The quest for minimalism
Thursday 30th September, 2010
I have a conundrum. I hate clutter but I don't like not being able to get to the things I want. I'm too tight to pay for storage units but I loathe waste. As a consequence, I'm constantly sorting and re-arranging stuff, like a giant insoluble game of Tetris.
The constant challenge for the serial ex-pat is finding a home for things in a new house. Even when we've been in one place for just a year (as now), it's amazing how things have sneakily multiplied.
Some solutions:
- Have a few more children so that the baby clothes and toys are recycled.
- Give up all equipment-heavy hobbies (skiing, surfing, photography) and stick to reading. Library books.
- Buy an enormous house in the country, resolve never to move again, and collect as much stuff as we like.
- Give everything away and live in a yurt.
Yeah, okay; all those things are pretty unlikely. But don't think I haven't considered drastic action...
Quod erat demonstrandum
Wednesday 29th September, 2010
Why do I always have to do everything from first principles? If I make a curry, there is no handy jar of sauce involved: you'll find me fiddling about assembling individual spices and sweating over a pan of browning onions. I never send off-the-shelf thank you notes: I have to arrange and edit photos so I can print customised cards. I won't even buy a loaf of bread. My only concession to convenience is throwing the ingredients in the bread maker instead of kneading by hand. Sometimes the results are worth the effort, sometimes we end up eating crazy-shaped bread and weird-tasting curry.
You haven't heard the worst. I mean, it's not too hard to follow a recipe or print out a photograph, but I will go out of my way to learn new skills just so I can do something myself. When we first set up this website (back in the day) I didn't fancy any of the templates or WYSIWYG editors, so I taught myself html and css and wrote it from scratch. What is wrong with me? No-one has that much free time.
And now I'm getting really frustrated with this blog, but I can't bring myself to give in and use some free blogging site that has all the functions I want ready built-in. So don't be surprised if you start to see some funny things going on as I try my hand at server-side scripting. It won't be the code that defeats me, I'll probably just be distracted by the sheep I'm trying to shear to spin the wool to knit my own sweater.
Any suggestions? On improvements to the blog; on how not to raise my own kids to be such weirdo control freaks (hi Mum!); on the best way to shear a sheep? E-mail me!
Happy Birthday, Niall!
Tuesday 28th September, 2010
Nine years ago today, Niall and I met for the first time. I thought he was a loud-mouthed over-achiever, redeemed only by his good taste in toys (he had just bought a new blue BMW), sexy Irish accent, and passion for rugby. A couple of months later we managed to squeeze in a first date around Niall's business travel and eighty-hour work week. The rugby season was over, or else I probably wouldn't be writing this.
Today, Niall is forty. He arrived home at 6.20 this morning off a thirteen-hour flight from China, watched rugby on TV and played with his ipad until the kids got up, then went into the office for the day.
The moral of the tale?
- Age is just a number
- You really can learn all you need to know about someone in the first five minutes
- Jaysus, I'm a sucker for a workaholic loudmouth
Children's medicine and nasty side effects
Thursday 23rd September, 2010
We have a lot of badly bumped heads and busted lips around here. Our standard remedy is an ice cube to stop the swelling, but I discovered today that even frozen water is not free from unpleasant side-effects.
Cian hurt his lip very slightly and immediately started demanding his standard panacea ("I need a ice scoob, Mummy!"). I said no, since he was barely hurt at all and I'm trying not to encourage a reliance on something it's not always possible to get hold of. (We're not in Texas now).
A minute later, I hear howls and find that Cian has opened the freezer door and helped himself to a handful of ice. Several cubes have stuck to his fingers; they're cold and he can't shake them off. Even worse, after I've rescued him he still wants ice to remedy the shock of the frozen fingers. Cian is caught in a vicious circle and I'm just laughing helplessly on the floor while he cries because he wants the ice but daren't touch it in case it sticks to his hand again.
Poor little bugger; it's no wonder he needs something to make it all better. Sympathy is in short supply around here.
Student, v2.0
Tuesday 21st September, 2010
Now I discover that my course tutor is to be a brilliant young up-and-coming writer, almost ten years younger than me. Born in the eighties! And to think I felt inadequate before.
Really, if I were in her place, I'd be quite cross that a prospective student would have an issue with my age/sex/attractiveness/success. Hey, been there. And actually I'm downright pleased that my tutor is not some crusty old professor like the OU Physics lecturers on telly in the early 80's (hilarious as those suits and ties were).
The problem is that I can't pretend I'm still a student, first go round. I can't conveniently erase the last fourteen years of career and children and find myself sitting back in the lecture theatre wearing my Doc Marten boots and sniggering at the description of grains as "well sorted". (This was mildly funny in Britain in the early 90's; you had to be there).
I have to face up to the fact that I'm a Mature Student. Not one of the cool guys just five or so years older with a mysterious past, but your actual stay-at-home mum type. Baking cupcakes for the kids and ironing sports kit in between trips to the library. With a pretty, accomplished twenty-something tutor. Because, face it, Geoscience tutors just aren't like that. They appear, fully-formed, somewhere in their early forties, complete with badly-trimmed beard, halitosis and hard hat.
But what a relief not to have to be summoned to my tutor's office and dazzled by the strategic stained-glass windows directly behind his chair; throned round with his own published works, a faint smell of old coffee and tweed jacket as I stammer an explanation of the deconvolution algorithm I chose. Maybe I can have a conversation with my latest tutor on a more equal footing and I'll always have "life experience" to fall back on if the subject matter goes over my head. Or if I get really desperate, I'll just set the kids on her. I knew there was a reason I'd had them.
To write, or...
Monday 20th September, 2010
I'm about to start a Creative Writing course and I'm a little bit nervous. I think I can be creative (given the right circumstances) and I can certainly write, in the sense of making words appear on the page. But can I Write Creatively? Will I be able to produce a finished piece of work that resembles a story?
I have bought all the required materials, organised my workspace, arranged to have free time each week. Typical ISTJ, as Niall would say. I'm building from the details upwards, hoping to eventually get my head around the big-picture idea of being able to Write. The course guide and study materials (which, naturally, I have begun to read, six weeks ahead of the official start date) are in some respects pleasingly exact but in others, worryingly vague. An example:
- "Spend three minutes practising focused freewriting using one word from each of the following lists as your trigger."
Fine, no problem. I have downloaded a timer app and I can certainly dribble on about whatever enters my head concerning the specified topic until it goes 'ping'. However:
- "The proportions of time spent on course-directed and self-directed writing will vary. Some students might have a half-and-half balance..."
Uh-oh. I'm supposed to work on other stuff too? Stuff that's not in the study guide? Stuff that I just make up out of my own head? And I spend up to half my time doing this? Okay, panicking just a fraction. You may have noticed that I like to have some Rules to work by. Surely the course is designed to account for nerds like me? I'm certain there will be some guidance on the technical stuff: Beginning, Middle, End. Plot. Writing Dialogue. There absolutely has to be a formula for turning three minutes of word vomit into a tight, gripping, smooth-phrased narrative. Doesn't there?