El Blog d´Éspaña (part one)

Hola dear readers!
 
Here I am in Spain! Oh, it's so exciting. Hannah (who is currently peering over my shoulder) says hi. I am currently camping here at Camping del Masset with my friend Sarah, her little sister Hannah (and their parents) and our friend Theo (and his parents). My little sister Helen sadly could not join us as she is off doing good works in Romania, but Stephanie and my mother are here as well.
 
I'd forgotten what camping was like before I arrived. It's been 3 years since I last went on a camping holiday with these people and yet nothing has changed. We go to the swimming pool and splash around in the water, we wander down to the beach, we hang out at our tents and play cards; it's fun, but I'm definately missing something. I can't work out whether it's Helen, Richard, all my friends, cool weather, or just home.
 
Speaking of cool weather, it's sooo hot here. Our tent is made of dark material so it gets sweltering inside during the day. You pop in to pick up a hairbrush or something and emerge 10 seconds later bright red, gasping for breath, and sweating like a pig. As if that's not enough, the whole campsite is built on a series of hills; forget the seven hills of Rome, they were mere molehills compared to these  mountains. To get to our tent from the beach you have to climb no fewer than FOUR hills! This morning I got out of bed, walked down two hills to go to the shop to buy bread, discovered I didn't need to buy bread, walked back up the two hills, had breakfast, walked down the two hills to the washrooms, walked back up to the tent to get money for the internet, walked down to the internet place, discovered I didn't have the right money, walked back up to the tent, came down again with the right money, and started blogging to you people. I really hope you appreciate this effort!!! If you were counting during that, you will find that already this morning I have climbed 8 hills and it's only 11:40. By the end of this holiday, not only will I be tanned but toned as well by all this excercise.
 
I see now that Richard has finally recovered from his tonsillitus and departed for wherever it is he is off to. If anyone wishes to talk to me, I will probably be online at some point between 10 and 12 (English time - we're an hour ahead) the day after tomorrow, that'll be the 2nd august.
 
So, what else has been happening since I last blogged? I hear you cry.
 
Helen and I had a fun day out at the park on monday, going boating and suchlike with Colin and Rohan. Tuesday: I spent all day packing; realising as the evening wore on that I lacked such essentials as a bikini and all the shops were now shut. I'm still attempting to locate one here in Begur. Wednesday: I said farewell to a rather sleepy Richard (over the phone!!! for those of you who do not have such pure minds as I), caught the plane to Spain (where the rain falls mainly on the plain! Oh, I'm so easily amused) and did a little sightseeing in Barcelona (such a beautiful horizon, Barcelona...), including some attepted posing on the lions by Columbus's column which didn't work too well due to the dress and high heeled sandals I was in. Thursday was more sightseeing and lion related posing before we drove to the campsite. Friday we hung out at the campsite having fun, and today I am blogging to you! But now I have run out of time, so goodbye dear readers, until next time.
 
Adieu

me

Barcelona here I come!

I'm off on holiday. I shall return in two weeks. I will, of course, miss you all dreadfully. But, until I return,

Adieu, dear readers, adieu!

Photo

Had to stick that up here so that I could finally get a picture on my profile. Gosh, I do seem to be doing a lot of blogs today.

You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape.

I decided to change my random question and this is the one I got. However, after 20 minutes of thinking up and composing a plausible and practical escape method, blogger now tells me that I can only write 150 characters. Grrr. Here's the answer that I came up with. I shall have to go and ask blogger for a new random question.
 
I'm assuming that this is an empty well and a live goat.

First I will uncurl the slinky so that I have a length of wire. I will then tie the end of the slinky to one of my shoes and throw it up so that it hooks around the bar that I'm assuming is at the top of the well. I will then untie the shoe and make a harness out of one end of the slinky wire for the goat. I will break small portions of wire off the other end of the slinky and embed them in the soles of my shoes to create spikes to help me grip the wall of the well better. I will also make hand spikes for me to hold out of wire.

All my preparations now complete, I will hoist the goat (in its wire harness) up to the top of the well. I will then attach the slinky wire to myself and, using the goat as a ballast, begin to climb the walls of the well. The goat will gradually be lowered as I climb and will take some of my weight, making it easier for me to climb. It also means that, if I slip and fall, I will fall at a slower speed as the goat will go upwards as I go downwards and so I will reduce the chances of me injuring myself. When I reach the top of the well I will climb out, pull the goat up by the wire, set it free, then set out for civilisation.

Wow

Woo! I checked this blog last night to find I had 270 hits, I looked again this morning to discover 377 hits! I can't believe there are so many people reading this thing. Really, I actually can't believe it. Is someone out there just constantly refreshing this page?
 
So Richard came over on thursday (sorry for stealing him away from the dud-a-thon, guys) and I took him shopping with me and tried on dozens of clothes before deciding to buy 3 skirts, while he amused himself by buying and reading a cookery book. I then attempted to use the cookery book to cook lunch and, for a really easy cookery book, it wasn't that easy.
 
First the recipe called for milk. All the milk in the fridge had gone off, so Richard and I went on a short expedition round to the shop to buy some. I had decided to try eggy bread, so i mixed the milk and eggs together and was about to soak the bread in it when it turned out that the only bread we had was frozen. I tried defrosting the bread in the toaster, but it didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped and instead I ended up with several slices of toast. I started soaking the toast, hoping it would really matter, but having started the first slice of toast soaking I ran into more problems. There were 3 of us so the recipe called for 6 slices of bread; it also said to soak each piece of bread for 20 minutes but, unfortunately, I could only fit one piece at a time into the egg mixture which caused a slight dilemma. Eventually I soaked the first piece of bread for 5 minutes or so, then cooked it whilst soaking the second piece and so on. It seemed to work ok, but then I ran out of egg after 3 slices. There was plenty to go round though because, once again, Richard refused to eat anything.
 
After lunch we retired upstairs where I forced Richard to listen to all the really catchy songs in my music collection such as Ricky Martin - Livin' La Vida Loca, Shakira - Whenever, Wherever and so on until he couldn't take anymore at which point we switched to Virgin radio and spent a pleasant afternoon listening to music and giggling at the ridiculous adverts.
 
Yesterday I went shopping again to find some shorts for Helen to take to Romania with her and then went to church for the youth service practice. Only me, Rachel and Ben turned up and after a while we ran out of things to plan (and Ben kept laughing at my hat) so I came home. Well, I attempted to. I actually got on the non-stop Victoria train rather than my usual stopping Victoria and ended up in - you've guessed it - Victoria. So I went and bought some noodles at the lovely Singapore Sam's in Victoria Place, then happened to see some people I know wandering around the station so I went to the pub with them. I seem to end up in a lot of pubs at the moment...

Richard

Hello readers!

I thought I might as well blog. Richard was meant to be coming over today, but so far he is an hour and a half late (!!!!) and the only communication I have had from him was a text that said:
 

Hello. On me way. Where do you live?

I feel compelled to point out that at this point he was nearly an hour late, but did I get any sort of apology? no

He has now arrived and is sitting opposite me whilst I finish this post so I suppose I should stop now and entertain him. But I am not happy!!!

The Ponytail

I have now realised that, having posted a photo of the ponytail, I failed to explain the significance of it. The ponytail was a device employed by me today in an attempt to look more strict and authoritative than yesterday in the hope that I might command more respect and therefore get the kids to do vaguely what I wanted them to. It was effective, in a way, I ended today much more cheerfully than I did yesterday.

Busy busy me

Yesterday and today I have been working. Until term ended I worked at JASSPA (James Allen's Saturday School for the Performing Arts) every saturday (7:30 - 3, not good hours) and these couple of days I've been helping at their summer clubs. Mainly I've been doing administration, checking and updating computer databases until my fingers ache and my eyes have gone blurry, except when the kids have been on their break and I've been trying to control 17 unruly 7 to 12 year olds.
 
Yesterday was absolutely horrible, to give you a taste of it, the lunch break was as follows:

First I supervised the children whilst they ate lunch. 4 of them had wandered off behind some portakabins where I couldn't see them so, after wandering round for a bit trying to locate them I finally found them and ushered them back to the playground. I returned to my seat to find that some 7 year olds had stolen my lunch. After a lot of giggling, I got it back and managed to eat some of it before it was time to play rounders with them. It took me 5 minutes to actually find the rounders equipment in the sports cupboard, after which i emerged to find the children scattered all over the school. I rounded them up and ushered them down to the sports field. 4 of them wanted to go and pick berries at the end of the field but they couldn't because there was a sports day down there; they wouldn't accept this and tried to run off there anyway and then sulked and refused to play rounders. I divided the children into teams only to find that somehow one team had 9 children and the other 4. I divided them again, but with great difficulty because some of them refused to be physically separated from their friends, hence the previous unevenness of the teams. I started half of the fielding and half batting, then noticed that the 4 who wouldn't play (who i'd told to sit quietly) were playing in the long jump pit. I went and yelled at them and sat them back down then went back to umpiring the game and sorting out the disputes that had arisen in my absense. Eventually I had to be the bowler as well because none of the kids could do it at all well and we managed to get an ok game going in the end. The kids weren't happy though. They complained that the equipment wasn't good enough, they complained about the snacks we gave them, they wouldn't put on their shoes to go outside, they spilt juice everywhere...
 
I'm not sure I like children anymore.

the ponytail

Gosh

So I set up my web counter 4 days ago and already I have had 118 hits! It gives me some information about everything as well, and it tells me that I have had 55 people visiting me! I had no idea that people read my blog, to be honest I thought it was probably Richard, Chris and occasionally Helen and Jess but there's all these people from America reading it. I don't know anyone in America! There's even been people from Iraq and China! Amazing!

Richard's friends

I'm sooo bored with being on holiday now. I can't stand having nothing to do, I wake up in the mornings wondering if there is any point in getting out of bed. Would you believe it that a couple of months ago I went on the internet for about half an hour every couple of days? Then study leave started and I've barely moved from this chair since.
 
Everyone seems to be away at the moment. Sophie is in Thailand, Jess is in America, Georgina's in Cornwall, Sarah H is in Austria (I think), Helen is still eating lunch, my family have gone to the library, even Richard (who doesn't appear to ever leave his house) has gone away somewhere and won't be back till tomorrow. So, in an attempt to allieviate my boredom I have been reading all of Richard's little friends' blogs. I have never met these people so I don't feel quite able to comment on their blogs but they've made me think of things. For all these blogs, if you go to Richard's blog (The Dickyblog) there are links to them there.
 
First Deutsches Dave's blog:
 
I used to be really unhappy with mainstream religions, especially Christianity. I had a long angst-ridden phase during my early teenage years where I was still nominally a Christian but really wasn't happy about it; I believed in it more because I was scared of dying than anything else. I left one church because they didn't believe in evolution and they said I couldn't be a Christian when I said I did, one of my friend's there told me that she believed that dinosaur bones had been planted in the ground by satan and that the Earth was only about 4000 years old. I thought that the world was a good place, that people were naturally good, and sure, people made mistakes occassionally but I didn't see why good people couldn't go to heaven just because they happened to believe in something else.
 
It was only a few months ago that I began to see things differently. I was in a politics lesson one day, talking about the American soldiers who abused the Iraqi prisoners, and it suddenly occured to me that these people weren't monsters, they were just like me and hence, conversely, I was just like them. One day when I was about 10 or 11 my little sister and I found a baby bird in our garden. We brought it in and looked after it and fed it and, after a while, I decided to take it out to the garden. As I was playing with it on the grass, I noticed one of our cats creeping up until eventually it paused, crouching, beside me. At this point I should have shooed it away, or picked up the bird, or done something, but in a way I wanted to see what would happen so I didn't do anything, and I thought I'd be able to stop the cat. Anyway, the cat pounced on the bird and carried it off. I chased after it and got the bird back, but it died a couple of hours later. I let that bird die just because I was curious about what would happen to it, I still feel sick whenever I think about it. In a way, what those soldiers did is not that different, just on a larger scale. I think I'm a pretty good person, but put in that situation I could not garuntee that I wouldn't do the same thing.
 
It takes effort to be nice, especially to people who aren't particularly pleasant themselves. We all have a huge capacity for greatness; in the same politics lesson we also talked about a girl's father, who found himself on a sinking cross channel ferry and made himself a human bridge so that all those people on the lower deck could climb up him onto the top deck. He saved over 100 people's lives. However, we can also be cruel and nasty, and that's how most people are, most of the time; not deliberately cruel, just not very nice. It is so easy to hurt someone unintentionally, and it takes so many kind words to make someone forget a nasty comment. I have a friend who I've known for 10 years now, and he's a lovely person. We have had so many lovely conversations, but whenever I think of him I think of when I was 13 and desparately fancied him and how, after we kissed for the first time, he told all his friends that kissing me was like eating a slug!!!
 
Anyway, my point is that human beings are not naturally kind, gregarious people, and all the good we do in our lifetimes is not nearly enough to cancel out all the hurt we've caused. That's why I need to be forgiven. Heaven is not just a paradise, it's being one with God; Hell is simply being without God, just dying and becoming part of the matter that makes up the universe. If one doesn't believe in God then obviously one can't go to heaven because one doesn't believe in that either. It's not a question of not believing in Jesus, it's a question of not being forgiven for all that one has done. God is perfect so, in order to become one with God, we must be perfect too and we can't be perfect unless we've been forgiven for everything. God still loves me, despite all that I've done and all that I will do in the future and I can never do enough to make up for all the hurt I've caused him. All I can do is try to spend the rest of my life trying to be like him and doing whatever he wants (I realise I'm going into Christian language now. When I hurt anyone, I'm hurting God because he loves us all. God wants what's best for the world, so in doing what he wants I am trying to make the world a better place).
 
A while ago people like me scared the bejeezes out of me. I even think I've heard God talking to me! I'm not trying to convert anyone; my mother's a buddhist, my dad's an aetheist and I wouldn't dream of trying to tell someone else what they should believe. I never thought I'd end up being a bible bashing, happy clappy Christian, but I am, and I'm a lot happier now than I was.
 
 
Right, now on to Megatrobe's blog
 
I agree! Well, partly.
 
Karl Marx (I'm sure everyone knows who he is) went on about how religion was the "opiate of the masses" and things like that and basically said that people used their hope for the future to make them happy (ie heaven in the case of religion) rather than doing anything about their current situation. He didn't exactly follow his own advice and spent his lifetime writing about his hope for the future, although when he did it it wasn't hope but scientific reasoning, of course.
 
There's this buddhist thing that says "craving leads to suffering" and basically what they say is that everyone always wants things they can't have and don't really need and that we should all be happy with what we have. In a way hope is good, but if that's all your happiness is founded on then obviously you will get gradually more miserable as time goes on. A more stable and better form of happiness comes from being content with who you are, what you have, and knowing what your limits are so that you aren't constantly craving things you will never acheive.
 
nonnesuch's blog
 
I don't really feel I have anything to say here, apart from the fact that I was reading through the comments when I found this:
 
DickyBod said...

Can I be some sort of guy who is murdered whilst making sweet love to some buxom blonde? 

You know, like in Predator II. Sure, it's a cameo, but at least I get to brag to my friends...
 
AHEM!!!!!
 
 
teradud's blog
 
I liked Never Been Kissed!
 
As for the world not getting any better, I think it does, only a lot more slowly than we would like it to. If you just look at the things that used to happen in Britain, people being hung for minor offenses, slavery, serfdom and all the terrible inequalities in life between rich and poor, then you can see that the Britain we live in today is so much better. It's like evolution, you can't really see it happening, but it is. Of course, there's still a long way to go, but humanity is amazing in the progress we make in a short time. The first powered flight was only in 1904 (I think) and by 1968 we had men walking on the moon! At the end of the 19th century the bloke who ran the patent office said "everything that can be invented, has been invented", and the 20th century saw the most advances that man has ever made. Who knows what is to come.
 
 
Blimey! you people can be so cynical at times! After my GCSEs when I was 16 I went to Nicaragua for a month and helped build a road, a church and a school. I wanted to become an environmentalist when I grew up and learnt Spanish so that I could go and talk to all the people in South America and pursuade them to stop cutting down the rainforest. You shouldn't be dissolutioned this early! You'll have nothing left for when you're grumpy old men in your 40s! I started this post nearly 5 hours ago now, so I think the time has come to finish it.
 
Adieu, dear readers, adieu

The Key to Discreet Gossiping

Found this today...
 
The Key to Discreet Gossiping
By Judith MartinSunday, July 18, 2004; Page D03

Yes, children, we did used to have blogs. We called them diaries, and they got us into almost as much trouble as yours will get you.
 
The impulse to record one's every thought, feeling, opinion and experience long predates the home computer. It does not, Miss Manners hastens to add, predate the notions that one has a uniquely sensitive nature to which the world does not show proper attention and appreciation, and that one day it will be realized what a blunder that was on the part of the world.

Friends are not the ideal receptacles for daily confidences that keep making these points, as it does not take long to discover. Their minds wander, causing them to misunderstand or forget what they were told. They are especially prone to forgetting they were told not to tell others. Their emotions don't always come out the way they were supposed to, and they make irritating remarks, such as "You're not being fair" or "I don't see what you're so upset about." Their loyalties shift, leaving them with choice material to use against the very person who supplied it.

Hence, the diary. It had an insatiable appetite for grudges, gossip, love affairs, cultural pronouncements, social criticism and whatever else one chose to put into it. It was the ideal companion, an eager and sympathetic listener who would never betray you in the present but hinted at helping you to fame in the future.

Web logs have a similar lure for those who keep them, with what seem like additional advantages. It is not only that they work faster technologically. They are supposed to supply fame and hordes of eager and sympathetic listeners in the present.

With a diary, the danger was that someone might sneak a peek at it or even steal it and expose one's secrets. With a blog, the fear is that nobody might do so.

Miss Manners realizes that society's ideas about privacy have changed, if, indeed, anyone is still familiar with the concept. Ingeniously, people have found an easier way to cope with what was always considered shameful behavior than attempting to hide it -- or even stopping doing it.

The solution has been to publicize it, and blogs have served as an outlet for those unable to book their confessions on television. Whatever this does for the general tone of society, etiquette has no rule against people spreading unflattering gossip about themselves. Miss Manners would only caution those who do so that both social standards and personal circumstances often change, and they may not always be pleased to have this material floating around.

What is of concern to etiquette is the way bloggers write about other people. Miss Manners has a perhaps more realistic approach to gossip than those who condemn it absolutely, and then go on to more interesting subjects, such as who is doing what to whom. People will always talk about people.

The polite person at least gossips discreetly and without malice. Blogs do not qualify as being discreet. For those who must write down their critical observations about people they know, Miss Manners recommends a small blank book that comes with a lock and key and can be hidden in the sock drawer.

My new boyfriend

Disclaimer: Anyone who does not wish to know about my new boyfriend, do not read this post.

So I've ended up with yet another new boyfriend that I didn't really want to be going out with. New boyfriend is a friend of ex-boyfriend (who sent me a text on friday saying he "didn't think we were right for each other" - it took him that long to work it out!!!) and invited me out to the cinema on tuesday. I had reservations about going, knowing as I did that - in his mind - this was probably a date, but I thought I could be politely disinterested and it would all be ok.

All through the film I was friendly but nothing more and I emerged from the film feeling triumphant!! This was short lived, however, when he then suggested going to the pub and before my brain even had a chance to react I heard my mouth saying "yeah, that'll be great".
I am a fool!!!! I knew I'd probably not be able to make it out of the pub still in the single state I long to remain in, but it seems to be an automatic reaction of mine to agree to everything said, even if I don't have a clue what has been said.

So we went to the pub and I found myself being steered towards a sofa with no tables free for me to divert us towards.  I was doing alright on the sofa at first, I sat at a respectable distance from him and we chatted about non-committal topics and I almost dared hope that I might emerge from this situation single. However, it was not to be. Inevitably, after a few drinks I felt an arm slide around my shoulders and at that point I knew all was lost.
 
Sophie now tells me that the appropriate response would have been to gently lift his arm from around my shoulders and place it back where it was. At the time I couldn't see any way to get him off me without being rude or making him feel uncomfortable, so I didn't do anything.
 
As we sat there he started gradually pulling me closer and closer towards him. I didn't know how to stop him, he already had his arm round me and I hadn't objected to that so I didn't see how I could really start objecting to being snuggled up to him, and it wasn't that unpleasant. Eventually i could tell he was about to kiss me and since i was already snuggled up to him           with his arm round me and I hadn't objected to anything so far i didn't really see how i could start protesting now. He kissed me and it was horrible. This isn't an unusual event for me, I've kissed a fair few blokes because they wanted to kiss me and I didn't know how to let them down gently and I didn't want to be unkind. However, I have to say that this was the worst kiss I have had since my very first kiss (and everyone's first kiss is fairly unpleasant). It wasn't helped by the fact that I was sitting there thinking "I really don't want to be doing this". Then he asked if he could see me again and, at this point, having led him on so far, I really couldn't say no, so i said yes. He walked me to the station for me to catch the train home and kissed me again, and it wasn't pleasant but I was going out with him now so couldn't exactly refuse. I went out to see a film with a friend and came home with a boyfriend I didn't want, feeling dreadful for leading this poor boy on and angry with myself for allowing myself to get into this predicament when any normal person would have known how to deal with it.
 
I talked to new boyfriend the next day on msn and told him that I thought it would be better if we just stayed friends. I also made some excuse about how I felt it would be really rude to ex-boyfriend to start going out with one of his friends less than a week after we'd broken up.
 
I haven't heard from new boyfriend since, and I probably won't ever again. It's a shame, new boyfriend was going to attempt to convert me to heavy metal music and teach me how to play the guitar, and he is a really nice bloke. If I had been able to let him know I wasn't interested sooner then maybe we could have been friends. He wasn't bad looking either, it's just that I don't want a boyfriend at the moment, maybe not ever. Nunhood is still looking fairly appealing.

The last post again

I think I may have been slightly confusing in my last couple of posts. When I said I don't feel the same way anymore I mean in that possibly I may have been slightly melodramatic and maybe everything will be ok after all....

The last post

See, now that post was only done yesterday but already I don't feel like that anymore so I'm not sure what to do now.

I could delete the post to go with the change in circumstances, or I could leave it as a monument to wednesday's mood. What do you think people?

I have sorely neglected my blog of late, to the extent that there is now so much to say that I don't think I have the energy to talk about all of it.

So much is changing at the moment; tomorrow is my last ever day of school, I appear to be on the verge of breaking up with my boyfriend, what was a beautiful friendship has been slowly deteriorating for a while and now looks set to blow apart in a cataclysmic style. I sincerely hope some good things happen soon, I don't want to wait around in limbo until october.

Anyway, the friendship. Isn't it strange how some friendships fade and fizzle out as time goes by and you grow apart and some you just know are never going to end peacefully. It looks as though friend and I will not even be able to exchange civil words once all this is over and it's sad because I love her, I really do. The first conversation I ever had with friend was over 5 years ago and I know she doesn't remember it any more, but I do. I was having a lot of problems at the time and when I bumped into her I was sobbing profusely so she gave me a hug and asked what was wrong and, when I told her, she immediately started insulting the people who'd upset me. She didn't question who was right in our argument, she just tried to make me feel better; she even came up with nasty nicknames for them on the spur of the moment and it cheered me up so much. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that we actually became friends though. I don't remember how it happened, just that it did. It wasn't until about a year ago, I think, that things started to go wrong. I can guess at reasons why, but I don't really know. We started to argue more and more often and the periods of calm between fights grew shorter and shorter. It was only about 6 weeks ago that she was helping me with a guy I knew and arranging fake parties just because I asked her to. The last time good things happened was shortly after that when she suddenly came up to me in our common room and gave me a hug. Since then things have been bad. So much so that in a way I'm dreading seeing her tomorrow because I know that she is a nice person really and I hate it that we bring out the worst in each other. I don't know why things didn't work out and I don't know if she'll ever read this or if we'll ever be able to talk to each other again but I wish things weren't this way.