rammi.glomp.me

// December 8th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

I dislike spending huge amounts of time in the bathroom. My daily purpose there is to get clean, and nothing else. My bathroom routine involves splashing cold water on my face, brushing my teeth, and hopping into the shower with some hypoallergenic soap. It usually takes no longer than 20 minutes for me to finish.

Now it’s getting near my birthday/Christmas, I’ve been getting many gift sets with bath items in them – and no, I don’t smell, so I’m not going to take it as a hint. I do love getting presents (see my earlier posts on T-shirts and the like), but…

I don’t use shower gels or body scrubs or bath bombs or body lotions or anything else that comes in one of those sets. EVER.

Bath sets are to me what socks and jumpers are to everyone else at Christmas.

I have tried to use them before, but they just delay my shower/bath, and turn what should be a 5 minute event into a 30 minute process. After managing to open the damn bottle with wet hands, lathering it all over my body, and finally managing to wash ALL of it off, I’ve wasted valuable time that I could’ve spent doing something else.

It doesn’t help matters that my boiler is on the fritz, and hot water only comes out at random intervals. In between using the weird expensive shower gel that I got as a gift from my mother’s French friend and washing it off, my water supply goes from scalding hot to nothing to absolutely freezing in a matter of minutes.
It’s a rule of thumb for me that I try to avoid being hurt by my wonky boiler for as long as possible. But the longer I spend in the shower, the more chances I have of being burned by the hot water. Yay me. >.>

My skin has also become increasingly sensitive in the past couple of years. This means that 9 times out of 10, whenever I try to use a nice-looking shower gel or body scrub that I got from a friend for a Christmas/birthday gift, I’ll end up with a massive itchy rash.
Even the body lotions that come with them eventually make me want to tear my own skin off with the reactions they cause.

…I’ve given up.

I love the shapes of the delicately-wrapped bottles and tubes of lotions and gels that I get every Christmas, but they never get used, and will sit in the corner of my room, gathering dust.

[...If you want a free bath set, here's your chance! I've got about 10 in a pile in the corner of my room. They've obviously never been used, and probably never will be. Most of them are also perfectly safe to use until 2020 or something.]

If you’re really stuck on what to get me as a cheap gift, some tubs of E45 cream will make me ecstatic.

// December 7th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

I know I really, really, really like something when I start buying merchandise. I especially know I’m starting to get addicted to a service when I want to wear T-shirts advertising them. I’ve bought band T-shirts in the past, but never an actual T-shirt for an internet service.

I mean, the top item on my birthday wishlist for this year is this:

I’m starting to think I’m spending way too much time on Twitter. But what better way to show off my obsession than by getting a T-shirt?

Last year, when I plurked obsessively, I would’ve killed for a Plurk T-shirt, and would’ve worn it everywhere I went.
…Actually, now that you think about it, although I don’t plurk much any more, I still want one.

You listening, A-Team? I know you love me really, with the pictures I’ve been photoshopping onto your screenshots and the awkward poses I’ve been unearthing from disused folders.

Look how pretty it is! Sure you don’t want to make a sweet innocent ickle girl happy for her birthday in exactly a weeks’ time? *pleading face*
[OK, I may be laying it on a little thick, but shh.]

// December 6th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

Hello, and welcome to my first non-post of December. It’s times like these when I forget why I thought it was a good idea to sign up for NaBloPoMo for another month. I mean, I have enough inspiration to keep me ticking over for one month, but two is pushing the limit. Definitely not trying this again in January.* I’ve done more writing in the past month than I have in the past 5 years.
Considering I did absolutely nothing today but cry for my sore muscles, there is absolutely nothing to blog about.

Blerg.

* Well, I say that now, but some craziness at the end of December will probably mean I end up clicking the “Add Blog” link and regret it for the rest of the month.

// December 5th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

I generally dislike strenuous physical exercise, and always have done so. I never learnt how to ride a bike, and – shh – have forgotten how to use a skipping rope. [Neither am I the type to run up and down hills every day, but I have to, otherwise I'll end up being late to everything I go to, but I digress.]
I’m also the owner of a gym subscription, but like most people, have difficulties in actually using it every week. There’s just too many things to fit into a Sunday.

Despite all of this, I am good at running… When I want to. Note the “when I want to”. At school sports days, I never saw the point of “running just to get to the other side of the field”, and would nearly always come dead last. But when running for a bus or any other form of public transport, things are different. I once chased a bus for half a mile in high heels, because it was the last bus of the night and I had no other option.

Although I rarely do any physical exercise, I’m not fat. I eat a normal, balanced diet. I weigh a perfectly normal weight for my height. And all without wasting years of my life at the gym. I have a slight muffin top, but that can easily be fixed with a few more sit-ups.

So when someone who runs a lot makes me feel shitty because I actually feel pain after walking a distance they run every day, all I have to say in response to them is… SCREW YOU.
I may not like physical exercise, but when I do manage to do it, I work hard until I can barely walk the day after, because it makes me feel good eventually. But this event only happens occasionally, because with the endorphins comes the pain. My muscles will always cramp up after doing any form of exercise, and my stamina will never be all that great.

According to people like you, I’m ‘unfit’. But to be honest with you, I don’t think I care any more. I don’t spend hours calorie-counting and making sure I work off all the food I’ve just eaten, and still manage to stay around the same weight and size. I couldn’t be happier with the way I look. A UK size 12 may be big in your eyes, but it’s perfect for me. At least I don’t have to starve myself for it.
So take your pilates and your spinning and your morning runs and stuff them in the face of someone who gives a shit.

Because – guess what? – that’s just not me.

…Now, I’m going to go and have an (almost) midnight snack, because all of this “typing in a fit of rage” thing has probably sucked out many, many calories. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?

// December 4th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

Last night, I mentioned feeling guilty for not making deadlines. Today, I still feel guilty, but for another reason.
My mum phoned me a few hours ago with news about my aunt (through marriage to my mum’s brother). The news: My aunt’s mother died a few days ago, at the age of 91. My first reaction was, “Um. OK. What do you want me to do about it?”

The fact that my aunt’s mother was still alive/had existed at some point in my life was news to me. Apparently, I met her once, when I was a toddler, in a meeting that I obviously don’t recall. I emphathise with my aunt, who has just lost her mother. I’m sorry for my uncle, who has just lost his mother-in-law. And of course I’m upset for the cousins that I’ve never met, who have just lost their grandmother. A little bit of the same sadness I would feel if anyone I knew lost a member of their family. But whatever I’m feeling, it’s not grief, or even sadness. This is where the guilt comes in.

My aunt’s mother was not related to me in any shape or form. I had only met her once. I bet she was an amazing woman who lived a long and happy life, but in theory, she was a complete stranger to me. So why do I feel so guilty about not managing to have any feelings about her death?

EDIT: I know it sounded really callous when I wrote this blog post out, so here’s a a brief reason of why I feel the way I feel: I just don’t know my family.
I don’t talk to, and have no way (and no desire) of keeping in contact with my relations at all. I have no siblings, have only talked briefly with two of my first cousins on my mother’s side, have never met/don’t remember meeting the other two, and have never met my father’s side of the family due to some stuff that happened after his death two weeks before my birth (I know, it can get complicated. Does it help that I was born on 14th December?). Oh, and I dislike the few relations I have met.
I’ve had more conversations with my mum’s first cousin’s daughter than I’ve had with any of my first cousins.
It may not help either that there’s a massive language barrier between most of my relations. Although I’m fluent in Thai, I don’t like speaking it to people I don’t know well, and I can’t understand their attempts at English. My immediate family circle consists of my grandmother, my mother and myself. In effect, this means that within two decades, I’ll have no family at all. Go me!

// December 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

I’d forgotten how good it feels when I meet a deadline on time. The relief, the “thank God it’s over” feeling, and the warm fuzziness I get inside… This lasts until I’m hit with another deadline.

For some reason, I find it hard to work at a computer. There’s too many distractions floating around on my screen, and before I know it, I’ve wasted several hours watching videos when I should be writing transcripts. Sometimes, I’ll  deliver things hours late, sometimes even days. But whatever I am late for, it makes me feel extremely guilty. Especially if I’m supposed to be getting paid for it, and there’s no other person that can do it.

The guilt I feel when I hand in something late has become such a frequent part of my life that it had started to feel normal. Get told to do something by a certain date, miss that date completely, spend time freaking out because it’s late, finally managing to do it, and freaking out again because it doesn’t reflect well with my employers.

Today, when I actually did something on time, the feelings of happiness it gave me reminded me that the guilt I usually feel when I miss a deadline isn’t normal.

Which makes the guilt I’m going to feel tomorrow for missing another deadline all the worse.

// December 2nd, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

Some people love the internet, some people hate it… I like it for the most part, but I know several people who are very anti-internet, for several long-winded reasons that would take too long to explain here. Instead of arguing with them, which I know I’d fail at – I’m rubbish at debates that don’t involve food or prizes – I decided to write a blog post instead.

One of the things I love about the internet is the ability to share my opinions online – I was always too lazy to keep a diary, and always wanted to edit what I had written. Yay for blogs! I write a blog for myself, as a record of my life. In several years time, when I’ll have hopefully have had more experiences, and generally be much *ahem* wiser, I’ll be able to look back and say “Ooh, that’s what I was like when I was younger! Why was I such an idiot?” I’m lucky in that respect. What other generation has been able to document their whole life digitally? Websites such as Plurk and Twitter also mean that I can keep track of what I was doing on a particular day, and what my thoughts and emotions were.

There is also an abundance of articles and information on the web, and this means that I no longer have to read through dusty old textbooks to find the relevant information that I need. Less time at the library means more time at home procrastinating on my next task!

Like most people, my primary use of the internet* is to talk to new people, make friends and forge relationships. The sad fact is that there will always be some people who are socially awkward, and I fall directly into that category. I trip over my words in real life, and speak without thinking (which usually means I am known as the ‘sarcastic one’, the one to avoid).
Generally, I hate public speaking, and will avoid it at all costs. But I do know how to write. Typing stuff to someone on the other side of a computer screen is easier for me because it gives me time to phrase my words.
The internet is a refuge; a place to meet and talk to people who actually know what a meme is, unlike most of the general population.

A forum post I read a few months ago stuck with me. I realised that even after I’m long gone, my comments and opinions on various websites will still be floating around the internet, hereby giving me some sort of immortality. Bwahahaha! I is living in ur internetz! Future historians will no longer have to assume what life was like in the early 21st century. They’ll know from something as simple as a Google search. I have no qualms about the internet being here in 1000 or so years, provided the earth doesn’t blow up in our faces then.

*Aside from faffing around with bits of code and wasting time playing games on social networking sites.

// December 1st, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Challenges, December 2009, NaBloPoMo

Somewhere along the line of when I was learning how to use a computer and eventually managing to build a website, RSS feeds became the ‘thing’.* If you owned anything that updated, you HAD to have an RSS feed in case someone wanted to follow what you were saying.
In my case, no one.**

I did try to make a go out of using it, honest! I spent ages subscribing to the blogs I liked, organising all my feeds into relevant categories, and checked them whenever they updated. But it’s just a bit disconcerting when you open Google Reader and there’s thousands and thousands of unread items. I know I could just mark everything as read, but my conscience kept on whispering to me, “you haven’t read that one yet. Or that one. Or that one. Or that little one you thought you could get away with. I saw what you did.”
I’m one of those people that can’t stand anything unread, and will always read all my emails (despite being crap at responding). Luckily, I can keep up with all my emails, but having thousands of unread items in Google Reader every day was annoying, despite me spending hours each day clearing it all. Eventually, I had had enough, and promptly removed the thing.

In retrospect, I could’ve just subscribed to blogs that updated less, but then what would be the point? The blogs I like update umpteen times a day, and I have no time to follow all their posts. Unlike some, I don’t want to know what I’ve missed, which is what my RSS reader kept trying to do. I found it a bit like a whining relative. “You haven’t read [blah]‘s post on [blah] yet! Read it or it’ll stay unread!”

This blog does have an RSS feed (but that really wasn’t my choice; it came with WordPress), and you’re welcome to follow it if you like, but if you agree with what I’ve said above, don’t. Heh. I would be honoured if you counted me as one of the people that you want to stay updated with.

I do see the virtues of RSS, as if you want to stay updated with everything a website does, and keep up with all the latest news, it’s perfect.  However, I feel that ignorance is bliss (at least when it comes to blogs). My way of keeping up to date with everything is… *le gasp* MANUALLY! I have a disarray of unorganised bookmarks of the blogs I like.*** I open them in multiple tabs every now and then to check on how they’re doing; sometimes there’s something new for me to read, sometimes there isn’t. I may miss out on some things (for example, I missed out on the chance to buy a signed xkcd book a few weeks ago), but generally, I like the feeling of surprise and delight I get when I visit someone’s blog for the first time in a few days to see that they’ve added something new that wasn’t there before.

For me, the pros balance out the cons, and I know that my old-fashioned bookmarks won’t nag at me if I don’t read them for a while. They may be old, but they still lead me to amazing stories and show me new things every day.****

*Wikipedia tells me RSS properly took off in 2005, when Microsoft adopted it. Meh.
**A quick check of my stats actually reveals there are 17 people subscribed to this feed. Erm, hello there. Stay with me, please! *clings petulantly*
*** After spending ages organising my feeds in Google Reader, I just couldn’t be bothered to do the same with my bookmarks, despite the fact that I am primarily using bookmarks these days. It’s on my To Do list, honest!

****And my strange metaphor of the day is that RSS is the nagging aunt to my bookmarks, which are the really awesome grandfathers. I’ll take the awesome grandfather any day.