Profusemoose

Walks and cards

2010-09-21T20:34:00.002+09:00

We've been doing a lot of long walks during the summer weekends and this week we went to Crystal Palace Park so I though I'd post a few pictures...

...and here's a little peak at what's been coming off the Christmas Card production line!

Projects Update

2010-09-17T20:33:00.003+09:00

Funny how quick the time goes! I had great intentions of updating here weekly about my adventures in freelancing but (haha!) haven't had the time! I had almost three months off before getting a part-time job, which has given me a really lovely balance of time to do the things I love, and money to pay the bills.

Here's a quick run-down of what I've been up to:

Translation - my freelance project is nearly finished! Yup I've almost translated a whole book!! It's been a really brilliant experience and very interesting.
Music - Still writing and recording, I wrote quite a bit of new stuff early in the summer and some of it is on myspace. Hoping to finish another album this year - I have more than enough material but I want to find songs that go together well rather than just plonking down everything I've written, so there's still quite a lot of work to do. I'm also building a new website which should hopefully be finished this month.
Creative stuff - following an extreme splurge at Hobbycraft in Crawley, and taking advantage of the world cup, I challenged myself to make 100 items - cards or jewellery. The cards are for sale on Etsy in sets of five - there's quite a good range for different occasions. Just this week I've started working on Christmas cards, which seems early but in order to produce enough to sell in time for people to write and send them... now is definitely the time! Here's a picture of the card army invading my desk:

Study: I'm still working towards the seemingly never-ending series of exams required to upgrade my CAT qualification to an ACCA one. Latest textbook arrived this morning - it's hard to imagine something more opposite to songs and cards than accountancy, especially Tax, of all things!

I think that's it at the moment but I WILL be back to update as things develop!

Living the Dream!

2010-04-10T02:28:00.002+09:00

I realise this blog has been dormant for a long time but to be honest I have been just doing the usual - going to work, having the odd holiday, hanging out and working on a project or two here and there.

Now, though, I actually have something reasonably interesting going on in my life: today I left my full-time job and I'm hoping to make a break for it, temping, freelancing, and maybe even having a bit of success with one of the projects that's close to my heart. I'm taking a break for a few months and the challenge during that time is to work out how to support myself by other means, so I can avoid going back to full-time office work. I'll come back and talk about those plans a bit later.

Right now I'm just enjoying the feeling of freedom and relief - I learned a lot in my job but it got very stressful towards the end. I'm going to enjoy this weekend and enjoy the reality kicking in even more on Monday morning...!

Recent London Wanderings: popped into The Photographers' Gallery

2008-06-19T03:25:00.000+09:00

and snapped this guy taking his ferret for a walk in Leicester Square!!

2008-06-19T03:23:00.000+09:00

Then found a cinema

2008-06-19T03:20:00.001+09:00

that does karaoke films

2008-06-19T03:19:00.000+09:00

and found a little alien lurking on a wall

2008-06-19T03:14:00.001+09:00

Then I went for a wander around the British Museum

2008-06-19T03:12:00.000+09:00

South Entrance

2008-06-19T03:11:00.000+09:00

More from inside the BM

2008-06-19T03:03:00.001+09:00

31 January 2008

2008-01-31T18:41:00.000+09:00

Ooooh it's a horrible murky old day today! Days like this are so depressing, it's impossible not to feel tired and wiped out when there's no light and the weather's awful.

Last day of January today - I'm pretty happy with how this month has gone (and how fast it's gone!) I've made progress with all the things that are most important to me and laid the foundations for what I think is going to be a fantastic 2008 - can't really write about it all here yet but keep reading, big changes are in store! On the whole I think I've reached a point where I just have to get out and do the things I really want to do, stop just preparing and actually get out there and make my life the way I want it - it's all a bit now-or-never.

30 January 2008

2008-01-30T18:46:00.000+09:00

I've been having this repeated flashback recently. I'm in the car, driving, on the roads between Hirosaki and Aji. It's sunny, must be spring I think, everything is green and blue and yellow, and the mountain is still snowy on top but bright and clear in the sunshine. I've got the windows down, so it must be warm. I'm driving home in mid-afternoon, which is odd as usually I would be driving away from home in the afternoon. Maybe I am coming back from Russian on a Saturday, or back from staying over somewhere on a Sunday afternoon. I feel like I have all the time in the world and the space I need, and full of hope, and everything is about to start going just the way it should. I feel content.

I've concluded this is a good flashback to be having! I suppose it's either a mirror of what I'm feeling now, or it's not how I'm feeling now but I'm striving towards feeling that way again. Maybe it has something to do with how mild January has been this year and how I'm looking forward to an early spring - I saw crocus leaves yesterday for the first time.

29 January 2008

2008-01-29T19:48:00.000+09:00

I'm making a renewed push with the Japanese - I think it must be something about this time of year! Actually, thinking about it, it's 5 1/2 years since I started learning Japanese now, and I know recently I have settled into a little trough - a mixture of enough to get me by at the office, and enough to communicate with Japanese friends. It's been a long time since I really studied for the sake of it.

Now, however, I seem to have a fair bit of time on my hands, and it would be nice to crack on towards a slightly more versatile level of communication - particularly at more formal levels. I'm going to be focusing on three main areas:
(1) 敬語, my beloved. I have always slacked off about this but really it's just like a language of its own, with certain patterns for certain situations. I can learn these, and be confident about using them in situations where everyone else is! I have a really great textbook and CD set to start me off.
(2) 語彙 - my vocabulary is just far too limited, and my talent for using words I already know to explain things (so useful as a second year JET!) means I never really bother looking words up, let alone trying to remember them! I feel a rolling vocab list coming on!
(3) 漢字 - I used to love studying these, learning to write new ones, trying to remember the stroke order etc. - so this is just for fun! It's back to the yellow books we go...

I'm going to be focusing on this throughout February with the expectation of seeing some progress by the end of the month.

28 January 2008 - The Journal Returns...!

2008-01-28T20:18:00.000+09:00

Back in 2006 I took part in a journal-exchange project - there were 11 of us and we each started a journal, which was then to be sent round the chain in order for people to write, stick momentos and do artwork in. Well as inevitably happens with these things several people dropped out along the way and things got massively delayed, but last week I finally got mine back! It was great to see it finished - the journal has been back and forth across the atlantic and even all the way to New Zealand and back! - and everyone took the time to make it really unique and personal. It was also funny to read back on what I'd written 18 months ago before I sent it; I'm glad to say I'm in a much happier place now! And I have a tiny, personal connection with the other people who contributed.

25 January 2008

2008-01-25T22:53:00.000+09:00

I saw something on a site today that just screamed hypocrisy at me. It was something someone I vaguely know wrote on the page of someone else I vaguely know, or used to know, or whatever, and it just struck me as completely incongruous to everything I thought I knew about either of them. Total does not compute moment!

But then, I thought - just because people are not how we remember them, doesn't mean they're being deliberately false. And it occurred to me that, in the light of how things have changed, it's hardly any surprise to see that particular thing there now - which leaves me thinking that above anything it's our circumstances that have the power to draw us towards people or tear us apart. It would take little short of a miracle to keep a relationship stable in the midst of wildly fluctuating circumstances.

And what's weirdest of all is the knowledge of how much I changed, and how, in a sense, without meaning to deceive, I stopped playing a role I used to play, and how that might have even contributed ever so slightly to bringing about what I read today. In the end, all of the movements are kaleidoscopic, and all the shifts compliment each other.

23 January 2008

2008-01-24T00:09:00.000+09:00

Today we had a full-office meeting at work, where all the department heads (that makes our office sound much bigger than it is!) explained their objectives for the coming year. We have these meetings now and again but I was really struck this time by how much is going on in the company now, and the depth, detail and complexity of the work that some of the other departments are doing.

I had one of those when I grow up I want to be like you moments. My job does at least involve a variety of work, and at certain points in the past two-and-a-half years it's felt very challenging, but I think I have it down now, and it's not really one of those jobs where there is a new flood of work arriving from any particular direction. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for some high-flying department-managing work-is-my-life position, and at the moment the lack of stress suits me quite well, but I may well be up for more at some point (although, all things considered, I am more likely to go the self-employment route eventually). It would be nice to be very good at something, or be very passionate at something, or be very good at something you were passionate about - I wonder though if getting paid for it doesn't somehow dull the passion?

22 January 2008

2008-01-22T23:34:00.000+09:00

Someone tried to follow me home last night.

I missed my normal train so got one to the main station and then instead of getting straight on a bus, like usual, I thought I'd walk as the weather wasn't too cold. Walking down through town, past the next bus stop, I was aware of a guy slightly behind me and to my right. Maybe it was my becoming aware of him that pre-empted the whole situation? I sped up, he kept just behind me. I crossed the road, he crossed too. I slowed down to let him get ahead, he waited in a shop doorway. All those creepy things you wish you were imagining. Eventually he came and walked right next to me and asked for my number (at least that's what I think it was, it wasn't exactly native English) and I told him to get lost before running dramatically across the main road and jumping on a bus that had just pulled up, heart racing.

And all this, in the middle of town, at 6.30pm, with loads of other people around. I wasn't really scared he would attack me, maybe just try to take my bag or something but still. Home safe and sound and just a little creeped out...

21 January 2008

2008-01-21T23:30:00.000+09:00

Today is a proper British rainy day. Not a thunderstorm, not a hurricane, no hail and snow lashing against the office window. Just gentle, fine spots and dribbles, pinging against the outer glass and running down to the ledge. Outside the whole of West London sits under a soft, calming, bunny-gray cloud, and Hyde Park is throwing up a little mist. The tinkling and plopping of the rain is so therapeutic; it makes me glad to be indoors beavering away and not outside fighting against the elements. Days like this remind me of uni, of libraries, of stacks of journals with places marked and an afternoon of swotting ahead. It's easy to be industrious when the rain is pattering away at its task along with me.

18 January 2008

2008-01-18T01:00:00.000+09:00

Something really freaky happened today... I reached the end of my to-do list at work! This might have happened once before, but not in January, surely! Last year I was studying for exams half the time, and during November and December was putting off whatever work was long-term enough to focus on cramming for the exams; today I am officially caught up! Maybe I will even fish out some of the totally obscure and virtually shelved miscellaneous jobs, or print off some funky labels or something. It's a similar feeling to getting that new Paperchase journal home and opening it to write for the first time, like I've been given something perfect, something whole.

I suppose it's only time, after all. You make plans for it, fill it up with stuff, or it gets taken over by unexpected events or invaded by that long list of lingering should-dos. All time is blank until you act in it, and until it's passed you can always change your mind about how to spend it. But this moment here, in the present - it is still perfect, still replete with potential.

16 January 2008 - Making Plans

2008-01-17T05:57:00.000+09:00

Today I met F for our normal Wednesday English Conversation lunch. We've made two dates - one to make chocolates for Valentine's Day (and pizza!!) and another to visit Canterbury (her husband really wants to go and I've never been so hey!) Recently a lot of plans have been being made; there are several uni-meetups in the works, a load of birthday parties, and a couple of other random days out - altogether I don't think it'll be hard passing the winter months. It feels like everyone's made the same New Year's Resolution - to spend more time together, meet up with old friends - and maybe it is that January feeling, and people want to make events to look forward to? Whatever it is, it's nice - I'd like to make it through the next two months in as cheerful a way as possible!

15 January 2008

2008-01-16T04:35:00.003+09:00

Got home from work to the smell of fresh tomato bread, just finished baking... My evening-self was most grateful to my morning-self for getting up 10 minutes earlier than usual and being organised enough to put the bread on timer so it would be ready for when I got home! Been quite domesticated recently, have been making soup each weekend to take for lunches at work, and what with making my own bread and all. And I read somewhere that the oil in fish is an anti-depressant, so I concluded that it must make you happy, and have been trying to eat lots of fish in these cold dank winter months. This morning there was a full-scale wind-and-rain onslaught, and three of us turned up at work at the same time and simultaneously screamed "I hate this country!!!" At least snow is pretty. Impossible to drive in, but pretty. And hey I'm not driving at the moment anyway...

14 January 2008

2008-01-15T01:31:00.000+09:00

Not entirely sure what to write today. I have started doing a bit of writing about Japan, for a sense of release (and, if I'm honest, nostalgia). I find London so uninspiring by comparison - sure there are parks but the nature here is so controlled. I miss mountains and rocks and sky everywhere and more than anything the great, rolling, angry expanse of sea on windy, cloudy days like today. I never got bored of the sea - sitting by it, watching the sun rise over it, listening to it - it's so great and strong. All that power to move, to kill, to support life, in constant flux.

Actually, talking of the sea, I just remembered something. This was the first picture I posted on this blog, and I remember very clearly the day I took it. I had gone out to Senjojiki (a formation of volcanic rock jutting out into the sea) and was walking about on all the rocks, getting as close to the sea as I could, striding over channels of seething, swirling water, watching the waves crash against the slabs of rock. I was only five minutes from the car, there were other people around and I knew I was safe; but I felt totally alone, like I had passed through a curtain onto the stage of the sea, and suddenly there was nothing else. I was swallowed up, at least figuratively, at least for a while.

It's 4.30pm and not quite dark - another couple of weeks and I reckon it'll be light to walk home in...

12 January 2008

2008-01-14T02:09:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I took it into my head to go swimming at lunchtime - NOT the best idea to be trying to get a train into London at 1pm on a Saturday when Arsenal and Chelsea are playing at home. The train was absolutely packed, cheeks against the window, sardines pickled in beer. Football is not one of those things I get, at all, really, but that train was just proof of how obsessed this country is with it. I suppose having that many people in the same place rooting for the same group of 11 people must be a bit of a rush, or a sense of belonging at least.

So I made it to the pool, thinking there couldn't possibly be anyone left in London as they were all at the football, but it was packed! Must be all the new year's resolutions I guess, and everyone happens to want to pursue them on a Saturday lunchtime. Note to self: swimming on a Saturday lunchtime = bad idea!

11 January 2008

2008-01-12T00:32:00.000+09:00

Missed a couple of days there - oh well, no matter!

I have this Big Thought pending but I'm not sure how to go about writing it down... it's about ideals, the ideals I hold against which I measure my life's progress. I wonder where these ideals come from? I don't even know clearly what they are until my life takes some huge deviation and for whatever reason I find myself thinking this is not how I thought it would be. A lot of the time I think that's a positive thing, that the deviation is a result of one of my individual characteristics, and those events are what makes my life unique. In many ways I think my life has pretty much stuck to the straight and narrow, semi-professional hoop-jumper that I am; but in other ways, for better and worse, I have done things I never intended.

I think I have been harbouring regrets about those things that fall on the worse side of the equation, and felt uncomfortable about the conflict between the things that have happened to me, the things I have done, and the image I had of the way things were supposed to be. Today, though, I had lunch with a buddy from work who said there's no point regretting things. I think that's right - for better or worse, my unplanned happenings are an equation, they are my life, and without them I would just be some fairy-tale princess living to a plan with no life experience or depth of character.

If there's one thing I would really regret, it's making the same mistakes over and over. Life may not go to plan, I'm not even sure I have a plan, my ideals are probably irrelevant since "mistakes" are all part of the positive process of living and growing.