Seeing Through New Eyes

A couple of weeks ago, while in Gettysburg, I managed to break my beloved 50/1.8f AD lens. I was most displeased with my idiocy, because I absolutely loved it. Having done a little bit of internet research, I was unsure whether or not to purchase another 1.8, or to upgrade a little and purchase a 50/1.4f lens. I have started using the camera at work quite a lot, and I've noted some issues with exposure because I'm shooting in low light a lot. So I persuaded myself to purchase the 1.4 to get that extra 2/3 of an f-stop, and luckily for me, there was a refurbished lens in stock. I took it out on Friday for work, and then yesterday for fun. The results are... delightful. I am in love with the lens - sharp and beautiful, basically. The farmers' market was where I did my test run outdoors, and I'm very happy indeed.The indoors photos it takes are utterly gorgeous, too.  I will miss the old lens, but a good choice, methinks.

False Alarm

I was about to get very, very, very concerned that somehow I had passed the 600 post mark without marking it in some way. Fortunately, it turns out that blogger, for some reason, counts draft posts as actual posts, meaning that I have about 12 to go, as I have a couple of drafts on the way (songs and albums of the year, natch).

Just so you know. I imagine you're as relieved as I am.

What a Gas

Well, last night was the Pixies at Hammerstein. The Hammerstein is not my favourite venue, at all, but it did reinforce two things:

1/ I need to get there early. I was trying to be blase about time, but it turns out, that was wrong, because as part of the Hammerstein rubbishness, it bucks the NYC trend and people actually go on early/on time. Dagnabbit. But if I'd followed my normal uptightness, we'd have seen a lot more because, of course, Doolittle is front-loaded with awesomeness.

2/ I am right to not leave concerts early. Did anyone who left last night really believe that they'd finish with Gouge Away? Or, indeed, after a couple of low key B-sides (and the utterly magical UK Surf Mix version of Wave of Mutilation)? No, of course not. Which is why they came back with U-Mass, Nimrod's Son, Isla de Encanta, and, gloriously, Where Is My Mind? into Gigantic. Absolutely spectacular.

That time we saw them in Barcelona was pretty special. This was fun, and I'm so glad I saw them, but it made Barcelona seem even more spectacular because then we were so close, and it was a much better venue. Not surprising, being open air and sunny and June in BCN. Which is a good place to be.

Magic Eight - Balls

Ye gods. The president of Turkmenistan is trying to overcome the decline in population growth from his predecessor's years - due, apparently to increased child mortality - by offering a stipend to the women who bear eight or more children. It doesn't say whether or not they have to bring them up to be adults, or whether, due to that high risk of child mortality, dead under fives are ok. Things that are appalling about this - just in case you needed them pointing out, which I'm sure you don't, but still:

• Practically, this is an unbelievable risk for women to be put through in a country with high maternal mortality anyway - to ask them to do it eight times is dangerous, when you consider:
  
• there are 130 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. To give you an comparison:
• Ireland - 1;
  
• UK - 8;
  
• USA - 11.
  
• A woman's lifetime risk of maternal mortality is 1 in 290. That's all. Again, in:
• Ireland 1 in 47,600;
• UK - 1 in 8,200;
  
• USA - 1 in 4,400.
• Further, you are asking these women to risk the heartbreak of dead children, given that 80 children per 100,000 die. Although, note that more women die from maternity in Turkmenistan than children.
  
• Philosophically: women are again required to be subservient to the "needs" of the nation - as they were in the Soviet Union post-World War II - because that is where their true value lies, as baby factories. Never mind that perhaps development of women might lead to a stronger economy? Women earn $3,000 less per year - in Turkmenistan, that amounts to a THIRD less than men.

Free health care, bus travel are also offered if you hit the magic eight. Lucky you, ladies!

Bundles of Joy

I've come to a decision, people, and you're not going to like it. I am about to enter into the world of true trash and inanity and start tivoing Katie & Peter. I just am. And you can't stop me. Seriously.

Why? An unusual source joining the embodiment of female empowerment regarding names has come along: Jordan has had her baby with Peter Andre. This from the Guardian's sidelines on the joyous new arrival:

Price of being a princess
Glamour model Katie Price - aka Jordan - and her disconcertingly cheerful husband Peter Andre, have revealed the name of their newborn daughter: Princess Tiáamii (tee-ah-me, should you ever need to say it out loud). We kind of like it. "Princess" denotes her as an unequivocally high-status female. Tiáamii is derived from Peter and Katie's mother's names - Thea and Amy - thus honouring the maternal line both ways. Good work, the Andres! Which you will now undo by dressing the child in nothing but pink until her 18th birthday.

Further, they go on to say: "We've put an accent over the first 'a' to make it a bit more exotic and two i's at the end just to make it look a bit different." Awesome.

Side Splitting

Thanks to Bean for bundling these both... Stephen Colbert on the Susan B. Anthony of Pole Dancing, and John Oliver on just why English should be the official, and only, language in the US. Genius.

All Bets Are Off

I must offer a heartfelt apology to the women of Rutgers and the gents of Ohio State. Because in the next two days, you will both lose in the finales to March Madness.

The only reason I have to offer is that I would favour your victory--and given the fate of those who have been my preference thus far, that means you will lose. Both the women and men of UNC had leads, to then be painfully beaten. Even after switching to UCLA and Georgetown--both due to friends and, of course, jesuit loyalty--they both lost. Every team I have expressed a vague preference for, be it out loud or merely in my head, has lost.

So sorry folks, I have tried to be neutral for tonight, but it's just not possible...

At least the poison has not yet spread to the baseball, as the Mets gave the Cardinals a stuffing last night.

And for those who have no sporting interest whatsoever, I apologise, too, but until October it's all about the cricket (starting very very soon in England) and the baseball.

I love summer. Not that it's evident right now. I am never going to believe Weather on the 1s again, given that it told me this morning that temperatures would reach 67F today, hence no tights (of course, it has subsequently modified its prediction). It's currently 48F. Damn you Pat Buchanan!

Just You and Me

I got back at an indecent hour last night--a mere five in the morning UK time, luckily only one here. Why is it that all my seriously "late nights" are after travel, rather than actually going out and having fun?

Still, a later blog will feature processing of the London Town trip. My more immediate concerns are two:

1) Why do I keep falling over? I fear the snow and my glorious light blue pixie boots are incompatible, which I could have predicted, but more worrying is their inability to grip on those moving walkway thingies at airports, and also, indeed, pavement. Prize bruises indicate their fallibility which is, essentially, a tragedy.

2) The other half triumphantly announced, about six weeks ago, that he had "finally bought an electric toothbrush." I had been ignorant of this item on his to-do list, and am fairly indifferent to its existence--quite happy with the normal one. However, it appears he has somehow managed to buy something which is actually using the infinite power source. The instructions say to discharge it fully once a month, yet we haven't charged it for about two weeks AND IT'S STILL GOING. I thought about just switching it on today and letting it run down while I was out, but I was scared it might use that as an excuse to get up and annihilate the apartment. Don't ask me why. But I am now scared of being left alone with the menace in the bathroom (which lame pun / reference to a song is where the title to this post comes from... I need some sleep, clearly).

Rabia

Yesterday, I made a rather stupid decision, which was to have three cups of coffee between the hours of 5 and 5.45pm. Foolishness, yes. Well, dear readers, I am paying for it now.

You see, caffeine in that sort of quantity, and after 6pm, usually (think severe effects were due to sheer amount consumed), doesn't keep me awake in the way it does with others. No, I get to sleep more or less fine. What I then do is wake up, every couple of hours, all night, finding it immensely difficult to get back to sleep. Which is, of course, exactly what happened last night. I was very sensitive to noise, so the thumping and bass from downstairs was particularly effective in waking me.

Yet the real impact of the sleepless night has only just surfaced. Right now. One of my real foibles is that I cannot bear to hear other people eating. I find it disgusting and irritating. This is not a ridiculous phobia--I don't think I'm the only one. However, I am extremely oversensitive; the day after very little sleep, unbelievably so. Whoever left the popping candy sweethearts in the office today is lucky I do not know who they are and that I do not have some sort of sharp weaponry (or, indeed, a tomato ketchup & mustard uzi). I have also developed an irrational hatred for someone I've never talked to, whose existence I was only made aware of on Thursday.

Today is one of those days that I really shouldn't be allowed to have contact with other living creatures.

Give and Take

I lost the lid to my very pretty pink coffee commuter mug thingy the other day, which was highly annoying. It had a habit of flying off as I hurled my rucksack around, and the other night it did just that. I watched in slow motion as I realised what the noise was, as it fell onto the tracks uptown at 66th street. DAMN YOU FLASK LID! The next day I asked for someone to recover it, but it was already 9pm and I would have had to wait an hour for the crew to turn up, and they wouldn't hand it into the booth at that station (don't be crazy woman, that would make sense!). Therefore I went back the next day and horror of horrors - it wasn't there anymore! But luckily for me, having to cross over to the uptown side to check meant that as the next train came in, I FINALLY got to see a celebrity. A bona fide, true, full on ***STAR***. Which then FINALLY got me on Gawker Stalker, which has been an ambition for a very, very long time. That it turns out that half my friends here have also seen him (including one on a regular basis because his girlfriend plays football for her club) is NOT THE POINT.

Anyway, my point is, I lost a lid, but achieved an ambition thanks to that loss. I wonder if losing my very sweet green and black Marc Jacobs fingerless gloves will be equally worthwhile in the long run...

oops

It's not even half nine. I was supposed to do five hours of work tonight.

Instead, I have drunk too much. Drunk too much bud light. That's embarrassing.

Not as as embarrassing as this, mind.



Fabulous

Frustration

Why? Because my bleeding last.fm chart hasn't been updated. How am I supposed to proceed through the week not knowing which artist I listened to most last week? Luckily, I'm fairly sure I know which track I listened to most (step forward, Jungle Brothers' Because I Got It Like That (Fatboy Slim remix) - how I love you so).

But it's ANNOYING.

ANNOYING.

Other annoying things today: free coffee from the Dean - cold. Ugh.

PLUS I found the book that I lost about 10 days ago. Which means that we bought a hardback copy of it FOR NOTHING. It was slightly weird - I lost it nearly two weeks ago, and then I went to Corporations today and there it was, sitting on my desk. And it was definitely mine because the bookmark was my Planned Parenthood postcard. So thank you, mysterious spirit who kindly guided it back to me.

How tired I am on 6 hours' sleep is also immensely irritating. I am pathetic. I NEED SEVEN HOURS. NEED THEM.

Plus general annoyance at revealing (sort of) my GPA to someone to whom I had no intention of talking about how I did. But I just somehow let myself do it and I was annoyed. I don't want to talk about it. It's over and I have a job with people I really like, and that's all there is to it. So annoyed with myself - not a reflection, by the way, on the person I told, simply on myself.

PAH. But in other news, I have a relatively nice few days planned and I am loving the whole exam thing. Seriously. Weirdo, I know. Panicking about the amount of time left before finals, but still... I like having a fixed set of things I MUST DO AND CANNOT GET AWAY WITH NOT DOING.

Obsession

I'm getting worried at how many episodes of Scrubs I've watched in the last few days.

Hmm.

Today was one of those days where I did very little work, but feel I've achieved something, nonetheless. I managed to find out some information for a reproductive health flier we're putting together at school. I went to the orthopaedic specialist and found out that I have chondromalacia, apparently. I ordered the orthotics required to get me running 10k races again. I have somewhere to work next summer - which I am very excited about. Cooked a ridiculously gorgeous meal with my other half. The other half also managed to get a bulb for the trés chic new lamp for our room, and new roach motels (yay!), and a copy of the book that I'd managed to lose last week.

I also managed to injure myself in a slightly less middle-classed kitchen accident than avocado stoning - the peeler. On two fingers on my right hand. Duh.

Carelessness

To remove half your finger once due to an incident with a salad spinner is an accident. To do it twice - on the same finger - smacks of carelessness. Or, at the very least, incompetence.

edgy and dull

Note to self: When making soup, allow to cool before serving. This then prevents tongue burning, which is deeply painful and, worse than the hurt, utterly preventable and moronic.

Still, onion soup = super yum.

Skew-whiff...

The title of this blog was something that I realised I'd very rarely actually seen written down, and couldn't remember how to spell. Disappointing, and means I'm definitely not entering the drunken spelling bee in williamsburg any time soon.

Anyway, the point was, before my cerebral meltdown, that my life has not been what it normally should be over the last couple of weeks; my routine has not sailed its normal course. I know that particularly because I only listened to forty songs through my computer, according to what I scrobbled this week. This is ridiculous. I would like my life to return to my having some semblance of control over it. At the moment, instead, it feels as I'm clinging onto a piece of flotsam whilst giant waves crash around me and take me where they want to go. Which is about as poetic and expressive as I get. Which is not very, I appreciate.

Luckily, salvation has come in the form of PG Wodehouse - as Mr Christopher Buckley has so aptly said, It is impossible to be unhappy while reading the adventures of Jeeves and Wooster. And I've tried.

OLD SCHOOL

I don't want to have this new, easy, fancy thing. I like my own old school styleeeee website, so please go to:

Grace Goes Abroad

Desastre

Yes, it turns out that I cannot actually do anything I really want to via blogspot, whereas I can via ftp to the old site. Downside: must learn html. Upside: it works!

so please visit the gracegoesabroad.co.uk site. If you want to see the old website, then there's a link, but directly it's gracegoesabroad.co.uk/archived-index.htm

cheers and hope you continue to follow it...