Jun 10th, 2009 | A Day In The Life | 8 Comments
I’m here to do one of the ‘why I’ve been away for a while’ type posts again. I wish I wasn’t, but there’s been so much going on lately!
1) My Birthday: It was my birthday at the beginning of the week and I spent a lot of time getting ready for it, enjoying it, then recovering from it!
I’m now 22 and looking back on the last year is like a blur; as I said in my last post, the year has gone so quickly. One commenter said that time flies after 21. I was also told this by my auntie when I turned 21, and started to notice just how true it was almost straight away. Definitely a constant reminder to enjoy the moment and spend your time on things that make you happy.
2) The Sims 3: I know some of the readers here are also fans of the Sims, in which case you will understand my absense! I received the Sims a couple of days before my birthday and, to my surprise, it actually works on my laptop! I’ve been enjoying playing it, unfortunately to the detriment of other areas of my life.
One great thing that’s come out of getting the Sims 3 is that my boyfriend has enjoyed playing it with me! It’s so fun to play the game together. Just great to share it - since I often feel guilty and like I’ve wasted time when I play the Sims for hours. When that time is also spent bonding with my boyfriend, it’s not so bad 
So I just want to say thank you for your comments and I am sorry I haven’t caught up on your blogs! I miss spending time blogging like I did in May. I just need to learn how to juggle life and the Sims 3!
Jun 1st, 2009 | A Day In The Life | 11 Comments
This time last June I was finishing my last ever philosophy exam and about to finish university. I was planning to go on holiday, and find a job and accommodation as soon as I got back.
Of course, it took around 10 months for the accommodation to actually work out. Luckily I fell into writing work which has loads of benefits, not least the fact that I don’t have to go on the dole (unlike many of my university coursemates!)
But it really is scary to think of how quickly that year’s gone by. I feel as though I’ve changed so much, all for good. But I’m also starting to realise that this is how life is - it moves quickly without you realising. I know I’ve got to make the most of it. It’s hard when I don’t really know what I want.
It really scares me that it’s been a year since last June, but I’m pretty much happy with where I am right now.
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The end of May was a bit quiet for me. A week ago I said goodbye to my brother who was off on his travels to America, and this weekend I went on a trip to London. Poor excuses, but I was out of my blogging rhythm. I’m still happy with the writing I did through May, and the fantastic bloggers I connected with. I’m going to have to make some time this week to catch up on all your posts!
May 21st, 2009 | A Day In The Life | 8 Comments
This month was (and still is) my ‘blogging month‘. It’s certainly worked so far. I’ve been blogging a lot more, about topics that mean a bit more than ‘I don’t feel like blogging’ or whatever else pops into my head. I’ve also been reading loads more blogs and generally expanding my mind!
Nevertheless, I’m taking a short blogging break. My brother is going to America for four months on Sunday (to work at summer camps and travel around afterwards), so today I’m going back home to my parents and brother and staying until we see him off at the airport at around 8am on Sunday.
We’re not that close, and I find it hard to accept the way he sees things and treats me at times (but then that’s fairly common for a brother and sister, close in age!). I’m hoping the trip might make him appreciate me a little more! Maybe I’ll appreciate him a little more too.
So carry on reading and blogging and Tweeting and I’ll catch up with you early next week.
May 19th, 2009 | A Day In The Life, Imagine | 15 Comments
I wrote this on scrap of paper during a train journey sometimes. I completely forgot about it and just found it, so I thought I’d post it.
Do you ever imagine your life as a film?
Often, when I’m sitting on the train, gazing out of the window, the song on my MP3 player becomes the soundtrack to my journey. I start drifting away into an alternative version of my life.
This version’s taking me into a great adventure - sometimes I’m escaping something from my past, and other times I’m travelling to somewhere new and unknown.
I love where my mind takes me in those moments. I gaze out the window and, just as in a film, nothing else matters but that moment in time. I could be going anywhere, I could be doing anything. Life is what I want it to be.
Where does your journey or your soundtrack take you?
And if you want to know what song was playing when I wrote this then check out the video…
May 16th, 2009 | Imagine | 17 Comments
Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. ~ Primo Levi
I was in the bookshop a few days ago, browsing the biography section for something to inspire me. As soon as I saw the instantly recognisable striped shirts on the cover, I was drawn to Primo Levi’s autobiography If This Is a Man. As a history student who studied the Holocaust for the whole last year of my degree, I can’t help but be drawn to this immense and confusing subject.
Primo Levi is a Holocaust survivor, but he’s also an author and has an amazing take on the world and the human condition. I only got a little way through The Drowned and the Saved
during the course of my study. One day, when I’m ready to truly consider again the extreme evils that humans can commit, I’ll go back to my books and read everything that Levi has to write. For now, it’s still too soon.
Despite the fact that I’m not reading anything more about the Holocaust for a long time, I picked up the book and opened a page. I read one sentence, and that’s the sentence quoted above.
I find it hard to even understand what he means, but I think that the message is, above all, optimistic. It truly amazes me that a man who went through as much as Levi still realises that there is still so much value in life. He refuses to believe that the regime was able to crush that hope in life. At least that’s how it made me feel.
I can never understand what Levi understands from life, and I’m not sure whether the quote is meant to be optimistic. But I just felt amazed when I read it. It might not be for a while, but I’m definitely going to read more of his work.
Read some of Primo Levi’s story on Wikipedia.
May 15th, 2009 | Imagine | 10 Comments
Last week I mentioned how even rain can make you grateful, and now it’s really started to rain here - it looks like we’re in for a rainy weekend. The funny thing is I’m really enjoying it.
This is how my window looks at the moment, and it just makes me feel so warm and cosy inside.
Both today and yesterday I walked in the rain. It wasn’t pouring at the time, but it was enough to get my feet wet. I walked all the way down to the beach and back again, through the park - noticing how the rain changed the sand and how it splashed in the river.
I loved the feeling of a heavy coat on my body, which I haven’t worn for the last few weeks since the weather’s been warmer. I also loved walking in my boots again.
I began to notice just how many other people were walking in the rain. They didn’t just hide away: they were taking it all in, and it was lovely.
May 12th, 2009 | What Matters to Me | 8 Comments
I’ve been doing well with my writing meditation, keeping up with my three handwritten pages every day. And I do think it’s helping me, though what I think about that is for another post when I’ve been doing it for longer….
A few days ago I came across an interesting article that looked to apply this kind of meditation to playing piano. And, after reading that, I guess it could apply to just about anything. Drawing, singing, dancing, creating… whatever it is that you love to do.
In the case of writing, it just means writing freely for three pages. In the case of the piano it means playing freely for three minutes. Three minutes every day. This particular exercise is to improvise within three chords of the Aeolian mode. The chords may have already been set, but you will then be relaxed and can play freely within those limits for three minutes.
I have to admit, I was never great at improvising on piano. But this might just be a great idea. Three minutes of playing is one thing, but improvising is different. I might try it and let you know how it goes.
Are there any ways you can think to apply this three minute/ three page meditation plan?
May 11th, 2009 | Paperback Writer, What Matters to Me | 11 Comments
On May 11th, 2008 I first started blogging at Marmalade Skies.
My first audio blog! Sorry if it’s a bit rambly, but I didn’t have anything prepared except what I was thinking 
Just click the little ‘play’ button below to get started.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you can’t, or can’t be bothered to, listen to my audio blog (which is about five minutes long!) then here is the general gist:
- Blogging helped me work out a lot of issues and become more positive,
- It gave me a place to meet amazing people from around the world,
- It has helped me to learn so much!
If you want to follow my journey check out these few posts:
Lastly, thank you to those guys who always come back with insightful, funny, comforting and interesting things to say. And thank you for inspiring me with your own words.
May 8th, 2009 | Imagine, The Word Is Love | 7 Comments
Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. ~ Margaret Cousins
Yesterday I joined in with Things I Love Thursday because I just knew it was time to start recognising the good and the positive, rather than dwelling on the negative. In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude all week. It occured to me that, while I’ve been making a huge effort to be more positive in the last year or so (you can see a post I wrote on gratitude a few months ago), I didn’t really ‘get’ why gratitude was going to help me so much. It all finally seems to have clicked for me.
Being more positive.
The thought only recently entered my mind that, to become a more positive person, I actively need to start thinking of the positive to push the negative out of my mind. Some people might remain positive most of the time, but for me one small negative event or feeling can turn all the positives to dust. It’s taking a lot of practice (believe me) but I’m trying to be grateful for things that went my way, moments I was proud of, and knowing I couldn’t have done much about the rest.
Cherishing what you have, forgetting what you don’t have.
Most of us aren’t grateful for what we’ve got. We’re annoyed about what we don’t got. I spend a lot of my time wondering about the things I don’t have, but in the past few days I’ve started saying ‘thank you’ in my mind just for waking up next to my boyfriend, having nice food to eat, having a pretty good life, and a nice flat to live in. You get the gist. All of these things can be really easy to forget, which is why being thankful for them is going to take a while to become natural to me.
It’s not about the big things.
I used to think that being grateful meant being grateful for the big things, or returning thanks for something someone else has done for you. Most of us have things to be grateful about that we don’t even realise - and gratitude can be a mindset rather than being grateful to someone in particular. We can be grateful for a new day, grateful for our favourite TV programs, grateful for the writer of a great book, grateful that the sun’s shining, grateful that it’s raining, grateful that today when we look in the mirror we don’t mind what we see, grateful when our dog goes crazy and makes us laugh when there’s nobody else around. Perhaps these don’t seem like life-changing experiences, but it’s the little things that make up our life day to day. I think this is what the quote above really means.
Grateful for yourself.
This is probably the hardest thing for me to do - to be grateful for being me and everything that happens as a result of being me. Maybe one day I’ll actually manage to - for now I’m making a start. And by writing it down, I hope I’ll remember just how I’m feeling about gratitude right now.
Every time we remember to say “thank you”, we experience nothing less than heaven on earth. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
May 7th, 2009 | Imagine, What Matters to Me | 10 Comments
Now that I’ve gotten the obligatory swine flu post out of the way, I thought it would be time to start delving into the depths of my mind and coming up with something interesting to write (for my blogging goals this month). But taking part in Things I Love Thursday (TiLT), something that loads of bloggers already do, might seem like a cop out to you. It isn’t, and here’s why (you can actually read the things I love if you want to skip this little explanation)….
~ It’s a weekly reminder to be more positive.
~ I’ve read, and looked forward to, TiLT posts from other bloggers for a while now so thought I should join in.
~ I’m only just realising that being grateful helps push the negatives out of my mind and reinforce the positives.
~ It might be the only way to really get yourself to reflect positively on the week if things haven’t gone your way.
So here’s what I am loving about this past week…
- My new chair: I finally got round to ordering a chair I’ve been wanting for about 6 months, and it arrived a few hours ago. I put it together and it’s pretty sturdy and comfy, with a lovely high back! To be honest, any chair would beat the dining chair I was using - so it wasn’t hard to please me! But it’s about time I started taking care of my body considering I sit at the computer for many hours a day.
- Delicious food: This week so far I’ve had a roast duck for dinner, a lovely king prawn tomato pasta, and the most tasty bread ever made - tiger bread. I’ve also had smoothie every day, and found they do a cheap one in Lidl that tastes as good as Innocent! Not to mention apples, cheese and port last night.
~
- Audiobooks: Nearly every night I’ve been listening to audiobooks before I go to sleep. I usually fall asleep with them on, since it’s just so relaxing. But, bit by bit, I am getting through them and it makes me feel a little better about not reading so many books. [I got my audiobooks through Audible on a free trial. It's a little expensive as a full member, so I might cancel the membership and see how many audiobooks the library holds].
- Joining the library: It’s been around three weeks since I moved here, and I only just joined the library. But now I have I’m really excited. Shame they barely have any books about writing, but it’s a great place to go and work - especially since it takes 2 minutes to walk there.
- Life plans: After some thought, I think I’ve gotten a little closer to the direction I want to take in the short term. My boyfriend also had some amazing ideas, and I have to admit he surprised me a little.
- Working in the mornings: I scheduled myself a little lighter this week so I’d mostly be done with work in the mornings, free to do more creative things in the afternoons (like writing this blog). It has really motivated me, and I actually think it makes me work a lot harder with less procrastinating. I’ll see if I can keep it up.
- Time to myself: After moving in together I kind of felt like I had to spend every minute with my boyfriend when we were both not working. But now I’m settling in, I’ve started to realise it’s ok to just sneak off and read a few blogs or write for a while.
Apart from that, I’m always grateful that I have somewhere to live with my boyfriend and I can afford it. That we eat delicious food, have fun together, and fun on our own. I’m grateful that I’ve had the time to blog more, to connect with new bloggers, and to start my writing meditation.
