I wish I was one of those people who didn't care about what people think of me but hey, surprise, I'm not. Just like you.

I have received one really poignant piece of criticism in my life and that is: 'You always expect the worst of people'. That's right - it's true - words uttered by one of my closest friends in this world who, when I met him, I hated, as I thought the worst of him. Hmmm.

Now I don't player hate at all, that's not my thing. Be successful, be popular, be rich and famous. JUST. BE. GENUINE.
Where things start to get iffy is when you start pretending, when you morph into someone you're not - or just into someone trying to morph into someone they're not.
The people I appreciate most in this world are the true ones, the smilers, the humble folk who give hugs when they feel it, no matter how little urging it takes.

If you're reading this, chances are, you're one of the good 'uns.

Sigh - forgive me - it's been a trying week. I think I'm PMSing. I never used to do that. And I think I'm desperate for something to write. And I think I've formulated this blog post in a more introspective moment and now, struggling to recapture that mental process, the walls of this post are crumbling around me.

Okay, maybe I should tell you a secret, that would be fun.
I wrote a poem yesterday, and saved it in my draft posts. I was this close to publishing it, as well. But you put these things out into the world and they're no longer your own, they're there for someone else to read and infer from. Their true meaning, the one you connect the words to, gets twisted and diluted and analysed. My poetry lecturer in first year told us that we should 'unpack' a poem methodically, and a long debate ensued for weeks and weeks, his view contested by the puritans of poetry in first year English Lit (read: over-achievers). I never engaged in this, just sat back and watched, mostly because I was afraid that others would think of me what I was thinking about the people who did out their hands up. Only later did I really get involved, as the classes grew smaller and I felt less out of my depth.
It was an interesting argument, one with good points on both sides. Of course, as the lecturer ran the course, his view prevailed, and it was probably right (not much actual work to do if you're just going to admire a poem as it stands without any analysis, eh) but in regard to my own words the other side of the argument rings true, a little.
I wrote a fair amount of poetry at Rhodes, over the years, and it sits at home on my PC, where my mom plays Spider Solitaire every night. I wonder if she's ever read it. It's not like it's hidden.

How to Sing Better (via Lifehacker)

Excerpt from the M&G interview with Patricia de Lille (found via the South Africa blog)

8. If you were the president of South Africa, how would you engage with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe?

Engage? I will not engage with him. I think in South Africa there a moral duty and obligation placed on us. We've just emerged from a very sad past of human rights abuses ... apartheid was declared a crime against humanity.

Therefore it must be our responsibility to condemn the human rights violations taking place in Zimbabwe, and therefore we should not base our foreign policy in South Africa on who used to be our friends in the past.

We must make a distinction between the people of Zimbabwe and the government. My heart goes out for the people of Zimbabwe. For the thousands of displaced farmworkers who have been moved off those farms, black farmworkers [facing] hunger, starvation and homelessness.

So, we must support humanitarian aid. But we should under no condition grant him [Mugabe] a loan if he's not prepared to accept the conditions, which are very reasonable that South Africa is putting to him.

If the economy in Zimbabwe collapses, we are going to pick up the brunt and I don't know how we can avoid that happening because South Africa will surely be very badly affected.

The time for engagement with Zimbabwe is over now. It's time for tough talk and action is needed now.

Quiet diplomacy? It means nothing. Something like that can never exist in an open and free democracy. Thabo Mbeki should take South Africa in his confidence and tell us what he is engaging with. To me, quiet diplomacy says nothing.

Maybe it’s Dooce-esque, maybe it’s sad, but definitely it’s heartfelt – today is our six-month-iversary.

Ian and I have been together, and in love, for six months. Yes, I’ve had longer relationships, but none that were so long in the making, so hard fought for, so cried over, so damn worth it.

It’s been a wavy six months – we got to the UK, I had to find a job, I moved jobs twice, and found a great one. Ian went back to his existing job, applied for one he really wanted, had his little heart stomped on when he didn’t get it, and then got an even better one.

We’ve had plenty of fights, there have been times when I thought we wouldn’t sort it out, that we’d end tragically and stupidly and that I’d grow old alone and be 78 and have 300 cats and big blown-up photos of Ian and naked Jude Law in my house, and they’d call me crazy lady.

But we’re here, I woke up to see the Ianus, eyes tight shut against another workday this morning, and when he hugged me goodbye today I felt so proud of us.

So here’s to the man I love – to how every day I’m grateful for my sister for being my email pimp that night in Cape Town. And here’s to keeping him to myself for another six months, at the very very least.

As I can't seem to piece a coherent blog post together, I'm just going to put up a passage from a novel I'm currently reading - I often find these bits of great imagery that impact upon me and try to make a mental note to share... so here's one I remembered to pass on to you:

Staring at herself for long stretches of time, she was occasionally upset at the sight of her mother's features in her face. She would stare all the more doggedly at her image in an attempt to wish them away and keep only what was hers alone. Each time she succeeded was a time of intoxication: her soul would rise to the surface of her body like a crew charging up from the bowels of a ship, spreading out over the deck, waving at the sky and singing in jubilation.

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

New Our Lady Peace.

After a particularly satisfying strawberry Yazoo, I let out a rather gutteral burp - which Ian proceeded to tell me was a 'chick burp'. I'd like to say that what followed was a burp-off of massively milky proportions, but sadly, we're not that exciting. I asked Ian if it bothers him when I burp (I don't do it often, and usually just for comic effect) and he said 'no'. Glad we covered that then.

Ian played hockey today for the first time in ages, and it was really great that he got out. Laurika and Tandy came over and we watched the F1. Two things: Turkey is always going to be known as a fantastic circuit, and I missed Ian so much today!
After Lau and Tands left, I felt really bored and really lonely... I guess Ian and I spend so much time together on the weekends that being by myself again was quite strange. I wonder what it'll be like when we move apart - I guess we'll see each other all the time on the weekends, but weeknights will seem less warm. I suppose it'll make me jump up and down when I see him again; as I did when my love came home this evening.

I played paintball for the first time yesterday! I have bruises and grazes and all that good stuff but am beaten out in the wound stakes by my GI Joe boyfriend who I didn’t see do all the tactical manoeuvring he claims to have done but has the bruises to prove…

I am going through one of the most stressful times at my work right now. At the beginning stage it was all blogging and reading blogs and just overall blogtastic but hey, now I have craploads of work and four magazines going to press within a 5 day period. Oy vay.

Home life seems a mix between scratching Ian’s back as he dozes off (something I will never ever think is a chore and never ever take for granted, he lies there like a comatose panda bear and I wonder how far into/from sleep he is at that exact moment) and washing dishes.

There is, of course, the sheer joy of my new shiny laptop, which I will share a picture of as soon as I can figure out how to get pics off my sweet ass phone onto said laptop.

My mom had an op she didn’t tell me about until the day of – and we all know how le terrible I am with keeping my phone on me, so her sms went unread until the next sms from her, freshly woken from anaesthetic, arrived to tell me she was fine. So here it is, you deal with their vulnerability, you get over it because it’s nothing serious and she’s okay. But you do get the sense that there’s more to come, more will come, if not now then much later when she stops dyeing her hair brown.

I have 5 grey hairs on the top of my head.

I am so so so out of here.

Mika Hakkinen is an ugly, ugly man.

Every single day I spritz myself with DKNY before walking out the door, at 08.30. It’s now 12.09 and I can’t smell a thing. And not in a ‘it’s always with me so I can’t smell it while others can’ kinda way. The scent just DISAPPEARS.

Why do I waste my money on fragrance when I just end up smelling like myself so soon again anyway? (I smell ok, just not lemony like DKNY).

On a less quizzical note, I ordered my laptop a week ago, and they said 7-10 days to delivery... I hope it gets here soon! I'm bubbling under the surface here!
Just ARRIVE, DAMMIT! I WANT TO CUSTOMISE YOOOOOOU!

Well sadly, I have to admit that I am among the sad masses who only discovered this song by watching the final episode of season 2 of The OC. Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap:

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you
You don't care a bit, you don't care a bit

A good friend from uni came over to visit family a while back, and we made plans to meet at Leicester Square... unfortunately with the closed Picadilly Line after the bombings, and a couple of back and forth voicemails, we missed each other.
This morning I found that she'd sent me a letter, filled with love and hurt and sadness and secret admissions... and her telling me that she's been through an incredibly rough time, with only Coldplay to pick her up.
I'm left imagining her reaching for her walkman every time a wave of emotion comes over her. Chris Martin and friends are there for her when I can't be, when no one else can be.

I love hearing that music can affect someone so deeply, so positively. Even if the most relatable music when you're down is depressing itself, listening to someone else word it so well is evidence of a sharing of pain. REM's Everybody Hurts is perhaps the most literal execution of this.

Yes, some of it’s stereotypical, but I never claimed to be the first person to ever move here:

There are few things worse than a weak cup of tea.
Curry is not a bad word.
Ben & Jerry’s. Believe the hype.
Nice cider drinks like Hunters Dry and Savannah are truly underrated and nigh on impossible to get here, without making an effort to get to a Saffer shop.
Malted milk biscuits beat Maries biscuits to a pulp.
The Smarties here taste different, I tell you.
Limes are so crazy cheap, like 12p each or something stupid like that.
You can now buy Mrs Ball’s chutney at Sainsury’s (go us).
There are still many people paranoid about Mad Cow's.

Wow, I do feel like I should write something here... so much happens, but so little really seems blogworthy.

I guess it's perhaps time to admit that I am officially a Big Brother junkie, and as much as he may try to deny it, Ian is too. Only two weeks of this madness left, when I might perhaps return to a life of some productivity.

I suppose I can also say that things are going pretty well at work. Our parent company has been making some staff cuts at another company (with whom we do a lot of business) which is slightly alarming, especially in the light of my freelance status. But I do feel that I've managed to wiggle a few roots into the soil.

Lastly, I am just about to throw some money at a new laptop for myself, and really can't wait for it!

Oh, and I kind of have a new part time job, too. No, not that kind of job, Sanchez - just one I've yet to start and can't really confirm here.
There we go... just enough to keep you gagging.