Syria

Life, Rant
First, a disclaimer. I understand the one inherent failing of my personal political viewpoint. The world is not suddenly going to realise that peace is the best option and that ultimately everyone working together would be pretty good. We live in a world sadly divided by culture, religion and tradition, and one blog post is certainly not the catalyst which will change that.That being said…

Sorry guys, I have some political views to share

Right. Everyone is blowing up about the fact that the UK and the US are looking at possible involvement in the Syrian conflict. I am not a political expert by any means (and I have the Middle Eastern Politics module results from my degree to back that claim up) but I have to say, I am really annoyed by the number of people who are taking to my favourite social media platforms to condemn any interference by Western powers in the conflict.
The fundamental problem I have with their viewpoint is that what is happening in Syria is a humanitarian crisis. I am entirely in the camp of  “the US and friends should sod off out of other peoples business”, especially when it involves a certain oil-rich and politically imbalanced part of the world, but I’m also in the camp of us all caring about our fellow man. There have been continuous attacks made against the Syrian population for years now, but somehow that doesn’t matter because there is international bureaucracy at play.
And frankly, that sickens me a little bit.
One of my friends’ husbands is Syrian, and she has hardly been able to see him since the start of the revolution (as it initially was) in Syria. The UK government won’t let him come to this country because of policy, and she has embraced that fact and instead put all her efforts into coordinating collection efforts for care-packages to be sent to the schools and hospitals of affected zones. She has daily reports of innocent civilians being involved in the conflict, and for years no-one other than her seems to have cared.
So you can understand why it frustrates me to see people suggesting that “this isn’t our business”, “we don’t have to follow the USA again” and such comments. We DO have a duty to do something. The democratic west largely supported the revolutions which swept the Arab world while I was living in Morocco, and I really think that did something to raise the spirits of those in that neck of the woods who were fighting to change the status quo. It must be unbearably disheartening for them as the same people decry the idea of helping their fellow man. If I was one of the Arab revolutionaries looking at us right now, I’d wonder if I really wanted to be like the “democratic west” if we’re willing to step into wars where oil is at stake, but not ones with a seriously high human toll.
I understand that this is a paper-thin argument, and that there are a huge number of political facets I’ve not understood here, but I can’t help asking myself how much does that matter? The Assad regime is slaughtering people, and the rebels are doing the same. How’s about the rest of the world gets off their arses and reminds them that we don’t go in for that around here.

Hi Mum! And some more Spain diaries (drawn)

Travel
I found out today that my mum is reading my blog again.  She is one of the 4 people who comes and checks it per day, I think.  I never started this blog with the intention of getting readers but it is actually really nice to log on daily and see that someone has been on.Anyway, today I am blogging from a trees an I et (otherwise known as a tablet) and as you can see I am having trouble typing, mostly due to the length of my fingernails, which as it turns out don’t integrate well with a touch screen interface.  So today’s post is going to be an image oriented one.

Last year, as I’ve said, I lived in Spain. In Granada to be precise. This is my pictorial description of Granada (with reference photos at at times)

Granada is roughly where the red dot is.

It’s a small city with a big monument (the second most visited in the world, after the Eiffel Tower). Yes,  it’s…

Except that the Spaniards couldn’t pronounce that (quite reasonably) and so they called it the Alhambra,  which isn’t far off.

Here are the other things that Granada is made of for me.

Enjoy.  More soon.

Jorvik

Fun
Today we went on a day out to York. Boyfriend will tell you that I am a big fan of a “day out” and we’ve been doing a lot this summer, rather than taking a longer holiday away.I think it’s a shame that people often don’t visit their surrounding attractions. I know I’m certainly at fault for that. I think it’s due to the fact that a lot of things don’t seem very interesting on the surface, and so it doesn’t seem worth the time or money when you can just “come back another day” because “it’ll still be here”. This summer we’ve been working on breaking that habit and visiting places nearby with friends, and honestly, it’s been lovely.

So, to bring it back to today. We went to York, better known to the Vikings among you as Jorvik. We went to the Jorvik Centre and their bonus exhibition which is about Viking Heroes. Despite all this being aimed at a 7 year old mind, I really enjoyed myself.

A significant factor in my enjoyment of the day might be that I am a history obsessive. Not enough to study it, or to call to mind names and dates on demand (far from it, I am useless at a history round in a pub quiz) but enough to find museums and exhibitions absolutely fascinating. I loved going round the Jorvik centre and reminding myself all about how the vikings lived, and what stuff was like back then. In many ways I can’t imagine living like that, but in many ways if I had the chance I think it’d be really interesting to experience.

Maybe my love of all things Skyrim also contributed to how much I enjoyed the day. Who can say.

 

Why I enjoy writing

Life
I feel like sharing with you.I started this blog back up again because I realised I miss writing. I recently finished my undergraduate degree, during which I did a lot of writing, but most of which I didn’t enjoy, and it put me off. That combined with the fact that Boyfriend thinks my punctuation is poor (which it probably is) meant that I gave up on writing for a while.

But really I love writing. It’s engaging, entertaining, and it’s such a wonderful way to express yourself. I rediscovered this blog at about the same time that I rediscovered how fantastic reading is when it’s for pleasure. Between writing here and reading (and re-reading) some good books.

If you are stuck for a hobby, I can’t recommend writing a blog more highly. It’s liberating to write about what you think, or care about, without expecting a response or needing some kind of qualification for it. I don’t feel like the world needs to know my opinions or stories about my life, but putting these blog posts together forces me into a level of creativity and focus that I don’t necessarily get in the other parts of my life. It also makes me think about my experiences, reflect on them, and then really appreciate them in a way I probably wouldn’t if I hadn’t chosen to write about them.

And by write, I mean type of course. My writing is shocking.

The Spain Diaries (Part 1)

Travel
So last year from March to June, I went and lived in Spain.You’re right of course, that is the whole point of a travel blog. Sorry I didn’t tell you about it.

So let me begin at the beginning, and we’ll see how we go. I went to live in Granada, Andalucía, in Southern Spain. I was there for 3 months studying at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas of the University of Granada, as part of my degree course. I was one of about 12 students over there from Leeds at the time, and I arrived just at the start of Semana Santa, with Boyfriend in tow.

In case you don’t know what Semana Santa is, it’s this:

Sometimes they have the pointy hats which look suspiciously KKK related, but it’s mostly a week of pretty awesome (if slightly ridiculous) parades full of colours, noise and people of all ages. It was an amazing way to introduce Boyfriend to the culture I’m so in love with.

More to come

Radio GaGa

Life
I appear to have missed a few days. I’m trying not to slip off the blogging wagon again.So this is a rant, sorry in advance, skip it if you want to.

I have about a 40 minute drive each way to get to work. I have a car with a cassette player that chews up cassettes. And other than that I have a slightly crappy radio. Which would be fine except that commercial radio is the worst thing in the world and it’s guaranteed to destroy your soul and make your brains melt out of your ears.

Like this –

Let me explain further.

There is no need for so many repeated adverts. Once or twice in a 40 minute journey should be fine. I will get the message. I have literally no idea what JCT600 is, but I know it was shouted at me from the radio innumerate times today. It makes me hate your product/service/business and makes me never want to patronise you EVER.

Incidentally. I am not against the armed forces per se, but I have one massive issue with them, and that is the reserves. We are not under attack, we do not need a standing army, and I don’t want my taxes to pay for them. I was approached once to join the RAF reserves and basically advertised to with stories of drunken hilarity and guns, all paid for. Which frankly, makes me sick. And now I’m having it blasted at me over the radio as well. I’ll tell you what, rather than joining the Navy reserve to “learn extra skills and gain new experiences” how about you do that by taking some time out and WORKING FOR A GOOD CAUSE.

Aside from the adverts, commercial radio has the most vapid hosts in the history of the world. I couldn’t care less whether or not you, male radio presenter, like One Direction more than your girlfriend. That is for you and her to work out. I should not have to be involved.

And aside from the adverts and the vapid hosts, comes the worst bit of commercial car radio. The music. It is repetitive, badly mixed with the rest of the program, and built up far too much. If you say a song is coming on NEXT, please put it on NEXT, not in 10 minutes after 4 other apparently inferior songs and a host of mindless drivel parading itself as adverts. The same applies if you say a song is COMING UP or AFTER THIS. Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to your listeners, why would that ever be productive?

These are the stations my radio receives here in West Yorkshire, and this is what I think of them:

BBC Radio 1 – will hardly ever tune in, I’ve never heard any of the music and the host is being pretentious and hipsterish about it anyway.

BBC Radio 2 – not in my car apparently.

BBC Radio 3 – as above. I don’t even honestly know whether Radio 3 exists.

Leeds Radio Aire – Trying too hard to appeal to a young audience, specifically through constant playing of Olly Murs (who is actually not bad, but please, ONCE per journey, thank you)

Capital FM – The radio station with the most acceptable taste in music and the worst taste in hosts.

Classic FM – I can receive Classic FM no matter where I am, which is slightly wonderful because I love classical music, but slightly awful because any time the host cuts in I instantly feel guilty for not having a clue who the composer of the piece is.

OK, rant over. Feeling much better now, thanks.

La La La

Fun, Music
Have you heard “La La La” by Naughty Boy and Sam Smith. If you haven’t, where have you been? It’s my favourite summer earworm this year, which got me thinking about music, and life, and summer.Music is a bit of a time capsule to me. I like to pretend I have some kind of exciting synaesthesia because when I think back to certain locations, or when I visit them, they have a particular timbre in my mind. Not exactly a “theme tune” but a bit like that.What that means is that when I hear certain songs, they trigger certain very clear memories – this is the time capsule bit. I love the idea of a time capsule, possibly because I’ve found that I have a very acute memory and a bit of a fascination with the past. I think I get it from my Mother, who (among other things) has worked really hard on a family tree and working out her family history. It’s brilliant.

So back to the music thing. Here is a playlist of some of my favourite summer songs, and what they remind me of:

1) La La La – Naughty Boy feat. Sam Smith: I’ve already mentioned this one. It reminds me of this summer, which luckily for me included a holiday to Cyprus with Boyfriend. It was sweltering but absolutely lovely.

2) Turbulance – Steve Aoki, Laidback Luke feat. Lil Jon: This reminds me of the firs time I visited Cyprus with boyfriend. We stupidly went right in the middle of summer and it was basically too hot to leave the house. This kept coming on the music channels, and we got addicted to it.

3) Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen: The summer of Call Me Maybe was loads of fun, not least because of all the amazing YouTube parodies. Boyfriend sent me a link to it while I was in Spain, with a message basically saying “This might be an awful song, but the string backing sounds brilliant” – he’s right.

4) Summer Jam – The Underdog Project: This was one of the tunes that was popular when I first started going out clubbing. The best nights were the ones which started with an amazing summer day that ran seamlessly into a great summer night.

5) Alphabeat – Fascination: This is one of my greatest summer memories. It reminds me of a summer I spent mostly in the park, with one of my best friends. Honestly, we mostly sat and watched the boys in the skate park (which was great in summer when they took their tops off *giggles like a teenager*).

There are a million other songs I could pick, but these ones hold really strong memories, so I thought they’d be best to share. And I hope that in a few years I’ll be able to look back at this post as a kind of time capsule.

My New (old) Job

Work
So I was looking back over my old blog posts (from YEARS ago. Actual years.) and I noticed that just before I stopped blogging back in 2011, I’d just got a new job, at Mad Science.I don’t work there any more.

It was an amazing job, don’t get me wrong, and I loved working with the kids, but it’s not the kind of thing that fits neatly with a changing university schedule, and fairly early on it became clear it wasn’t going to be the ideal job for me. After I came back from Spain I went hunting and got a new job.

Obviously, as I came back from Spain over a year ago, that means I’ve been doing my new job for over a year now, making it my old job really. I work for two small internet companies on all of the secretarial and administrative type stuff, and I have to say, it’s worked out wonderfully for me. I get paid nicely for what I do, work between 3 and 4 working days a week, and get to chat to people all over the world.

Of course at times, people all over the world are stupid, but every job has moments like that. The internet is an amazing tool,  but if there is one thing I’ve learnt in the past year, it’s that a whole lot of people have no idea how to use it, or how to use computers. Which in itself isn’t a problem. Mother and Father both struggle with technology to some extent, and while my wonderful Grandmaman is incredibly tech-savvy for a woman her age, that really isn’t the norm in our family. For the older generation then, that’s a respectable and expected position. I’m not about forcing people who have coped perfectly well for most of their lives without computerised assistance to suddenly start coding.

What worries me is that there are people around my age and younger, who are using computers daily and don’t really understand them. I don’t claim supreme computing knowledge myself, but I’m not entirely lost when I’m on here, and if I’m not, then no-one else should be either.

I’m not sure I’m expressing this point well, but someone who has is a guy called Marc Scott, and for your viewing pleasure, his blog post:

Kids Can’t Use Computers – Coding2Learn

I warn you now, it’s long, but it’s definitely worth it. Plus you can test yourself against some of the scenarios he explains, and see whether or not you can use a computer.

Achy Ankles and Companies with no Souls

Life
Today my ankles ache.I’m not a fan of the traditional fad-diet which we all have such a love-hate relationship with, so rather than doing that to lose weight I’ve decided to try and change my lifestyle and my routine. I have an app which tracks my net calorie intake per day, measuring my food intake against my CV exercise. It doesn’t include weights exercises because it’s such an individual amount of loss with those, but as far as I’m concerned that should just mean I lose weight/build muscle more quickly. So fine.

However, a big part of the “exercise” half of my lifestyle change is star jumps. I just find them the best CV activity to do without leaving the comfort of my flat (because God forbid someone other than Boyfriend witness my health attempts…and having said that, even he’s not allowed in the room really).

But today I couldn’t do star jumps because putting pressure on my ankles hurt. I have a long history of cruddy joints, so it’s not something I’m worried about, it’s just a bit annoying.

In other news, why do some companies have no souls? I wanted to insert a picture here, so I Google’d “Company with no Soul” and here is the result:

What?

Thanks Google, you’ve illustrated my point beautifully.

So the reason I am grouchy about companies with no souls is because over the last few months I’ve had to deal with two companies of the housing variety who have tried (one of them successfully) to grub me out of money. The first one was a sad mistake on my part, and a frankly pathetic piece of work on their part who worded part of our interaction in such a way as to persuade me into making a statement which could be used against me legally. The whole affair was horrible, and I can only conclude that people who work for said company (we’ll have no shaming here however, as I, unlike them, am not pathetic) are horrible little trolls and I don’t know how they sleep at night.
That being said, I think the latest interaction has actually annoyed me more. We’re in conflict with our previous landlord company over the return of our bond, because they are claiming over £130 in cleaning costs.
I think not, kind sirs.
A quick search reveals that a deep clean can be arranged for £65 for a one-bed flat, and that is assuming any cleaning needed doing. Which it didn’t because I did it myself (with Boyfriend, naturally) for 5 hours before we moved out, in the hopes that the next tenants would have a more pleasant experience than us. We moved in to a filthy, unpainted, uncared-for flat and it took us weeks to get some very basic things done by the landlords. For them to then deign to try and charge us is frankly ridiculous. Thankfully we’re well protected by our bond protection scheme, and I doubt we’ll even have to look at claiming through court.
Normally I can see the other side of a conflict, even if I don’t agree with it, but in this case, as with the first one, I’m lost. The money can’t be released to the landlord until we accept their claims, and so until we do they are just wasting resources. If it goes to court (which we will if necessary) they will need to spend even more time and resources. And all to steal money off of two tenants who were never once late with the rent, took far greater care of the premises than the previous tenant, and left it in a better-than-acceptable state. Not to mention we left early.
Why do you want to steal from me, company with no soul? Is it easier to sleep when my money is under your pillow? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Tell me, because I don’t get it.

Emotionality

Life
Today has been an interesting day.The principle thing I can say about it is that it has been filled with a large range of emotions, and that’s given me some time to think over how I personally react to situations, and how I react to my own emotions, which is interesting stuff.

The day began with me in a bad mood, because last night I had a meaningless fight with Boyfriend. This is something that happens as frequently as in any other relationship (I’m sure) and our arguments tend to revolve around the core idea that one or other of us has completely misunderstood the other. Once we calm down enough to talk like rational human beings we invariably realise our mistake and all is well.

But last night we didn’t discuss because we were both tired, and so I woke up in a strop. Later in the day this came back to bite me when we descended into full-flung argumentville. We fought for a while and then I stropped off to think about what I’d done, and I realised a very important factor in the argument. I was feeling wounded because Boyfriend hadn’t (as I perceived it) given me enough attention, and was suggesting that I’d taken something else too personally. I reasoned that it was my prerogative to take it so personally and that he should be ready to apologise.

Life does not work like that.

At any rate, we solved the argument fairly painlessly later, but it got me thinking about emotions. I realised that I’m actually very happy to be a deeply emotional person. It means I fly off the handle a little too quickly, and it means I take things to heart a little more than I should, but the flip-side is that when things are good for other people, they’re excellent for me. Boyfriend frequently tells me off for claiming films are “hilarious”, but to me they really are. Looking back on my time in Morocco and Spain (Spain stories coming soon by the way, so watch this space) I realise that I probably enjoyed them twice as much as my fellow classmates because the colours never dulled for me. Things about the culture never stopped amazing me even after 9 months there, which is why I managed to maintain a fairly active blog.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that without having slightly amped-up emotions.

Drawn by Mr Jack Cotton for the Belfrey Theatre

Oh, Boyfriend also wanted me to share that the emotional drama did not end with the argument. He made a joke that a butterfly had died earlier in the day and I may or may not have burst out crying. Suffice to say that he found the whole thing hilarious.