BA(stards)

The news on British Airways asking its workforce to work a month for free has popped up in the news again. I can’t help but feel that’s pretty unethical for them even to ask this of the lower paid sectors of the business.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re earning £200,000 a year or whether you’re on minimum wage, when it comes to your income, the first £1000 a month is your most important. That’s the bit that feeds, clothes and houses you. The second £1000 you earn is for fun or for better versions of the essentials but it’s beyond what you need. Any money beyond that is just to feed your self-worth and stop you leaving for another company.

The chief exec, Willie Walsh (who it turns out is NOT a character from the Beano, despite the name) is asking his staff to forego a month’s salary and he himself will do the same. Except he earns a further fifty nine of those cute little thousands every month. That means that in his first month of the financial year he has already covered his basics the next 6 years. The money received during the next 11 months of the year are nothing but fun and extras.  I’d say someone like him can easily afford to forego a month’s salary.  He has covered his life essentials in less than a week’s pay. Someone who is earning less than £14,000 on the other hand has not. In fact, after tax they don’t even clear that first grand a month, so BA is asking far more of them than of him. So that’s unethical for a start and it stinks. (I don’t work for BA by the way, but this riles me anyway).

Add to that, when the company is hit by hard times, it asks the people who work for it to take a hit, but when BA is having a surge of profit, do the lower paid sectors of the business get to enjoy bonuses?  Not really. Bonus schemes are typical among higher paid positions and atypical in the lower.  When times are good, the top benefit from the boom while the bottom do not. Also, during boom times, the salaries at the top get bigger but this does not always trickle down to lower sectors of a company. It’s a one-way street where this money is concerned.

I just think that Willie Walsh dropping a month’s salary compared to someone doing the same on only £14,000 a year is laughable. It’s so Marie Antoinette of him!

It’s like someone fasting of all food and water for 24 hours for a cause compared to someone giving up cake for a day. The two are not the same.

suggest a blog name competition

I’ve been doing lots more thinking about the current situation and talking with the Sous Chef and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is marvellous news that just sounded a bit scary.

Originally, the Sous Chef was going to work for one more year,  save for that year and then, with that extra money put a loft extension in (no, I don’t know why, either) and then travel. That was the plan. The change of plan from this redundancy is that he doesn’t work until summer 2010 but that we go Feb 2010 and instead of the extra savings, we take the redundancy money to fund the trip.  I also have a small nest egg that will give us enough to get by on for up to year upon our return to Blighty. It’s not enough for a comfortable year but its enough to ward off starvation in the event  we can’t find work, which I’m sure we will of some sort.

The more I think about this, the less afraid I get. How many people ever get the chance to do something like this? How many people can just throw everything up in the air and go on an expedition around the world? Now’s the time to do it. Now is the time to do something with that wonderful thing called LIFE before it passes by. I loved the experience of cycling in India. I’m beginning to think The Sous Chef deliberately did that: choosing to go to India just to test my mettle and see whether I can cope with being on the road day in, day out in all that chaos – not to mention whether our relationship could take it.

At the moment our relationship is extremely strong so although it might well test us as a couple, I’m reasonably sure we can weather that.  Our relationship started off a bit unstable for the first 6 months (I was insecure. I loved him to pieces but didn’t believe he could possibly love me back). Then I learned to trust him and we’ve been solid ever since. This relationship has changed me. We’ve not been together all that long.  It feels like we’ve been together for decades and should be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary, but actually we’ve known each other only four and a half years and have been a couple for three and a half. We’ve been lovebirds all through that and have enormous respect for each other. I often feel this is the best relationship anyone could ever possibly hope to have. How we managed to make it this good is beyond me. Loving each other helps but it has to be more than that.  There is something we do, some way we interact that works well for the other person, who then reciprocates.  I know I can always rely on him being fair, being reasonable. I am often amazed at how fair and reasonable we can be even on issues we disagree on.

I have learned a lot from him. I’ve learned that it’s ok to have feelings, and that my opinions are worth something (I always used to keep both under wraps). I’ve learned that talking about something bothering you early is better than letting it go round and round your mind. You can build up some pretty hefty misconceptions and false logic given enough time to run in circles.  I’ve found myself to have got the wrong end of the stick a few times.  Most importantly, I have learned to trust him. My trust had been broken by a previous man and it took a while for me to be completely sure he really is a totally different animal to him.  He has never done anything to hurt me nor given me reason to think he would. That trust I have in him  (I don’t just mean in fidelity. I trust him to be to kind, to be fair, to be honest, to be there) is one ingredient in the glue that holds us together. I more than love him. I have deep respect for him. I have complete acceptance of him. I don’t think he is perfect but his imperfections are part of the whole package. My heart could not have chosen better.

ok, enough of the sappy stuff.  I’d like to set up a website and/or blog to chart our progress, give the concerned friends and rellies a place to check where we are, what we’re doing and how it’s going.  Suggestions for names of this blog and/or website would be greatly appreciated.

I can’t decide whether the news of the Sous Chef’s redundancy is bad news or good.

On the one hand, he wasn’t happy at his job and actually wants to go and do something completely different. He wants out of I.T.  I can’t say I blame him. If I were to wave a magic wand and give him his ideal job I’d probably make him an abseiling instructor or something. That’s how I see him and he has a great manner with kids of various ages.  Unfortunately there is a long queue of experienced scout leaders and youth workers who would be ahead of him. He has also never abseiled, as far as I know – but I still reckon he’d love that sort of job and be really good at it.

We can live on a smaller income than we’ve been on these past few years. It’s not as if we’ve been living at our  means. We’ve lived below them for a while and as neither of us is into status symbols and don’t have kids to worry about it, we can live on a smaller income that many of his colleagues could. He earns quite well but we  can live on less without it hurting too much.

But I’m afraid of this large, unknown future. When we go on our round-the-world bicycle trip we will be entirely unfettered and free which is great but also terrifying.  Normally you go away but you have a home to go back to. When you’re done cycling about, you come home and carry on life as normal. This time around there is no job, potentially no house and what do you do then?  We could go away, come back and – nothing.  It feels like taking all the playing pieces off the board and having to start again.

That scares me.  I don’t know why it should. I’ve done relocating to a new country clutching only one suitcase and cabin luggage several times before . I’ve started from almost zero a few times and somehow that can be very liberating and exciting, but I’ve always had a little bit of a safety net.  There has always been a starting square,  a roof over my head, someone to meet me at the airport. I’ve never looked a year into the future and seen me as just a bit of drift wood.

But here is our plan: The sous chef works until the end of August and I will continue with my job as normal. I finish my degree in January 2010 so we could actually begin our RTW (round the world) trip in February. I’ll quit my job (or beg for a sabbatical) and we cycle RTW for a year. We come back February 2011 maybe back to his house (if we haven’t sold it or are renting it out) and we both start looking for work. I’m supposed to do a career change into psychology around then and TSC has no idea what he’ll be doing. The idea is, I become the one with the greater earning potential. God knows how I’ll find work in this new field, but I am sure I could rely on my admin experience to get temp jobs or something for the first few months back in UK while I scout around for something in my new field.

It all just seems so unclear. Career change/address change/life change. I’m actually terrified.

uh oh

The Sous Chef has had a visit from HR at his office today. That’s generally not a good sign, so I’m not hugely surprised by the news that his team are going to be either redeployed or made redundant.

He’s been at that job for more then ten years now and it’s been so convenient that he could cycle to work every day. He lives an easy 12 mile cycle ride away from his office. But more than that, we share our cycle routes as he cycles right past where I work. That means we get to cycle into work together like the love birds we are each morning and meet up to cycle home again at 5.30, just about every working day.

We also depend on his salary. I earn peanuts doing my admin job, as my contract is term time only and a mere 30 hours per week at that. My monthly pay packet is a three figure sum. If he can’t find something that pays reasonably, I’ll probably have to quit my job to find something better paid. It suited me for its easy working hours, while I concentrated on studies. It’s not enough to live on.

But I don’t feel bleak about the news of the Sous Chef’s redundancy. He hasn’t enjoyed his job for years and the only reason he hasn’t already left is because he’s supporting me through my degree before we go on our world trip on our bikes next year. He decided to stay in his reasonably well paid job despite hating it in order to build up a travel fund for our trip. He’s been putting away half his salary every month toward that. I have also been saving half of my earnings (yes, one half peanut every month) to be the cushion for when we return.  I hope we don’t have to dip into that to live on. We can live quite frugally, since we don’t run a car.

At least it’s a job he hates. I’ve been made redundant quite a few times and it’s always been a good thing in hindsight. The uncertainty is nervewracking but opportunities come up. I’ve never lost a job I shouldn’t have jacked in already anyway. I’ve always gone on to do better and more interesting things.  It’s a bit like being a plant and not realising you needed repotting.

But the uncertainty IS neverwracking. We can’t just up and and go travelling until my exams are finished. I don’t complete my final course for my BSc until January. That is the earliest we can go.

I haven’t had a long chat with him yet about what next or how he feels about it. I should think he has mixed feelings about this as I do. I have to admit, despite an optimistic bent, I also feel a bit frightened.

Why do I care?

So it’s nearly the end of May. The month I had set aside to get to love my lardy arse. How well have I been doing? Well aside from the caressing my lovely body every morning in the shower, as if I’m advertising the shower gel on telly,  I also started to take note of how I talked to myself about myself and let me tell you: I can be a real bitch to me, sometimes. How can I be nice as pie to others and so catty about myself? I don’t have a body as such, I’m just a bunch of flaws. Well now not so much. I have saddlebags and they are as personal to me as my eyebrows.

I still lavish my wobbly bits with the care they deserve and have become a little more accepting of them, although I still have bad days, I have to admit. I can walk naked around the house in front the Sous Chef with complete confidence, although I remain afraid of him catching a glimpse of my behind (lest he turn to stone) so it’s full frontal nudity only as yet but I’m working on it.

Now, this might make me a raging hypocrite (go ahead, judge) but while I’ve been addressing these body image issues, I’ve also been working on losing some extra pounds (even though I’m not overweight – yeah, I know) and amazingly I have lost a bit (I’m not saying how much, cos that’s not important. Suffice to say it’s more than 1lb but less then 10, so no worrying that I’m wasting away or anything, ok?)

I weighed myself recently and was a bit disappointed with seeing the same old numbers despite my efforts. I get really close to an arbitrary ‘wished-for’ number only to bounce back upwards sharply, having it snatched from my reach.

Then I thought: c’mon, this isn’t going to matter in a few week’s time. I realised I’ve become accustomed to seeing a certain number as a high one and yet I used to think of it as a low number. Heck, I was once MUCH  heavier than that (September 2008). I wasn’t a worse person then, so why the worry? The only thing that’s changed is time. If  today’s number is a ‘bad number’ today, why did I think good a month ago? What makes it so bad today?

So I’m just not gonna sweat this and just carry on as I’ve been doing. It’s not like I’m gaining weight, so I don’t have to change anything. Even if how much I weigh now turns out to be an absolute and I never get below it , I’ll just have to accept that my body has its reasons for not wanting to go under that, and what I want is not necessarily what is right or good for me.

I have to remember that in terms of health and body composition, I’m in pretty good shape. In terms of the fashion industry and media-perpetuated ideal of womanhood, I am not. But which of those two is the more important? Ok, we know the answer, so why does part of me still cling to the belief that fitting into the second category will make me happier, will complete my life or make it better somehow? It cannot be true. Beauty is too heavily influenced by the fickle moodswings of Fashion. Unlike clothing manufacturers and designers’ creations, body and shape cannot keep up with the rapid changes of fashion that pretends it’s version of ‘good’ is some universal truth (until the next big idea).

In the twenties, women were supposed to be flat-chested and have ironing-board type figures: no curves, no waist. In the forties, curves were back. In the fifties, curves were mandatory. In the seventies and eighties, slim was the thing but with some generosity up top. In the nineties you had to be ‘toned’ (what a word to use!). By the turn of the millenium you were supposed to be very thin (childlike, almost) and curves were sidelined again.

Also, let’s not forget that the art of airbrushing have put the standards into a whole new league. Even the photogenic classes who make their living by the camera cannot reach those standards anymore. (Mind you, image manipulation is nothing new. Photographers employed all sorts of tricks with lenses, lighting, shadows, angles and some dark-room techniques to create flawless movie stars – think of the soft-toned, flawless skin of the photos of Rita Hayworth and the like – photoshop just widens the palette of changes you can make).

And yet I cling to this idea that 10 stone is a superior me to one who weighs 11 stone. That’s quite a ridiculous notion when you think about it. A person is a complex bundle of different things. Weight is just a statistic that applies to the body part of me. There is baggage in there from my father (who openly thinks women should be slim and how dare they not be.  As if women’s bodies are there for his delectation!). He’s not hidden his disapproval of my weight gain in the past (it’s been a reoccuring thing sincemy teens). In fact he admitted he thought I looked better in the days when I know I was recovering from anorexia and was borderline underweight – that fact alone should remind me he’s not worth taking notice of in this area).

Another part of me wonders whether conforming to an idealised womanly body (regardless of time/culture or the shape/size in question) is actually about social status. Women have a rank and part of that rank is linked to her physical attractiveness (this is also true for men, but I argue to a lesser extent). Women are judged, ranked and ordered (and controlled) by their appearance, be it face, hair style, body shape/size and how she dresses (being glamorous for example). These are ways we manipulate our social status. Being nearer to the ideal puts you in a higher rank than being further from it. Rank is not solely based on appearance but alpha females tend to be the more attractive in a group – this is especially true in high school, before careers, life choices and wealth can play too big a part.

If it is true, that appearance strongly influences social status, it would explain why women are so preoccupied with their appearance (turns out, it actually IS important) and why we’re so hierarchical about it (always comparing, always judging), and more concerned with our own bodies (your vehicle for status) than other people’s. Of course I don’t mind if my sister is 5 lbs heavier, I love her whatever she weighs. But she minds because it affects her status. My younger (slimmest, dancer’s body) sister certainly wields her body as an instrument of power over her less perfect siblings. It gives her a confidence over us. Considering she’s always been the baby, I am sure she particularly enjoys that sense of power now. She and my bigsis in particular have been competitive about their bodies. (I was always too fat to be part of the game, so it didn’t involve me at all – I’m both sore and glad about that).

What a funny world we live in. Women in particular

this is what I’m talking about

Cycling in Chennai (India)

In our collection of cycling holiday photos, we have a number of  unflattering shots of my arse spilling generously over a bicycle saddle. Because I’m the slower cyclist, I tend to be in front and the Sous Chef takes snaps of our little cycling trips as we go along, without me knowing. It’s not until we upload back home that I see, with horror, the view he gets most trips. The next one was taken in Germany two years ago. My arse is nearly as wide as the panniers! I’m carrying more luggage on my rump than on my bike.

.

Germany, August 2007

 I really wish he wouldn’t do it. The result is always so mortifying. I’ve yet to see an acceptable picture of my bee-hind

Here I catch him at it:

Hey!

but the worst of all photos wasn’t even taken on a bike:

so there you have it. These are the worst photos of me on file. I suppose on balance they could be worse and I should be thankful that I have legs strong enough to carry myself, my bike, my panniers (and my arse) all around the world.  Function over form, I guess.

Body Image

I’ve long had issues with my body. My physical flaws have been something I am continually aware of every single day, and have been so since I was about 13. Body image has stopped me doing things I enjoy (such as swimming. I’ve also refused to go snorkelling and scuba diving in tropical waters, I’ve been put off waterskiing, lots of fun things I won’t do because my appearance bothers me). I think this is fairly common. Unlike boys, whose physical change at puberty involves getting closer to the masculine ideal (increased muscle mass, height etc) for girls it means gaining fat around the thighs and buttocks, which is further away from the feminine ideal of slim. Apart from the chest area, I think most pubescent girls would happily be rid of every extra ounce of fat gained as a result of puberty. Telling them it’s ‘natural’ doesn’t make any difference. Fat is BAD.

Now, I’ve been a pear shape (inherited from grandma) all my adult life. Although I have never been overweight, I have often felt hideously fat. Again I don’t think I am that different from the majority of women, who mostly seem to, when asked in surveys, want to lose ‘just a few pounds’. Irrespective of what they weigh, for most women it’s always just a bit too much.

My own body image is a problem. I know this because I used to be anorexic. I recently had a relapse. I kicked myself back into line after three days but it shocked me into thinking about it again. The anorexia was years ago. I didn’t know it at the time, I did not think of myself as being anorexic and it was not to do with losing weight or being thin, but I did at times think: wow, I eat hardly anything at all and yet I’m still the same size as ever. If I were to ever go to eating like normal people, I’d be as big as a house!’. I figured that all those obese people out there were obese because they had bodies as fat-storing as mine but were eating normally (whereas I was eating about twice a week if that).

I remember looking into a mirror once as I was trying on some trousers and finding my body revolting. I did not know what size I was and in Indonesia, things tended to be labeled just S, M or L. I tended to wear L. Not owning any scales or tape measure, not having a size guide I had no idea I was actually a bit on the thin side.

It wasn’t until I got back to UK and noticed the appalled reaction of my family to how thin I’d got that it dawned on me that I was. There had been clues but I’d dismissed them. I looked fat to me, didn’t I?

Nowadays, I am about 15kg (over 2 stone) heavier and yet look exactly the same to myself as I did then. Not even a bigger version but exactly the same. Something is amiss here. Because I’ve been underweight, I know weight is not my issue. It’s not going to solve the problem or make me feel better. No matter how thin I get, I’ll feel just as I did when underweight and ‘fat’.

If I’m honest, what I hate most about my body is my pear shape. I have saddlebags (there, I said it!) and cellulite (!!)  (a  fact now published on the internet for all eternity). I don’t want to keep hating my body. I want to be one of those people who can slap their fat arse and say”I LOVE my body!!”

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning (in the buff) as part of my body image issues. I’ve decided May is my month to learn to love those jiggly thighs and those saddlebags I have. If I don’t judge other people for their physical flaws, why hate myself for mine? Why should I despise my saddlebags if I don’t berate someone for having a tummy? Where you fat is deposited is a matter of genetics. Being SO lean as to not have fat deposits at ALL is not necessarily desirable, either. I wouldn’t want to be rail thin. I know from experience that no matter how thin (even rail thin) I get I never lose my saddlebags. Dieting away saddlebags is as impossible as dieting away your boobs (fortunately another fat deposit that is also stubborn to weightloss – lucky me!) Sure, they’ll get bigger or smaller but they’ll always be there. So my mission is to deal with that. I’ve been trawling the net looking for ways to improve body image.

The positive self-talk suggested, I find that a bit nauseating so doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t want to force it. I despise false compliments. I never give them to others so I’m not going to start giving false compliments to myself, either. What kind of a fool do I take me for? However, there are some exercises I do want to try and these seem like the ones for me:

1. stand in front of a mirror in undies or naked and note where you eyes zone in. You’ll know where that is before you do this but it’s good to do it anyway.

2. now look around. Look at the OTHER areas that you’re ok with and so never go off to check out. For me, that’s my feet, my arms, my shoulders, my neck, my face, my chest, my hands. I noted the curve of my waist as it becomes my hips. I looked at my overall shape (rather than just looking at the lower half of me) I noted my nice shoulders and ribcage. The generous breasts and how these and my shoulders do even out the hips a little. Because I always focused in on the lower portion of me, I never noticed this balancing effect. By cropping it out of my view, I’d cut it out of consideration.I also have a nice neck and jawline. My collarbones are nice. When I stand up straight, I look pretty good, actually.

3. Touch the areas you despise. The site recommended rubbing in body lotion. I don’t have any body lotion so did this as I was lathering up in the shower. Do it nicely, with the care you’d show someone you love. For me that means soaping the the thighs, the hips, the knees, the bottom. I hate these areas but I began to notice how smooth my skin is. All my boyfriends have commented on my skin being very soft and lovely. Now I was feeling it for myself. I DO have soft skin. It’s a lovely colour, too -it’s dimply of course but hey, so what? The old me would have thought adjectives like: blubbery, flabby, bulgeing, fat, disgusting, hideous but now I started to think of words like generous, womanly, soft. I realised how this layer of fat I have, as I am a woman, is what makes me soft and nice to cuddle into.

The word woman started to sound nice to me. I’m not a girl any more, I am a woman. That word carried a mothering, loving, warm feeling. Again, I heard the echoes of what boyfriends had told me, about how nice it is to snuggle into me, soft and squidgey. Comforting and wonderful. I realised I do not want to be hard and boney. I should be pleased that I have this curvy body, generous in places that the woman’s body is known for its generosity.

I started to think about the media images we are all exposed to (even though I refuse to buy or read wimmin’s mags). I began think how models, actresses, singers are chosen for how they appear in clothing and on film or in print. We seem them all the time but never meet them. Their role is entirely 2D . I, on the other hand, am a 3-dimensional person. I must live in my body and interact with the world and with other people. My life is not just to pose and have pictures taken, static and perfect (at least from this angle, with this light). My life is not static, My life is not taken in pictures. I am me and I am made up of more than my appearance. I am my movement, my stance, my speech. I am how I swing my arms, I am my stride, I am the pitch and tone of my voice, I am my laughter. I am my thoughts, my feelings, my reactions. I am many things and my appearance is only one part of that. And my thighs are only one part of that one part. Why did I think this so important?

Of course, I have to continue with this self-accepting attitude. I can easily let it slip away. I realise I am not just comparing myself to picture perfect models and actresses but also to other people in my real, 3D world but surely for me to strive to have their figure is as ridiculous as to strive to have their face, or their ears or their height. I have what is mine. They have what is theirs. My job is to love having what I have and to allow them to have what they have.

So May is my month of self-acceptance. I feel I’ve already made progress in just one day.

the meaning of life

In our office we have two mothers, there is also me (not a mother but would like to be in a year’s time or so) and one anti-mother. This is the person who, when I spoke to one colleague about wanting to start a family with the Sous Chef said, “oh, so you’ve joined the breeders, then”.

There are multiple reasons not to want to have children. People might feel they would not make a good enough parent (how ironic that to have had this thought in the first place means you’d probably be good enough – it’s the ones who never even considered this important who really are the bad parents). Another reason might be that they worry it would affect their quality of life adversely (again, a considered and honest reason. They are also probably right that it will, initially. If you don’t think you want to do it, don’t). Old anti-mother however used to old chestnut: I think the world is already overpopulated. I’m not going to add to the problem.

Oh, the altruism. What a saint this person is. I am sure her efforts really will save the planet.

The planet is very heavily populated with people. A plague, practically. We should all feel guilty for being here. We’re destroying the place. We are a bad bad bad species. So I ask: are we?

When a patch of lichen grows on a tombstone, it gets bigger and bigger and starts to cover it and destroys the stone underneath. Should that lichen really feel guilty for its existence? It’s just being lichen. It is being and doing only what a being does. As human beings, we are just being human and living as humans, doing as humans do and continuing on in a way to ensure humans will continue to be. We are living beings and that is what living beings (from bacteria to elephants) do. Life, in all its forms, be it single celled or complex, is something which will always find a way. It is ridiculous that one (or a group or a species) of organisms imbued with this thing called life, should feel  guilty or wrong for existing with it. We do not have life. Life has us.

This takes me to: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? My answer to those two questions is very similar: the meaning of life is to continue life and we are here in order to continue life. We are here to fulfill the meaning of life.  Procreation is part of that, but you do not have to procreate in order to fulfill the meaning of life. Just living has done that. Just being born did that. Just affecting the procreating living beings (and not just of your species) did that. A bigger contribution would be to continue life more directly. I was born human, so I can only produce another human. I can support a puppy but I can only make a human.

When a volcano erupts, its lava flowing down the sides, destroying all living things: plant life, animal life, everything is destroyed.  We can see the scars left behind when the magma cools and only dead rock remains. We lament the destruction of life. Oh what a disaster this was to all the living inhabitants of that mountainside. But go back 20 years later and you see life returns. Plants, small animals, little things, eking out a living somehow. Life, wonderful life, the miracle that is life fights and finds a way. When we see life returning to the destroyed volcano, we’re glad. There is something about life that seems to, given even a quarter of a chance, rebuild itself and carry on. Changed in its forms, of course, but life nonetheless. And that is the point.

So why do we claim for ourselves the arrogant idea that we should or shouldn’t be here in our numbers? Who are we to decide that? We are not all that different to a patch of lichen and are harbouring ideas far above our station if we think we have control over it or can judge it through a moral lense.

All living things, by the ebb and flow of evolution, are driven to carry on this thing called life. We pass the baton, from one generation to the next. When the times are good and conditions are right, a species will flourish. When the numbers cannot be maintained, competition grows and numbers reduce. Evolution is driven by the boom and bust. The easy days (or years, or millenia) of a  boom allow a wide variety of exemplars to be born and a genetic variation here, a mutation there is not much of a burden or disadvantage. Genetic variety is high. So what if you have bumps on your back? You might have big bumps, or small bumps. You might have movable bumps or bumps that stick out quite far, or both.  Nearly everyone gets to live and breed and bumps don’t stand in anyone’s way. Then comes the bust, competition is high, large sections of living things cannot make it.  But there is enormous variety now. Some of the varieties, for a myriad of reasons, survive. Some varieties, even if similar, do not. The one with two big movable bumps survives. The one with a no bumps at all survives. For some reason, the middle sized bumps don’t make it.  Repeat this and you might someday have something akin to wings, as long as those bumps were a bit useful somehow during the harsh times.

All this change only happens because of the boom. Life must always make hay while the sun shines. If it didn’t, it would be too weak to survive the disasters. Even if we humans are overpopulating the planet, even if  we are heading for some sort of massive correction in the numbers of our species, which will undoubtedly cause suffering for large numbers of our kind in the future, it is unpreventable. It is lunacy to try to consciously stop something which life does, has always done and always will do. Our best bet is to add our drop in the ocean.  Do what we, as a living being, are destined to do. We do not have life. Life has us. You place your bet on the roulette wheel, give it a spin, and die. That’s your part and them’s the rules.

Put a fork in it: this essay is DONE

Somehow I managed to finish the essay. It took a little tweaking and editing this morning but I had it sent off by noon. There were plenty of moments during its creation when I thought the essay was impossible to finish.  Now I just have to wait for the results (and get on with planning the qualitative project).

Perhaps not in entirely unrelated ways, I’m back to my old eating patterns again and I have oodles of energy as a result. In fact, I was overtaking some poor soul on the Big Hill home. I was zooming up it, pedalling  at 8mph (normally I go up that hill at about 5 mph). It won’t last of course. It’s a blip I knew was coming but it’s still very enjoyable.

The other enjoyable thing is the euphoria. My mood is high, despite the study-stress and today I was even enjoying moments of complete self-acceptance. Basically, it just felt good to be me. Plain me. Little me. Nothing-special me but it was good to BE me. That’s the sort of feeling everyone deserves. Why do we tend to listen to our negative voice? You know the one: the nagging voice, the one that tells us how we’re not measuring up.  The one who reminds of our failures and shortcomings. The one that points to others as being better in some way.  That voice was silent today. It’s been great. I just wish I could feel like this all the time.

I have a blog? oh yeah!

13th October was my last post?! really?!

Well, since then I’ve cycled around South India (incredible) , passed that exam (80% – *polishes nails on collar*), have started the next (and final big) course.

This one is Critical Social Psychology and let me tell you it’s got me gnawing at my mouse-mat already. I’m a science kinda gal. I like evidence and hypotheses. This course requires me to read a lot of fluff and nonsense, clouded in post-modernistic language. I’ve nearly given up on this blasted course for turning my mind to mush. You have to get your head around some philosophical thinking and chase your tail for a bit before it starts to make sense. (I am told. It still doesn’t make all that much sense).

Sadly, I got my lowest TMA score so far in my OU career and I’ve got a big qualitative project to do in early summer. I tend to do very badly on qualitative stuff so I expect to get even lower marks this year. *sigh* there goes my first. I had hoped I could get a distinction this year. If I could manage that, I’d have a first but it looks like a 2:1 or worse will be the most likely.  I guess that’s not too shabby, either.

Anyway, I am actually procrastinating as I have TMA 02 that is due tomorrow and I’ve written about 1850 words of it so far. 150 left to go (it’s a terrible essay by the way but as I said, a first is now pretty much out of the question).