Overachievers

Overachievers annoy me. I just worked this out. I've always had this bedgrudging feeling towards them and I feel a slight animosity towards them. It's not the ones who are at the top of their fields, I mean, how many top ranking scientists, historians, philosophers and so forth that are the best in their field but lack either social graces or table manners?

No, the kind of overachievers that annoy me are the ones who are really nice, really good-looking, have perfect manners and are good at everything they put their hand at doing. And you can't even really gossip or have a good old catty chat about them because they are so nice to everyone. Really, how can someone be such perfection around here? They must have some flaws but if they do, they are so well hidden that I'm hard-pressed to find them. And trust me, I would be looking for them.

In a way, I envy them because I would like to be like that. Who wouldn't? I mean, if you could be good at anything and everything that you wanted, wouldn't you want it to be so?

But then again, I feel sad for them. Human life is all about enjoying your flaws. You might not believe me but don't you feel better about yourself when you know that you are better than someone else at something? It doesn't matter what it is, just something. You like commiserating with others, whether with a cup of hot chocolate, or a really lip-smackingly gorgeous glass of wine, or two or three. But I digress. We enjoy the company that misery provides and it makes us have a common bond because it doesn't matter that we're not good at, we have it in common.

There was a point to this somewhere but I've lost my train of thought now so it's all over.

News on me.

Went to 2 parties this weekend, was supposed to be three but am so exhausted that have decided that two is enough.That and the fact that I slept away most of Saturday should be an indication to slow down and not do anything but nevermind. St Cross Halloween bop on Friday which I didn't really want to go but Annie was working and I thought it would be fun to see what the new students were like. It wasn't all as much fun but it could be due to the fact that I didn't really know anyone and I wasn't in the mood for socialising. Tonight, went for dinner at JM's new place. His place is gorgeous. The rooms are massive and we had dinner in a proper dining room. It's a converted mansion so very nice. Just a bit far out from town center and I suppose the rooms would be a bit cold as the house was so old and would be hard to heat.

Tried to get as much done as possible for the abstract so I can go to the big fly meeting, and it seems to be going ok except just have to get the references downloaded and the pictures pulled off the other computer. Not quite sure what to do about that because I don't really need to include the pics but if I am going to do the statistical analysis I should look at all the pics again. I should just pull it into my laptop then do the backups. Sigh, I hate going away. Especially when I have things to do. But at least it should be nice to go home and see family and EAT. I cannot wait to be eating all the foods again..mmmmm...

And now to end my procrastination for the evening, I might go and do what I planned and finish all the work before tomorrow. Still need to pack and think of a present for dad but how hard can it be? Yeah, right.

Happy things!

So, the last post was a tad violent.

Things to be happy about for this week include the fact that I've received 2 more books for my birthday, thanks to Katey and Adam. They are getting married 19 March 2006!

But yes, back to me. I received Nigel Slater's Real Cooking and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Yesterday my housemate concluded his DPhil. He had a 2-hour viva and was told that he passed. Fabulous! We (me, him and other housemate) celebrated at the unit by drinking champagne and other sparklies. Then moved on to the Turf for a pint, then Fishers for seafood! That was an amazing night. Conversation was great because we did not talk about work, mumbled crap and discussed other pleasantries.

My dad's 60th birthday is coming up soon and I will be going home for that, although I have no idea what to get him for a present (suggestions welcome).But I thank God that he's had a really good life and three daughters who are all going to fly home for it.

I have fantastic friends who give me virtual hugs and keep me company when I'm bored at work, you girls know who you are!

So, this is a nice pleasant post. I'm in a happy complacent place in time.

And this bit of news from Malaysia put a smile on my face. Yes, it's ridiculous but it happens all the time where I come from.

Complex relationships

Honestly, boys are such complex creatures. I work in a lab of mostly boys and really, that should make the whole atmosphere all nice and relaxed right? Boys are less fussed about things and having spent far too many years in an all-female convent girls school, I was convinced that it would be fine. But no, oh no, the boys in my lab have a clique, an honest to God clique. How much more fuckwittage can you get from that?

Can you tell that I'm on a roll for a rant? It wouldn't be so bad really, if it wasn't for the actions of some of them that influence the rest. I mean, I spend 90% of my time in the dark all by myself out of their way, you would think that for the 10% of the time, I would be able to communicate sensibly with the other human beings? No. Exx-cu-se me, how rude. It's fine for them to joke around and make silly comments but when I try to join in, ice-queen central. Melodramatic females or what?

I've decided that maybe I should turn into a creature of the night, it would be far more interesting than attempting to communicate with half-evolved apes who need to have tribal gatherings and secret grunts.

Fuckwittage.

Child proof caps

who the hell invented them? They are a grand idea but not when you're ill and you need to be doped up. sigh. give me my paracetamol, antihistamine, anti-everything mix already. Let me be off to la-la-land.

God, I am such a drama queen for a small cold.

Pants

I have caught a cold and the last post didn't get published because blogger went all blotto on me. (hrms, that's quite catchy..)

Anyways, busy busy busy. Work hectic, and have been a moody cow at work just because I am female and therefore I can. But some things have been upsetting me lately mainly because I am such a sensitive sort of gal, yeah right.

That was really weird and didn't make much sense. Never mind.

Mary's birthday was on Friday, we went out for drinks in Reading and I bought her a spa treat day, which is very exciting. And as it's for two people, I get to go with her! yay!

Mark graduated yesterday and had all the attendant stresses of looking after your family in a strange place. He had his whole family (literally!) and it seemed like they were having a good time. It's strange to see him out of context. But he's promised to come back down to Oxford for a night out. It'd be good to see him again. I miss talking to him. In such a short time, we've become such good friends. He's a really cool guy.

I am now going to crawl back into bed, watch lots of csi and medicate. *sniffle*

and thanks to kath, one of the nicest people i know! she sent me reese's peanut butter cups because i told her ages ago how much i loved them. Seriously, one of the best birthday presents I got, and who knew you could drag a birthday out this long?

Bowling for Soup

was sold out when I got there. I refused to pay £30 to touts so came home instead. I think Seb was upset I didn't get to go but it's my fault for not looking it up. Ho hum. Wa-hey, such is life.

I came back and got sentimental, partly due to the fact that I met one of my high school friends today, Valerie. She's been working in Wolverhampton for almost two years now and I just randomly met her the other day in China Town London. Remember the thing about six degrees of seperation? It must be true in this world.

Back to the point, of which I may have one, I logged back on to Friendster, which is a friend network website and started looking up old high school mates. Fond memories, but why have I never kept in touch with them? So many are married and are procreating. I wonder now about the eternal question, what happens when I go home? It never worries me when I visit my family because I am there for a purpose, something for me to look forward to. But if I move back, what will happen to me?

Too much of my life has been spent here in England. I worked out it will be my sixth year living here soon. I think it may be time to leave but will I have the courage when the time comes?

I could just run away again, to somewhere else. Someone said the Caribbean or West Indies were cheap....

I have to stop drinking

to try and escape the fugue in my life. I think a stable person to keep me in hold with reality because nothing is what I perceive it to be.

Why do I keep running away from what is supposed to be my real life?

DAMN

What I really want for Christmas

is a new Video Ipod. sigh. Why do these things cost so much?
But they look so good...
And they match my Powerbook...

Anyone wants to spring one for me?
No?

Failing that, I'll just be heading off to watch Bowling for Soup on Sunday.

New piercing

So, I got a new piercing today. I had been thinking about it for a long time but never actually went and got it done. Felt bored and didn't have a nice present for myself, coupled with a dozen other excuses (most involving men, ugh), so ta-dah!

The morning after

my birthday. How exciting.

A whole whirlwind weekend of drinking, dancing and celebrating with friends. The lengths to which my friends go to amaze me. Mary drove up from Reading for a few hours of hanging out with me even though I didn't spend that much time with her. Adam drove Sarah up from London. They spent 45 minutes at my party when it took them an hour to drive up. Adam and Kathryn arrived drunk and left more sober to catch the Oxford Tube back home to London. Jean-Marie cycled 20 minutes in the rain and brought drink, present and food!

"Birthdays are celebrations of the people God has surrounded us with" and I'm blessed that I have so many friends that take time out of their busy lives and remember me for one day.

Now I am going back to lie down because my head hurts.

More to life

Just heard this played. You might know the song,Stacie Orrico's More to Life (There's gotta be)
Chorus:
There's gotta be more to life
than chasing out every temporary high to satisfy me
'Cause the more that I
trippin' up thinkin' there must be more to life
Well, there's life, but I'm sure
There's gotta be more

So, what else is there in life?

Can you tell that I hate birthdays? Depressing lil' days

Two more days

Until it's my birthday. I don't even know why I make such a fuss of about it. I don't actually like celebrating my birthday, until I get to the day and then I'll enjoy it.

Been baking up a storm though, I have decided that my friends (those who do make it!) will not be hungry. There's going to be plenty of food.

Last but not least (oh no, definately not the least) are presents. I'm happy with most of the stuff that I have although what I would quite like, after a long protracted conversation with my housemate is a book. Not just any book, but one about cooking and science on why food tastes like it does. McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture

Now, that's my kind of book.

Conviction and doubt

Saw this when I was at the Jewish Museum in Budapest. All emphasis in text are mine the rest are copyrighted of the author.

Conviction and doubt by Peter Lajtai Langer

As one of the most fundamental human needs, religion is highly suitable as a pretext for both comprehensive isolation and for an open kind of progress determined by ability and diligence. In-built formulas help to make everything liveable and explainable - the most shocking dramatic moments, and even pain - just like in any other great intellectual, ideological or consumer value-system. In the intellectual sense - not from a historical perspective - Western-style religious observance has produced two significant experiences. On the one hand, the ideology of metaphysical and rational concepts, rich in contradictions, has developed and strengthened, as has its practise of regulating and guiding everyday life with demands, sanctions, rewards and punishments - the cultural traidtion of ethics and morality, that is.

On the other hand, religions taken as a whole have brough the realization that despite their competitive, combative and exclusionary natire, there are in fact deep and fundamental similarities between these great explanatory systems.

It is striking how, despite their differing sources, texts on man and his environment bring man closer to his neighbour.

The noble service of faith then turned into the blinkered faith of the servants. Slightly different versions of texts and discrepancies hardly affecting the essense of things became overblown, sometimes just out of simplicity and stupidity, sometimes out of selfishness, favouritism and irresponsibility, sometimes with openly base and murderous intent. Why do we eternally interpret the pleasant and spectacular richness of formal differences with antagonistic feelings and prejudices inflamed by dilettantes?

History initially tricked those that formed it without this being noticed; later it did so openly. The hostile environment selected and isolated a smaller group, the ensuing independent development of which gave birth to the social model of eternal dissimilarity. Then, out of an instinctive mutual contempt, the serf became bourgeois, the emancipated were blocked in their attempts to assimilate, and those exploited by capitalism became the convition serial killers of their neighbours. On the way, we leaned of God that he lives even further away that we thought, that faith is dangerous, that religion is a profession, that is it good if the anointed are ordinary people. And that there are such things as human greatness, goodness, self-sacrifice and setting a good example.

A sweeping survey of history does not show the realization of religious similarity to have been a decisive part of Western civilisation. For the big groups, monotheism has not generated any comfort or any delight in similarities but rather hatrad, radical sectarian identity and the variously petty or uninspired instinct of seclusion. In doing so it leaves behind the traditional curse of inextricability of historical connections, and the trap of settling the score with one's current and cumulative responsibilites. We will never be able to fully understand why people have become the torsos they have become.

We have inherited the tangled sensation of attachment to tradition. This religious worldview was substantively impoverished by the strengthening of scholarly thinking brought by the Englightment. Its loss of credibility made religion more depenedent on appearances and extreme in emotions. The contraction of its own domain was compensated by an incrase in its influence over politics. Secrets and miracles made space for pragmatic avarice and petty attention to detail.

This is how we came to arrive at the age of the free decision between acceptance and/or refusal. In the case of the former, we assume that teaching is eternal and immovable, that its content is the only proclaimed truth, that this is the sunny side of life, that the devout believe in the only authentic human norm, and that their actions reflect this and only this. In the case of refusal, on the other hand, we assume that the teaching is imperfect, that its content is full of speculations and is in part spurious, that the consequences drawn are historically objectionable, and that the bias expressed in it would be amusing were it not outright life-threatening. But neither assumption is true in its fullness. In this sense, it the taste of our culture today to clarify the religious tradition - as one of the deepest human instincts, later as a social institution burdened by history, then as the rethinking and re-evaluation of an accepted or rejected set of bourgeois values.

Long decades meandering through countries, ethnicities and cultures, from one political, religious and consumer system to another, from a noticeably ideological environment into an even more noticeably ideological one: these accumated experiences demand expression. All the more so because, as time passes, I am increasingly given to think that fundamental questions closely affecting our civilisation have not been expressed. It is as if all those with an interest have their paths blocked, like a barrier, by a homogenous, consensual unity. The reason for this is perhaps a lack of knowledge of history and the subject, perhaps a mutual fear and lack of trust, perhaps the extent and weight of, and exaggerated respect for, taboos. My goal is to express the key fundamental question in my own way, with the hellp of the assets of visual art, and, as far as my knowledge and talent allows, to contribute to the discovery of possible answers.

No one can make a global rejection of Western culture built on monotheistic religious premises without being accuseds of naivety. For this reason it is necessary to reach back to the early stages of the development of norms, to the beginning, in the hope that new materials and technologies used for expression can organise knowledge so important for understanding in an innovative fashion. Without this, the useless misunderstandings between one person and another will grow rather than decrease.

In an age of changing paradigms, we expect an artist to present the material world brought into focus in a way that is thematically clear, faithful to its subject, and that demands thoroughness, precision and abundance. Only considered thoughts and the authenticity and richness of detail can produce values that survive the test of time, in contrast to simplification that bears no message, to cheap, spectacular but imprecise speculation, and to the inflexible preservation of empty sylistic tricks.

It is in this sense that symbols of Judaism find a place in my works. In redrafting them, I have a number of objectives. Firstly, I wish to show a culture considered to be universal can capably be depicted by use of any material world judged to be particular. This is how the treasures of Judaism - the tallith, tefillin, prayer book, menora, shofar, kiddush cap, and others - will become suitable for the expression of post-modern concepts. This is how I wish to show that being different, if not being the same, does mean being similar.

I would also like to involve the material environment of Jewish cultures in the formal language of universal fine art. With this I wish to express the capacity of the modern nation-based but multicultural society to deal with unknown connections on the basis of prognoses of a known communication model. Even if we are not acquainted with these religious objects and their use- their proportions, colour, location, level of complexity, relation to their environment, whether they are found together or seperately, whether they fit together snugly or not - these are all codes and patterns that we are familiar with from our own environment we know so well. So even if we do not know the emotional and atmospheric world of the objects in question, we can nevertheless use them to model the connections in the world we do know. And this is the great lesson of the post-modern multicultural age.

Finally I do not believe that my biographical details should play a role in the evaluation of the pictures, but neither do I think that the path of one's life has nothing do with the way themes are selected and presented. It is not the particular way a life happens to develop that matters, much rather the challenge of the presentation of eternal problems, whether intentional or not. It is to this goal, to this challenge that we are accountable, and it is only in the light of this that the process of artistic creation, as an attempt to find solutions, can gain value and authenticity. This is what I see as the rule of thumb for judging my career.

Before I turn 26...

I'm officially going to be in my late-20s this Saturday. It's worrying. Only because I have nothing to worry about. I am not married (or even in a relationship), don't own anything in the world that can't be moved in a ship/plane or given away to another owner and have nothing much to show for my 26 years of existance in this world. So, if I'm finished off before this Saturday, what would people have to say about me?

That is quite worrying.