the past 3 or 4 years. The dogs seem happy too :)

Strange though, I still feel kind of alone. Think I need to get back in touch with my friends from home properly and throw myself into everything I need to do/sort out this holiday. Just need to keep myself busy :)
Well, got back from the skiing trip in south France on Saturday after a 16 hour coach journey and Ferry accross the channel. Was loads of fun, even if I was terrified almost to the point of tears on the 1st day (possibly also to do with the incredibly painful boots). After that 1st day though I started to enjoy it a lot more (having changed my boots!). Would have liked to have been better at it, although I did get a spectacular fall into my trip, involving crashing into 3 people (ok, maybe 4, I didn't count). Both my skis, hat, goggles and glove all came off as I fell, luckily I didn't injure anyone else, and I only got a bruise on one arm!
I'd got the hang of it by the end of the week though, although I think I have to come to the conclusion that I'm not a natural skier!

That aside, the views were amazing. Our balcony looked straight out onto one of the mountains. I've never seen scenery like that before. It was stunning when the sun rose above one of the peaks in the morning (yes, I was up that early!).

It didn't snow at all until the thursday night (we left friday night). The snow was so sparkly and powdery though, it looked almost fake when on the ground. It was as if someone had sprinkled glitter all over everything. It was so soft and powdery, we couldn't even make snow balls with it, and if you did manage to compact it, it just disintegrated mid air. We made do with snow angels though :)

It snowed most of Friday too, and was still snowing when we left. So all in all had a fantabulous time, got to use a bit of French, looked sexy in our thermals(!), got a bit drunk, lost my debit card for a day and half, saw some amazing views, made snow angels in the midnight snow, and of course, learned to ski.

:)

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Note to self: Must not turn into Bridget Jones!
ok, ok I admit it. I am totally and utterly smitten and in love. Only problem, is its with 2, not just one!

But I guess its ok, seeing as they're only my dogs :)