I'm just saying...

status...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:08:00 +0000

a quiet drink 1...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain over a lifetime. Except in societies where it is fixed at birth and our veins flow with noble blood, a high position hangs on what we can achieve; and we may fail due to stupidity or an absence of self-knowledge, macro-economics or malevolence.

(Alain de Botton, 'Status anxiety')

Until I come up again with good ideas for what to write myself, I will just have to shamelessly borrow, and I guess I could do worse than him. ;-)

sleepy-heads...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:48:00 +0000

6.55 am eurostar
Originally uploaded by f2point4

I really don't like having to get up so early in the morning that to catch a train, I have to take a taxi as public transport isn't running yet. That's what happened on this day. Looks like I wasn't the only one whose sleep got interrupted prematurely to get on this journey.

I quite like this kind of photography. Just spotting a moment and immediately thinking: camera! I understand that there may be issues with that.

Firstly, I was on a train. The train company may have its by-laws on photography on board their trains. I haven't got a clue, frankly. It's not like I planned this shot and had time to do my research.

I also didn't go and wake any of these three people up to ask them if I got their permission to take their picture while they were asleep. They may not like the picture - few people do when the joke is on them - but they are anonymous to most people who will ever see this picture.

And most viewers, I'm convinced, will see the funny side of it without any malice for the models. I think it's just a funny snapshot of people and an insight into our times that make it necessary but also possible to travel to a different country in the morning for work...

cornered...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:35:00 +0000

trapped
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... is how I keep feeling in the continued political fall-out from 9/11.

The UK police has been given powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop and search anyone in 'specific' areas, without the need for any suspicion and with the person who is stopped and searched having no way of knowing whether or not s/he happens to be in such a 'specific' area, although for us in London it is pretty straight forward (!) as the whole of Greater London has been designated a 'specific area' since 2001*.

These powers have been ruled to be unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights in January this year. The British Home Office maintains the powers while preparing to appeal the judgement.

The German government passed a piece of legislation in 2006 setting new rules for telecommunication data retention. Partly this act is the transposition of EU Directive 2006/24/EC. This law was yesterday found to be unconstitutional - in its current implementation which goes beyond the EU directive requirements - by the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe as it is deemed to be in violation of telecommunication data protection rules. At the time of writing, the German government had not taken a position on the decision.

(edited) During the morning following the day of the judgement the European Commission welcomed the judgement by the German Constitutional Court, stating its decision was not in conflict with the stipulations of the directive this act was intended to transpose into national law. (edited)

I only picked out these two examples as they are very public indictments of governments getting the law wrong and in fact violating the civil liberties they are meant to uphold and protect.

How much more has to happen before we ordinary folks realise that the current supposed and/or real threat of terrorism is being used to systemically erode our civil liberties? Will we only start doing something about this situation once people have to die for their rights again? Please tell me we are not that blinkered and unaware of the fact that those rights are not god-given. People DID die to win them for us, and we owe it to them, future generations - and let's not forget ourselves - to protect them...

*The act allows for this 'specific area' status to be granted for 28 days at a time. However, at least in Greater London there appears to be an automatic renewal of this status for yet another 28 days without any controls to check whether this is actually justified or necessary. See also the extensive research done by the BJP on this issue.

dreams...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:27:00 +0000

lift me up...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... when we have had them lingering in our lives for too long, seem to just shrivel up, much like a balloon that a week after the birthday party has deflated.

A book I am currently reading and the pictures of the little girl with her balloon got me thinking about that. Loose fragments of ideas, bits and pieces of conclusions, which is all I get from the way I do my thinking these days. Squeezing in a moment of reflection here or there but never quite finishing it before I have to get on with the much more important task of staying in the rat-race.

To my surprise I found that I don't have any new dreams really, and that the old ones ended up somewhere under the sofa or between the wall and the wardrobe, like deflated and forgotten balloons. All they are good for now is the rubbish bin.

The real shocker in this is the sudden realisation that the clock is ticking. Of course, it always has been, from the moment I was born, but for a long time I believed I was immune to that. Then, without warning, time in its passing had rendered a good few of the great ideas of what or who I might be some day obsolete.

You see, I am over 40 years old and still buy some of my clothes in Topshop. Not because I am desperately trying to still look young but simply because it never occured to me that I might have out-grown young fashion. I wasn't even kidding myself, I was blissfully ignorant!

Maybe that's not the best example. Here is another: I watched the news tonight and heard that the Concorde crash was 10 years ago. Has it really been THAT long?! Surely that's not POSSIBLE! And this was not the first time, either. Where did all this time go? And with it the promise it held when it was still all ahead of me?

I will have to sit down and take stock. Of the dreams that I have held on to until past their use-by date. Of why they are still dreams. Of how I allowed myself to simply trust that life would take care of them. For quite a few dreams these questions come too late. Their skins have become too porous by now to ever hold air again.

So now I have to believe that I still have a lot to live for. I still can achieve great things if only I make the time I have left count. My life is what it is, right now. That's all I've got to work with, not some pipe dreams of what it could be, maybe, one day.

It helps to finally understand what older people have been trying to tell me all along when I was younger: Tomorrow never comes. Do things now. You are only cheating yourself if you put things off. Of course, they were right, but it must be one of those things that we simply cannot take anyone's word for, it's one of those lessons we only learn when our own life teaches them to us...

just a normal day at work...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:42:00 +0000

skating fun 1
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... yet something made today extraordinary for me. Probably just for today, maybe by tomorrow I will have forgotten this minor detail or at least I may have filed it away with the not so important stuff in my life.

But for a moment today I felt like I had arrived.

My grandmother had a book with a picture of children skating through the snow on a canal. I'd always wanted to do that, too. Yet I never had skates, we didn't have an ice rink anywhere near our town (the closest one was in Berlin back in the day, and that was 5 hours from home in our Trabant, so that never happened).

About 10 years ago I took up skating, for one to stay active and secondly because being a figure skater had been my regular dream whenever there was a skating championship on the telly. I didn't get to be a figure skater as such but I really enjoy playing at it. ;-)

But only today did I get to skate in the snow. It was amazing. That is really all I can say. And once the wonderment had lingered long enough for my brain to make the connections, I remembered that picture at my grandmother's and that this was what I had wanted back then. And now I've done it.

And I am still smiling and grateful for that moment.

christmas eve...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:03:00 +0000

christmas eve
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... has for me become a day to finish unfinished business, to put the finishing touches to my holidays, and to calm down. It's a day for introspection, for little if any distractions from the outside world, except maybe strolling across a Christmas market.

Yesterday I went for a walk just as darkness fell, exploring some side streets in London, enjoying people's Christmas decorations blinking out from bay windows into the dark. Seeing people getting home, watching figures walk across their front rooms behind the christmas tree, hearing the 'Merry Christmas!' of visitors to whom the door had just been opened, and it all left me feeling so peaceful and so absolutely happy.

Then I arrived on the high street and was surprised to realise that it was barely 5pm, and the shops were still open. People rushed home with shopping bags and take-away coffee cups in their hands. I felt ready to turn my back on that last-ditch mad rush and go back to where I myself was expected for a lovely dinner and hours of delightful togetherness...

the street was clear...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:40:00 +0000

happy slipping and sliding, folks
Originally uploaded by f2point4

...of ice but the pavements were frozen over completely. It doesn't help that they are also slanted, presumably to let rain water run off. I can't think of any other good reason. Anyway, black ice on a slope = possible broken bones, not a good look for Christmas (or any other occasion for that matter) so the only 'safe' option was to walk on the street.

Obviously not much to the amusement of drivers who had to also contend with the street being parked up on both sides and speed bumps, but with all understanding for your plight, where were the people on foot supposed to go? With the pavement being clearly unsafe, in fact: a health hazard, the only option was the street. Or flying. I just haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. :-(

It has always amazed me how pavements get neglected in this country during times of frost or slush. The only space that is normally safe for pedestrians in a city such as London, turns into a kamikaze test strip which, if I had children or were elderly, would force me to stay indoors. Clearly, this is not an option, as today for example I absolutely had to get to a pharmacy quite urgently, and other than that one needs to buy some food every once in a while, as well.

The councils seem to see it as their duty to pass a broom over the pavements in their borough every day but not to grit them when it's cold. That would be the most efficient way to deal with the matter but it shouldn't be a problem. In Germany for example, the councils generally don't provide this service, either, although the obligation to keep public roads and pavements safe lies with them. Instead, every home owner or tenant is by law obliged to keep the public footpath along the borders of their property clear. It takes 5 to 10 minutes a day, is good exercise, and works generally.

In the UK, by contrast, you get to face a pavement half a mile long with ice stretching as far as you can see, so you are caught between the black ice trap and the motorists...

a propos paper cups...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:21:00 +0000

eggnog latte
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... the funniest thing happened to me day before yesterday. Well, not really funny, maybe more a little sad.

A few weeks ago I bought a red stainless steel coffee cup with a nice spill-proof lid from a particular coffee chain to use when buying coffees from them. I have it with me pretty much all the time as I am rather partial to the eggnog latte offered by that very coffee chain (that I honestly don't frequent at any other time of the year).

Now, two days ago I had the cup with me, and after some serious Christmas shopping (4 hours on foot from Covent Garden to Selfridges), I walked into the James Street branch of said coffee chain, ordered the latte of my desire and handed over the cup.

To my utter disbelief, the young barista then made up my deliciously flavoured coffee in a paper cup, poured it from there into the steel cup I had given him, and threw the paper cup away.

I couldn't help remarking as he handed me back my environmentally friendly steel cup that the whole point of buying it had been to avoid wasting single-use paper cups. I don't know if he was completely unaware of waste and recycling as concepts of if he was a little tired and hence slow in the up-take but he then offered me to pour the coffee back into a paper cup!

I tried another couple of times to make myself understood but equally unsuccessfully, despite the support of the customer behind me in the queue who shared my exasperation, so in the end I just paid and left...

P.S: For those who are not big on avoiding waste but count their pennies in these hard times, please note that Starbucks give you 25p off your chosen coffee if you bring your own cup. However, I don't know if they just accept their own merchandise cups for this purpose or generic ones you can buy in kitchen shops, too.

anti-terrorism powers...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

...were used in this particular situation which has been cited to justify police powers to stop photographers going innocently about their own business or hobby.

It has been said in the article and mentioned elsewhere that the person in question is serving time on fraud charges, nothing to do with terrorism, so the stop and search even in his case constitutes a misuse of powers given to the police under the piece of legislation they cite as their justification.

However, what really got me hot under the collar was this quote:

"Superintendent Chris Greany of the City of London Police says in a statement: 'The cops on the street are aged 21 and 22, it’s a big ask for them to identify who is behaving suspiciously and who isn’t.'"

Any politician having voted for this piece of legislation should at least now see that they gave the police powers that they are incapable of using correctly BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION! I hope they soon pass a law to protect the public at large from the police or make sure in future the police only get powers they can actually handle, that powers that are largely abused are taken away, and that the police officers doing the abusing have to account for it through disciplinary procedures.

philosopher... (edited)

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:50:00 +0000

rail tracks
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... or sometimes also called 'business philosopher' Jim Rohn passed away on 5 December 2009. I was acutely aware of it as on the day I worked as an interpreter at an event for a company that had him signed up as a motivational speaker for many years, so for many years I have had the task of interpreting his musings into German. Here is one of them:

"When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it."

I know he has his fans and I am probably not making many friends among them by saying this but the term 'business philosopher' will in the larger context and in time most likely not become an established category in the long and illustrious history of philosophy but remain marketing blurb. I just don't see Jim Rohn up there with the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Marx and Nietzsche, to name but a few.

While what Jim Rohn said always made perfect sense to me, it also always reminded me of something or other my mum used to tell me when I was little. In other words, his musings were not so much philosophy than much more simple and straight-forward common sense.

This is not to devalue his work, I acknowledge that common sense is not very fashionable these days, so to be reminded of a few simple basics in basic, easy-to-understand language is a fantastic thing and sorely needed. But philosophy it is not.

I think the massive advantage Jim Rohn had over my mum was his kindly grandfatherly way of presenting his truisms that made me actually listen to him, as opposed to my mum. And with that I would like to come to the other thing I wanted to say about the late Jim Rohn:

He most probably touched more lives in a meaningful way than all the great philosophers taken together. Partly this would be due to new means of getting a message to people, other than just reading a book, but mostly it would be due to the message that was spread ringing true with everyone, without the need for a university degree, and to the message being relevant to pretty much everyone who heard it and a lot of other people who didn't. And that message in a nutshell was this: "Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better." And there's nothing wrong with that. Jim Rohn, yes, you will be missed...

the freedom...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:56:00 +0000

tired
Originally uploaded by f2point4

...to walk barefoot was granted to me quite unexptectedly in this very month of December!

Going down to the beach and taking my shoes off is one of the most liberating things I can imagine. Being able to do so when I had already put that kind of shoes away for the winter is absolutely amazing.

This picture is from a 4 1/2 day conference in Marbella that was fraught with its own problems, what with the interpreters not staying at the conference venue and the working day being extended by at least half an hour each end for transfer. The agenda was changed all the time at short notice, too.

Still, there was time for moments like this, and they are going to stay with me when the difficulties are forgotten and the money I earned is spent...

remembering...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Ostalgia from Chryssa on Vimeo.

I probably would just have thought of it in passing. After all, years have passed, and at some point it would have to be a round number of years. Big deal.

But because of a friend's documentary video workshop assignment I found myself delving much deeper than I would have wanted and with surprising results.

I found that my attitude of turning my back on 'my' country (meaning the usurping power of West Germany) had mellowed over the years without me really noticing. I found that the way things happened after the fall of the wall leading up to reunification was in hindsight the most realistic, although it wasn't handled in the most sensitive manner to East German citizens as well as West German citizens. Neither of us were asked if we wanted to rush into this most unequal of unions. But it happened, and 'what belongs together, came together'.

So if you want to see me in my first starring role, watch Ostalgia by Chryssa Panoussiadou and Bence Kertész.

and once more...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:44:00 +0000

1. Advent
Originally uploaded by f2point4

...it is the first of the four Sundays before Christmas, the time when in Germany you are officially allowed to get in the mood for the festive season by lighting first one, then two and so on candles in the countdown to the holidays.

I have seriously neglected my preparations for this day this year (hence the use of the same picture for the occasion as last year) as first I was too happy to care and then suddenly everything fell to pieces a bit. But I should be up and running by next week, hopefully, although I have a tight work schedule ahead.

For today I'll improvise a little and think of all my friends and family in Germany who are probably getting ready for the first cut of Christmas Stollen for 4 o'clock coffee as I am writing this. I'll be here, still a bit out of sorts but in a stable condition, eating a lovely Chinese crispy bun with my coffee when the time comes to light my first candle...

another good way...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:26:00 +0000

on my knees
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... to convince yourself you don't care whether someone kinda important is going to call or not, apart from having a bath and leaving the phone in the front room, is doing some cleaning around the house. Works for me as there is always something that needs scrubbing. It's never ALL clean.

However, although this would clearly be the most productive way of distracting yourself, a much more chilled method, especially on a Saturday, is to put your favourite album on repeat on your iPod. It helps to have a few glasses of wine, too, just to make sure that at some point you'll just fall asleep without bothering to check if there are any missed calls.

You'll obviously check first thing in the morning, but at this stage of relationship anxiety the most important thing is to get through the evening and the night. You'll always be that little bit stronger in the morning, especially if you have a hangover that needs more immediate attention than the question why there are still no missed calls...

sleepless...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:03:00 +0000

empty space
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... that's how I've been left after switching on the heating at 5am this morning. I can't stop thinking about how quickly life can change. The fireworks are over, and boring, normal, real, dragging-along life is back, made to look even more ordinary, boring, and normal because of the preceding moments of unexpected and unadulterated happiness.

Never mind. Things work out for the best, one has to believe that in such times. My life may seem as empty and desolate to me as this place right now, but if that were my life, just imagine the possibilities. I'd love the challenge to make it look nice and welcoming...

life right now...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:08:00 +0000

fireworks 6
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... feels a bit like this for me.

I am still surrounded by a personal kind of darkness that even with the best (and painful) effort will take some time to dissipate.

However, after losing love's companionship for a while, it soon exploded right back into my life, stopped me in my tracks and has since had me staring in wonderment and disbelief at my good fortune and drinking in its glow and sparkle with the thirsty eyes of a woman who'd lost her sight and miraculously got it back...

my favourite season...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Originally uploaded by f2point4

... after summer is autumn. ;-)

I love them all, really, and each of them has its charms and its place, but there is nothing quite like the rich colours leaves turn in the autumn, set against a bright blue sky. It's just one of those things that put a smile on my face, no matter how miserable my day may have been until then...

outsider...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:37:00 +0000

beer and pizza
Originally uploaded by f2point4

I have always liked looking into lit windows in the dark. Not in a peeping-Tom kind of way, more like a glimpse in passing of someone else's story.

These days with it being dark at 5pm, there isn't much that entices me to go out once the sun is down. But when I do have to leave my cosy home, I like to travel on the top deck of a bus sight-seeing fragments of London life. There are the empty offices with jackets still hanging on backs of chairs, homes with tv screens flickering through half-drawn curtains, and abandoned-looking mannequins in empty but fully lit high street shops. Enough to feed the imagination until arriving at my destination...

equality...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:34:00 +0000

dolls' house
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Earlier this week I picked up a copy of Stylist, one of those freebies they hand out at tube stations. In it I found a surprisingly interesting article under the title 'Should women be fast-tracked to top jobs?' (pages 33-34 in the online copy), quoting Norway's apparently successful quota legislation from 2002, requiring listed company boards to consist to 40% of women.

I had a discussion about this with my significant other that nearly ended in an argument. He insists women should be treated as equals, not singled out for special treatment. I absolutely agree with him but unfortunately, women ARE being singled out currently as generally not suitable for the highest-powered jobs. Apparently, in the UK 62% of the FTSE 250 companies don't have a single woman on the board. Surely, that is nowhere near representative of the share of women in the population at large.

Although I personally see a prescribed quota as the least elegant and most easily abused instrument to redress an imbalance, if that imbalance simply won't adjust itself, it may have to be done by prescription until a higher share of women (replace with ethnic minorities, disabled, older employees - in fact, any under-represented group in any sphere of society) has become a more accepted status quo.

I agree that due to the fact that women have children, they are more likely the parent who is willing to give up a career to raise them, and thus there will never be the same percentage of women in high-flying jobs as their share of the poplulation of working age. However, this is a convenient excuse for people who use this argument to prove that the under-representation of women in career jobs is self-inflicted.

My opinion is that if after having the children women had the choice of leaving them in affordable and well-equipped creches and kindergartens open all day, preferably one provided by their employer in the same building that they work in, with qualified staff; if men got paternity leave and pay on par with women (another form of discrimination), then at least mothers would really have the choice between going back to work and staying at home. Currently, the choice usually simply isn't there.

But let's not forget that it is not only mothers who find their careers come to an early halt. I have read or heard often enough of women who have to watch their male colleagues being promoted despite having less experience and lesser qualifications than themselves. Maybe a ruthless jolt like a legally prescribed quota is exactly what's needed to break those ingrained patterns of by-passing women when a promotion comes up.

After all, Norway now has the highest percentage of women as board members in the world with 44.2% (higher than the legally required quota), and the Norwegian economy has not collapsed...

10:10 campaign...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:43:00 +0000

collage
Originally uploaded by f2point4

This is an email I received yesterday from my MP, Sarah Teather (Lib Dem), after the vote on the 10:10 motion in Parliament:

"I know you are interested in climate change issues so I thought I would update you on the debate in the House of Commons today. I have just come back to my office after voting for the Government to sign up to the 10:10 campaign.

The motion, put forward by the Liberal Democrats, required the Government to commit to making sure all public bodies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 10% by 2010. You can find the text for our motion here.

I voted for the motion, but sadly the Labour Government marched its backbenchers through the voting lobbies to defeat it. I am very frustrated that the Government are not willing to provide leadership in this area in the run up to the Copenhagen conference.

However, I want to assure you that I will keep fighting on this issue. Climate change is something anyone who is committed to social justice should feel passionately about. If we don’t take action now it will have a devastating impact on the poorest people in the world and the consequences are terrifying. You can read what I have said previously in the House of Commons on this here.

I want to thank you for your support on climate change and for continuing to contact me to encourage me to go further! MPs need to hear from the public on this issue. Let’s keep campaigning to make sure that eventually the Government listen.

Best wishes,

Sarah

PS. I have also personally signed up to the 10:10 campaign, and hope if you haven’t already done so, that you will think about doing the same.

Sarah Teather MP
Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East
Shadow Minister for Housing"

when is it too late...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:28:00 +0000

deep breath
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... to start over again?

Today I was in a rather pensive and mildly depressed mood. Looking back, my life seems to consist of several failed attempts at one or the other thing. I know we need life lessons to do better the next time but when you consistently fail or seem to fail in one particular area, it gets harder to take every time. Until we get to the point where we wonder whether it is really still worth even trying.

Don't worry, I'll be fine in the morning. I guess...

time flies...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:14:00 +0000

autumn
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... and it seems to be getting faster every year.

It doesn't help to have had another summer that never was, just a lingering spring teasing with warmer days just around the corner until a look at the calender confirms the sneaking suspicion that it's just not going to happen this year, either.

So away go the summer clothes, unpacked many months ago with the highest hopes yet quite a few of them unworn, and out come the woollies just in time for Halloween little more than two weeks away.

I have always liked autumn, some years it's even been my favourite season. Let's see what I will harvest this year...

P.S.: This picture was taken last week Friday, one of the three days a week that Borough market is open. I'll HAVE to go back there, next time with a real camera!

points of reference...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Astro office
Originally uploaded by f2point4

When I started writing this post, I had been back from Cuba for three weeks, the same time that I spent there. It seemed much longer ago, though, and what's more, it felt like it was a completely different world. Looking at my pictures from there, many of the things I have seen appear ever so slightly surreal now, although I know I was there, and they seemed perfectly normal then. This is not an unknown sensation when coming back from holidays. However, I am experiencing something similar in my London life, too. My sense of time isn't working too well, I find it difficult to place events in the recent past. Talking about it with a friend, an idea occurred to me: it's all about points of reference. When they change, we get lost a little – although not necessarily in a bad way, not at all.

Let me explain: I define myself relative to my environment. Everybody does. I once read somewhere about a volunteer spending a few days in a completely white room with only the most essential things in it, all of them white, and no natural light. The person wrote about beginning to lose his or her sense of reality and of self in the course of the experiment simply because there was nothing to refer to. No distinction between day and night, no contrast in shapes, colours, smells, temperature – things we probably don't realise we need to determine who we are until we get put in solitary confinement.

An easy example from everyday life is moving house. In a new place you need to learn about everything from scratch: your neighbours, where the shops are, how long you need to get to work and so on.

The same works for our perception of time. Following a well established routine every day makes it fairly easy to re-construct an event in the past by pin-pointing where it fits in with that routine – or if it was something out of the ordinary, by how it broke with the routine. When this routine is gone, the grid by which we map our lives has (temporarily) disappeared. We begin to set new points of reference, pick new occurrences to provide the before and after watersheds dividing our lives into neat sections.

This is happening to me right now, and it is something that took me by surprise but that I admittedly quite enjoy. Time has become more elastic, and something that really happened a week ago, may seem like months ago because so much else that is new has happened since then, and at the same time it may feel like yesterday. All of this has made me more aware of my life, and thus feel more alive, as the days are not only passing by, each one looking and feeling pretty much like the one before.

This lead me to wonder whether it might not be a good idea to re-set points of reference every once in a while just for fun, not out of necessity, just to shake things up a bit, to keep life interesting, to make sure a routine remains an aid for organising daily life and doesn't turn into a monster that hems us in and steals precious life time by keeping us in a rut.

keep appreciating beauty...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:30:00 +0000

evening walk
Originally uploaded by f2point4

At the beginning of this week I had a welcome little brush with my own past. I was sent to Scotland to interpret at a conference that I used to work at for a few years in the 90ies when I was still relatively new in the interpreting world.

Back then I liked this particular assignment for two reasons: one was the amazing countryside surrounding us, even distracting me from work with the spectacular view we had from our interpreting booth through the window right next to it.

Secondly, I was still caught up in the illusion that once people – i.e. clients, agencies and colleagues – realised what a competent interpreter I was and word got around, I would get more jobs like this nearly by default.

Returning in 2009 after more than ten years, I know that nothing could be further from the truth. As probably in many other professions, it is not the best who get the most work, it's the best at self-marketing or the bargain basement suppliers. This may partly be due to the fact that interpreters in the UK get booked nearly exclusively through agencies, and very few agencies employ anyone who knows even remotely what interpreting involves, so the quality of the interpreters is not even secondary as nearly no agency project manager can judge it.

Fortunately, my illusions about my glamorous career as an interpreter were shattered so long ago that I am no longer excessively bitter about the fact that my hard work is not really appreciated but that I get booked on the basis of how many months I give the agency to pay me before I start sending reminders and such things.

Fortunately, though, the first reason for liking the job was still there, and undiminished. The weather was absolutely beautiful (as opposed to the two previous years, when apparently it rained on both days of the event) and the view of Loch Lomond was as breath-taking as ever.

It was very enjoyable and comforting to see that some things in life do endure, and will survive us and our petty little complaints, and that I haven't lost the ability to appreciate them.

appearances...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:38:00 +0000

make-up for the show 1
Originally uploaded by f2point4

In Cuba, more precisely in Trinidad, I got to know a young woman who invited me to spend an afternoon with her family during a fun fair in Casilda, the harbour of Trinidad. At her house I was amongst others introduced to her mother. It turned out she was 2 years my senior, although the gap looked more like at least 15 years. Truth be told, I felt quite a bit embarrassed and sorry for her as this fact was relayed to the whole assembly.

Admittedly, I am as flattered as any other woman when people guess my age as at least 5 years younger than I really am. However, as I get older and notice undeniable signs of it in the mirror, I'm beginning to wonder how much of this is mere flattery. Sometimes I even feel mildly offended. After all, it's not just about looks, it's also about life-experience. No matter how lined or smooth my skin is, that I've been around for a while and seen a thing or two should be part of my perceived persona, and if someone thinks I'm in my late 20ies, they are a) obviously lying or b) completely oblivious to the maybe not necessarily visual signs of the more mature person in front of them.

I quite often heard significant others in my life accusing women in general - and me in particular - of being vain. They usually wouldn't accept, though, that it is largely men who put their women under pressure to look good. I've heard many guys say they don't like make-up and surgically enhanced bodies, yet they will turn their heads for exactly that type of female in public, even while their own woman walks by their side. What is she to make of this?

Beauty pageants are a particularly good example of the desire to be the prettiest chica plástica just for the sake of it. Anyone who has ever listened to the cringe-worthy aspirations voiced by contestants about wanting to make the world a better place by looking beautiful for a year knows what I'm talking about. But it goes further than that. During the Miss England 2009 pageant, one of the contestants voted for herself on her mobile phone about 1300 times to bump up her public votes result, and then had a go at the winner of the competition who got only 9 votes from the public. So beauty, it seems, isn't even the point any more. It's all political, manipulated, bought, and paid for.

So why bother? Why don't we stop spending hundreds of Pounds on anti-ageing lotions and use those funds to enrich our lives by travelling, for example, and helping one or the other of those less fortunate than ourselves whom we may meet on our way? Those are character-forming activities that will show in a very attractive kindness shining in someone's eyes, a more relaxed attitude, and the tendency to smile more and feel better about oneself, to name just a few.

I think there is probably a balance to be struck here, as with most things in life. This balance will be a very personal choice. In my case it means that I WILL keep spending money on creams and lotions because I like to look after myself in general, and in particular I enjoy my little rituals of applying them, their scent, and how my skin feels afterwards, but you won't find me at the Creme de la Mer counter. I WILL keep spending money on make-up as I like to subtly enhance the things I like about my face but I will never try to paint on a face that I haven't got. I will most certainly not do peels, laser treatments, liposuction, lifts and what not as I truly think that I can - and should - do a lot through good nutrition and exercise to stay fit and healthy - and as a consequence to look as good as I possibly can - and I also believe that this money would be much better invested in a party with friends, a photography workshop, or a visit to my family.

But as I said, it's a balance everyone has to find for themselves...