Rah Goddess' Guide to Life

Gotta love a bit of Paolo. I am not sleeping at night but likewise am not tripping the bar crawl fantastic Several reasons for this lack of zzzzzz. I’m away from home and my own bed. It’s oppressively hot in Paris at the moment. And I cannot shut my talkative brain up. Blah blah and then you should, what about this, you could, should, hope, blah blah blahdity bleurgh. Honestly shut it brain for one second with all your creative yearnings, worries, thoughts, feelings and dissecting every aspect of my life. It also gets worse with every night I don’t sleep, hopefully my own bed should help heal this. Also making lists should help, hopefully, won’t it?

Key operative word. Hopefully.

So scientists pitch sleep as an important part of leading a fairly sane healthy life, it figures! Thoughts are actually hurting me a bit, starting to feel like I’m heading on a vaguely bumpy unused path towards weird ideas and sleep deprived emotions. Beginning to understand part of what my other half has been going through, being away from home, exploring on your own, coming back after work to an empty abode and all you can hear is other people living their lives in the distance. A medley of words in a different language, city chatter and oh my god, the traffic.

I will be happy to be at home, relieve the housesitters of the duty and reclaim my dog, I miss being there and have only a short time to enjoy it before work starts again. The sad thing is, I love this city and being here with the man has been fantastic but. I’m over it now. Want home and the man to back with me in it. Roll on Thursday peeps Saying that, I am set to blog ten times about Paris. If you hate the French, dislike cities or just are grumpy, avert your eyes over the next few weeks

I am back x

Why is it when I try to write poetry it ends up morphing into a rhyme to make a stand up comedian blush? Is it just me that can’t write poetry? I’m an angsty teenager style poet, all 15, heavy mascara and self loathing. No matter my opening line, I falter. End up lost in a sea of broken hearts, broken dreams, and broken lines. Oh why can’t I rhyme like sunny days? Or drape words professionally like literacy ribbon on the page? Why can’t I be taught by the inspiring words of others? Why can’t I find truth in beauty and beauty in truth? I think that a poet’s career is not upon me, a wordsmith or artist am I not, I long for the deep caress of twilight melodies, a page full of power and wonder, not bereft.

What is your current obsession?

Surveys I keep joining online reader panels for things, it’s bad I tell you I’m also working through my bejewelled 2 at night addiction. It’s going well, for now!

What is your weirdest obsession?

I buy lots of books, ermm I am not sure I have any really weird obsessions… please correct me if I’m wrong of course!

What are you wearing

My pjs, they are blue and have penguins on them (I like penguins). What! It’s not afternoon yet!

What’s for dinner?

Not sure, I’ve only just had breakfast. MIght go out and get something healthy and yummy later.

What would you eat for your last meal?

Lasagne mmmm I love pasta Ooh and Champagne - I love the bubbles!

What’s the last thing you bought?

Books and tapes on The Secret Garden. I’m just about to start the topic with my class.

What are you listening to right now?

A noisy house at peace, it is bank holiday sleeping in silence, yummy.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

Ooh that’s hard, maybe Hong Kong, Japan, India or Australia - or then again probably Italy

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

Paris to persuade Dan to take a lunch break

Which language do you want to learn?

Japanese - I know little bits of French, Russian and Spanish - oooh or maybe Chinese.

What’s your favourite quote (for now)?

My favourite quote for now comes an article on Richworks

What is your favourite colour?

Today, it’s turquoise

What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?

My wedding dress - see here -

Picture courtesy of Jenny Packham and it is called Papillion which is quite funny as I absolutely hate butterflies.

What is your dream job?

Film director, fashion designer, writer, actress, oooh singer - although I can’t sing

Describe your personal style?

A work in progress, what I wear at the moment isn’t extremely me. I am overweight and working on it, my wardrobe is home to many beautiful dresses, I want to be that girl from my wardrobe.

What’s your favourite tree?

Oak

What are you going to do after this?

Get showered, dressed, work for a couple of hours, then go out with my sister, home again and more work before bed.

What’s your favourite fruit?

Strawberries - and white nectarines.

What inspires you?

People, sharing thoughts and ideas, talking, travel, pictures, creative outputs - lots of things.

What is your favourite photo that you’ve taken?

What are you currently reading?

One Day by David Nicholls - “You can live your whole life not realising that what you’re looking for is right in front of you.” It’s good fun

Go to your bookshelf, take down the first book with a red spine you see, turn to page 26 and type out the first line:

“However, she could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together in a frightened whisper - so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they said.” Alice Through The Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll.

What delighted you the most today?

The welcome I got from my dog this morning, all meaty kisses and following around.

By what criteria do you judge a person?

Manners, I dislike rude people. Next friendliness and humour.

What item could you not live without?

Laptop/PC/iPhone I need to be able to get online. NEED to.

Enough for now, back to work I go!

xxxx

This is a response to my good friend Laura over on her blog. She mentioned me in an article about exes recently and I felt compelled to write about it. Hope you don’t mind Laura!

So I begin earlier this week when I got contacted by an old boyfriend of mine wanting to catch up. This didn’t excite me or in fact disgust me, it surprised me. I spoke briefly over IM with him and it seemed to me that having just got back from a stint in a war zone, he was by his own admission, happy to be alive and had had some time to consider the past and all that goes with it. It was nice to hear from him, I felt no anger, mistrust or any really strong emotions about it. Other than we had shared a past time and I cared about him because we were once friends.

I shared this with both Laura and my husband. My husband, who is also no stranger to the wonderful world of relationships past, was as bemused as I was, particularly the method of my former boyfriend’s contact, but others are not that relaxed about it. I have been surprised by friends’ reaction to this experience, particularly Laura’s strong reaction on her blog, to the people who have contacted her. I guess I don’t agree that you can let things go, I’m opposed to that notion as it means not letting experiences, emotions, people etc shape you. Letting go is not moving on because there is no forgetting these people, these times, these emotions. You don’t let go to move on.

In my ever so humble opinion you make that step forward by letting yourself feel. You feel the hurt, the joy, the everything and then you concentrate on you. My letting go, was embracing myself, did I want to feel this way? No, then change it. It’s taken me ages, read almost seven years to realise that the way you move on from past regret - how you have behaved towards people, acted and lived your life - is to LIVE YOUR LIFE - how you want to (thank you Dan, as you have been telling me this now for what almost seven years! And for once I didn’t hear on television or read it ) Now I’ve hurt in the past, once I was with them, once I looked a certain way, once I accidentally hurt someone, once I definitely meant to hurt someone and I did. The way I see it is, when a relationship ends, be it a platonic or indeed romantic relationship, you need time out of that cosy and maybe hostile bubble to see yourself again. I say this now because I am with a man I can’t imagine being without, even though he’s far away. You learn from the people you share your life with, but ultimately you know yourself best, deal with pent up emotion and regret, don’t let it eat away at you. Don’t let go, move on. That way life is a journey, and people and feelings are not tidied away but felt and so worked through, to risk sounding like Oprah, it isn’t healthy to hang on to negative feelings, that’s when you find yourself in trouble and it does nothing to change the time, the person or their story, it just effects you and your living.

So a former friend of mine got in touch this week, it was nice but not newsworthy.

xxxx

So on Sunday my sister and I were meant to be going to go bluffing with our muffins down Sheffield to rock with Lady Gaga. *Wails at the injustice* It has been cancelled due to logistical problems. Husband reckons she couldn’t get her hair in the door, could be right. Either way am gutted, long time til June…

So I very stalkery went and tweeted her and… she didn’t even reply! I am shocked and saddened I mean it’s not like she has anything to do

Inspired by the Bloggess but not as wittily mad as Jenny, and also Laura’s campaign to be on TV , I am going to attempt to get a message from the little monster herself Wish me luck, I am a young adventurer with only flattery, wit and gumption to get me through this!

Just dance! xxx

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”
~ Joseph Addison ~

I tried, I really did. I mustered up enthusiasm, I bought the book and yet couldn’t open it. I was paralysed with hard cold procrastination and reading was put aside while I actually did my work. I love to read and so was genuinely confused, why couldn’t I complete the reading group task? I will tell you what I discovered. The book didn’t appeal to me, it fell flat against my expectations. I haven’t read for pleasure in a long time, my everyday work means tons of reading, this book sat in my hands wasn’t doing it for me. I read the blurb, handled the cover, hell! I even smelled the new pages. It was lost to me and so I hid it under my bed and left it there whilst I journeyed home.

However, I am reading again. Tentatively, nervously. Hoping to fall in love with books again. So I have five books, one old favourite (I love Tolstoy), three cheesy books and one that looks like it requires far more brain power. I have just finished reading “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan and am contemplating ordering his others. It is our class book this term. It is fun Try it, rewriting the Greek Myths channelled through modern day America, his writing is funny and accessible. My class are loving it.

What of the book club book I hear you ask? I hope I will read it one day, until then I may pass it forward, send it to a friend, I know someone will enjoy it! I am slowly making my book lists as well - so I think I will put them up in groups of ten.

First ten are -

1. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
2. Sucks to be Me - Kimberly Pauley
3. Skulduggery Pleasant, The Faceless One - Derek Landy
4. A Hollywood Ending - Robyn Sisman
5. The Wedding Day - Catherine Alliot
6. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
7. The Girl Next Door - Elizabeth Noble
8. The World’s Wife - Carol Ann Duffy
9. A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
10. The Girl with Glass Feet - Ali Shaw

Some classics there Hehe! Some bought for me for Christmas (I love books for children btw)and others bought but not read. If you feel like reading any of the above with me, let me know!

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested:
that is, some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously, and some few
to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
~ Francis Bacon ~

Happy book hunting and reading!

xxxxx

So I am not as the title of this post suggests, starting anew. Not totally anyway. Well, new years lend themselves to stretching, contemplating and guiding positive thought into some sort of positive action. I said to one of my students today, “come in tomorrow with a new head on". She was very giddy, disruptive and noisy today and I wanted her to realise that her choice was having an effect on the rest of the class. Changing your frame of mind, can be life altering. I have long believed that happiness is a choice, you can choose to see the positive or dwell on the negative in life. Realising that can radically alter how you live.

Attempting to change the way you see life can be the first step in changing your inner “landscape”. Marcel Proust, in one of my absolute favourite quotes, has it right on the money, “The voyage of true discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” I see a rich lush landscape of people and experiences awaiting me in 2010 and am happily setting about my journey. Perhaps this is a rosy clouded perspective but I have been down at heel emotionally speaking for far too long. In embracing a new set of eyes, I am able to take on the challenge of being away from home (it is indeed where the heart is!) for part of the week, starting my career and tackling things, instead of procrastinating.

It is a quasi-rebirth, a new breath and a nervous step in another direction. All the snow we’ve been having a lately felt strangely symbolic of this time in my life. It made me think about the last story in James Joyce’s “Dubliners” - The Dead. A story, I believe, which focuses on shifting perspectives.
“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
This final line makes me envision a man who needs his life to be washed clean as his focus on things around him have sharpened and become more realistic. He feels a link to the falling snow as he needs to start again. I like its link to the old myths of Ancient Greece, particularly of Persephone and Demeter, daughter and mother. Demeter is said to share her daughter with Hades (who stole her from her mother’s side) and her grief at spending only half the year with her daughter is used as an explanation for the changing seasons. Her sorrow becomes the bleak landscape of winter after which comes the joy of sunny days and the return of her daughter. Essentially Persephone is reimagined and reborn every time she comes back. New eyes indeed!

Apologies for my wandering tonight I am just getting warmed up again

xxx

Greetings, way lost travellers of cyberspace. Yes you are lost but please, pull up a pew and stay a while and listen. Or read. Or whatever. Hey! Remember me!?!

What can I say but I’ve missed you and been extremely busy, giving and receiving presents, scoffing choccies, drinking copious amounts of tea and sparkly stuff and and and…. Much more that I am sure I will mention later.

So how you lot been? Leave me a comment as due to the vast amounts of the cold white stuff, we have yet another SNOW day! Yay School has been fun and the staff and children are so friendly, it is almost a shame that we won’t be going in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR too! Any resolutions? Mine is attack that Bucket List with gusto! Love that word. So watch out for a whirlwind of energy and activity once I am settled into a routine with my new job.

I am off now but aim to be catching up on the morrow with my blog, planning, organising and the like! I will leave you now with a belated Musical Monday post. Comedy music, one old fave - Victoria Wood (who I adore) and one new fave, equally adorned with my like Tim Minchin. Prepare to laugh and have the words stuck in your heads! Genius I tell you!

Love you mucho!

Victoria - The Ballad of Barry and Freda - the line with the women’s weekly, fabness

Tim - 1. Inflatable You and 2. I so Rock

I am sat here chuckling at Inflatable You, and thinking humour really is attractive, ermmm. Maybe it is time to go sleep now

Love to all you monsters!! xxxx

ps - I’ve missed you, glad to be back.

Love. Awh that old writers’ block, the stumbling step in an array of rainbow experiences. I love the quote above as it really makes me think of love and how it is different for all of us and non of us are experts. Even two people in a couple, in a relationship, experience love in a completely different manner. Loving yourself, loving each other. Admire, adore, adhesive. Sorry feel in love a little with alliteration there :) I am musing about love as I am away from my beloved and missing him. Incidentally I am listening to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s King and I on Youtube.

This song is superb, has so many quotable lines :) Makes me happy!

Talk about tension and romance - take a gander at this scene, another of my favourites - Shall We Dance?

I like the very unpc The King & I :)

Shall we dance… 123… and 123 xxxx

Copyright © National Palace Museum, Taiwan
Ode on Leisurely Living
Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Yuan dynasty
Handscroll, ink on paper, 38 x 248.3 cm

For some that know and for others that don’t. My husband and I were married in December 2007 and for our honeymoon set sail on a voyage around the world. Phileas Fogg eat your heart out! We had no need to rush as our cruise took 101 nights to glide around the waters of the Old World (we missed out America - North and South). Some of the destinations and ports were not ones that I’d thought about going and also others were some I’d never heard of. Don’t judge me. I love geography, maps and have extreme wanderlust running through my veins but I never knew the capital of Taiwan is Taipei. Well after our trip there I did know, as Taipei was an interesting city if not a slightly confused one. Stunningly beautiful in parts and yet strikingly modern in others. Green spaces and steel construction sit side by side as do Chinese and Taiwanese inhabitants. Opinion shifts from person to person about whether their country is China or Taiwan. But my post is not about that aspect of a country divided, it is about instead the shared art, history and of course, calligraphy.

I have to say that Taipei’s National Palace Museum, located in the Waishuanghsi neighborhood of the Shihlin District, is one of the best museums that I have ever been to. It is a rare example of an educational and yet beautiful place . On the coach from Keelung to Taipei I read that visitors worldwide often just visit Taiwan to go to the museum and thought that it was hyperbole. It wasn’t, isn’t and you should definitely try and visit there if you’re in that neck of the woods. The building itself is amazing and stands out in the green of the parks around it.

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However, one of the major permanent exhibits, which to me is indicatively Chinese, were the rooms and rooms of gorgeous script. Handwriting as art. Ink flowing over reams of delicate wafer thin silky paper. Chinese calligraphy and painting. It was awesome. Trust me So much so, I HAD to queue up and buy the exhibit book - Marvelous Sparks of the Brush. Which made us a couple of minutes late for the coach, which absolutely pissed Dan off and then made me annoyed because we had had three weeks of waiting for latecomers getting on the coach and I was only two minutes late dammit! We had about a hour not talking to each other and I sulked and so did Dan. It was pants. However that inspired me to go twirling in my pink coat alone in an empty square. Rockin’, it’s one of my favourite trip pictures.

So the book and of course the museum. I am eventually reading it, remembering what we saw there and it is fascinating. How letters have become masterpieces and oh my God, the titles of some of them. ‘Calligraphing ‘Water Curtain Wave’ by a T’ang Poet, Chao Meng-fu, Yuan Dynasty’. I can’t find a picture online of it but the calligraphy looks like water on the page. I am in love with it. The patience and skill it must’ve taken, years and years to practice and accomplish, so no mistakes were made. It makes me recall a time when I was 12. New Berol calligraphy pen in hand, oh yeah, check me. I spent hours trying to write Old World stylee. To no avail. It was okay, just not perfect… story of my procrastinating life that is! Maybe I shall ink up (Dan and I have a lovely pen and ink from Spain) and have a go this Christmas. ‘Tis the season of lovely traditions after all. And what better way to celebrate than taking a bit of extra TLC with my cards. Until I get bored or too drunk that is. Well you can’t write Christmas cards without some Christmas cheer can you?! Tipsy in charge of a pen? My words will be looking like water for an entirely different reason!

Merry writing….

xxxx

Some Taiwanese treats to chew on! Well not literally as munching on your computer monitor might hurt!

*I did this through Picture2Life and it is cool for making collages - I am rahgoddess there too if you wanna check me out or add me! Really cool find xxx

ps - I am also going to add my flickr widgety thing (well, ask Dan to ) so you can see the pictures I’ve taken a lot better!