Taking criticism

Taking inspiration from the Singing Librarian's post on taking a compliment, I have decided to write one about taking criticism. Like him I am also not particularly adept at taking compliments, but my ineptitude in this area pales into insignificance when compared to my complete inability to take criticism well.

I have several stock reactions to criticism:

1. Blame someone or something other than myself
2. Defensiveness
3. Self-pity (usually a bit later, when the critic has gone)
4. Over-reaction (I did this wrong, therefore I must do everything wrong)
5. More over-reaction (why is it always me who gets it wrong)
6. Comparison of self to others (why are they always right/perfect etc)

It's not a particularly life-enhancing list, is it?

An additional problem is that often, the person I see as being critical and thinking badly of me probably isn't doing so at all. In reality they were probably just giving me some advice, or reminding me of something. Even if they are telling me I've done something wrong, nine times out of ten they'll be nice about it, but I can still react badly.

Like the Singing Librarian and his reaction to compliments, my reaction to critcism can worsen the situation, especially if I am defensive and snappy towards the person who I see as criticising me. Then I will feel even worse, because I've added a nice little emotion called guilt into the equation, as well as potentially being offensive/hurtful towards another person.

So, what is my problem? Most people don't like being criticised, but some deal with it better than others. Some people can think, 'oh, ok, so I did that wrong, but that's ok, now I'll try to rectify the situation and it's good that I know what I did wrong, I am happy and at peace with the world and myself' (or something like that). I have been pondering (for a few years) on why I don't like criticism and can never seem to react very positively to it. The reason is quite similar to the reason I find it difficult to take compliments, and is the root of many of my social problems - the dreaded low self esteem/insecurity/lack of confidence thing.

Or maybe I'm just grumpy.

The cathedral, the book, and me

Having recently finished reading Riddley Walker, I decided that I would go and have a look for the painting of the Legend of St Eustace in Canterbury Cathedral, and so, on Saturday morning, I did. I had to ask an elderly lady cathedral guide where it was, and almost looked at the modern copy without realising there was a great big painting on the wall behind me, but I did find it. The hart of the wood was indeed there. Poor St Eustace, he didn't have a particularly nice life after he converted to Christianity. Good painting though. [Is this the least informative review of a significant painting ever written?]

I love cathedrals, it must be the Anglican in me. Actually, I don't think it is. I don't know whether it's just the sheer scale of them, the architecture or what, but the sense of history and spirituality in a cathedral is awesome. Whenever I visit one I get drawn into it, and I feel, in a strange way, really safe and at peace. I wander around and soon it's just me and the cathedral, the outside world is gone, the other people in the cathedral are gone, that's it. Me and the stone and the something of people and times gone by. I think that maybe what makes me feel safe is the sense of continuation despite great change, the sense of beauty and the feeling of escape from the world outside. I want this world of peace and quiet and pattern and music and beauty.

On Saturday, after I had looked at the painting of the Legend of St Eustace, I went outside and sat in the cathedral grounds on a bench, reading a book. I thought about things, while I was reading the book - it was that kind of book (actually, it still is). It's a love story, but a little on the odd side. I think it would be describe in TV guides as 'off-beat', which is not a phrase I like even though I've just used it. I was still feeling safe within the bounds of the cathedral and I could think clearly about the things I was thinking about. Sometime I can do this, but then at other times (like now) my thoughts are rather muddy.

There was a wedding in the crypt of the cathedral, and the bridesmaids, and then the bride and her father, arrived in horse-drawn carriages. Lovely dappled/white horses, with plumes on their heads. They were very beautiful. I like horses, but only from a safe distance. Near to me, on the next bench, a man was drawing the cathedral and the lady next to him started talking to him about where the best views of the cathedral are. I overheard their conversation. He said he was an art teacher, and he liked imparting the secrets of art to his students. Apparantly one of the secrets of art is that you should always start your picture from the top down, just in case you needed to know.

I was having a morning where everything meant something for some reason, I think it was the effect of the cathedral, and possibly the book as well. The world wasn't just passing me by, I was a part of it. On Saturday morning I, the cathedral, the book, the artist and his picture, the street cleaner (I know I haven't mentioned him before) and the horses, felt significant. I don't know if you've ever loved someone and everything you see or experience connects you to that person in even the most intangible way. On Saturday morning I felt like that, but it was more like being in love with life or at least the potentials of life, what good could be achieved, even through the smallest things.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a book and I start thinking like the characters, I wonder whether I should be worried about this.

Men

Since I wrote that little bit in a previous post about men having backbone and some women's problem with men who are too nice, I have been thinking some potential difficulties of being a man in the contemporary western world. Please note, what follows will contain generalisations. Also, I must point out that, in case you didn't know, I'm not a man, and therefore I accept that what I say may not be fact, or even the experience of men today. However, I will continue.

Unreasonable and irrational women

Women can be very unreasonable. They don't want a nasty man, obviously, but how does a man acheive the correct degree of niceness without becoming too nice? I'm not too sure, and I'm a woman, so how are men supposed to know? Some women can also be very irrational. As I am one of these women, I sympathise with any husbands, partners or other men who might come into contact with women like me. I have to say though, that I don't mean to be irrational and am at my most irrational during the dreaded PMT. I honestly don't know how Mr C copes. If he behaved the way I do sometimes I would probably leave him. (I'm also not very tolerant). I can see that if you are a rational person (man or woman) it must be very difficult to empathise with someone who is being irrational. However, also bear in mind that they might not necessarily be being irrational, they might just be doing something differently to the way you would do it.

Nagging

I am a champion nagger, but I still feel sorry for men who get nagged. We know it doesn't really work, and yet we still do it. It's like a compulsion. Please believe me when I say we really do only do it for your own good.

Portrayal of men in the media

I've noticed that nowadays men are often portrayed by the media, particularly on television, and particularly in adverts, as being rather stupid and inferior to women. The feminist in me thinks 'revenge at last', but actually it's quite worrying. Apart from anything else portraying men as being stupid and inferior is just as bad as portraying women in the same way. I'm not sure how offensive men find this kind of portrayal of themselves, but if I was them I would feel a blow to my self-esteem. I suppose it depends how seriously people take these images, but I'm the kind of person who takes things seriously I'm afraid. I don't like hypocrisy (even though I'm sure I'm guilty of it myself sometimes). You can't on the one hand say that adverts portraying women as objects are bad, whilst on the other hand portraying men as being totally ignorant. There are obviously still too many adverts using women's bodies to sell products, but making adverts where men are made to look stupid doesn't make us feel any better.

I also worry that this kind of portrayal of men is actually damaging to women. Women can't afford for men to have any more reasons to dislike or despise them. I know I'm sounding like a feminist now, but there are men out there who would love an extra reason to feel hurt by women so that they can justify their sexist opinions.

Oops, I didn't want to man-rant. At least most of this post was nice to men, I hope. Mr C read it and he seemed to find it amusing, which may or may not be a good thing, but he did say 'oh dear' when he got to the end bit!

Lyrics, love, niceness and being kind

I'm listening to Keane again. One of my favourite lines, which appears in the song Is it any wonder is "sometimes I get the feeling that I'm stranded in the wrong time where love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme". One good line is a whole song, maybe even album, full of good lyrics.

I think it's a good line because, as do a lot of Keane's lyrics, it expresses how I feel sometimes. I don't mean in the sense that I personally don't feel loved, but when I look at the world, or even just my local communities I think more love would be good. Real love is sometimes difficult in practice, but sometimes it only seems difficult. I'm not very good at it, but I know some people who are, and I admire them for it. You need to be quite brave to give this kind of love, because sometimes people don't want it and you might get rejected (actually this may be true of any kind of love), and sometimes the people you try to love might be scary and even dangerous. This is where my cowardly side would rear its head, and I would run away, but some people don't.

It really amazes me, the way some people love. How do they do it? I am pretty selfish really. Sometimes, when I'm in particularly bad moods I can't see beyond myself at all and I don't even care if I hurt other people with what I say or do. Mr C is probably the only person who has seen this part of me, and I wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else. I don't want to inflict it on him either, when I'm feeling 'normal' but when I'm in a mood I actually don't care. Even in 'normal' mode I'm often lazy or cowardly and I don't show love to people as I should do.

I was thinking about kindness the other day on my way home. I was thinking about how kindness is different to niceness. Niceness is a bit wishy-washy and could mean anything. When people describe someone as 'nice' what does that mean? Apparently men can be too nice (according to some women). That sounds like a weird concept, but I sort of know what they mean. [Basically, men should also have a backbone - figuratively as well as literally]. Having said that, niceness is a perfectly acceptable quality in a human being. However, kindness is better (in general, not just in relation to men!). Kindness is also rarer, I think. I am priviliged to know many kind people, more than my fair share. Kindness is part of real love. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to be kind, and kindness makes a real difference to people who experience it.

Aggh I am waffling and I've lost my thread. I must go.

How did I get here from Keane lyrics?

P.S. I looked up 'kind' and 'nice' in the dictionary, and the descriptions were similar, but the words that stood out for me in the various meanings given for 'kind' were 'compassionate' (the first meaning) and 'loving' as in "full of love". The latter is given as the archaic meaning, but I think this describes kindness (as I see it) in the best way.

There's a Hebrew word, hesed, which means lovingkindness. I love that word (although I had forgotten the Hebrew so I had to look it up!). It appears a lot in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, depending on your persuasion) when the author is describing qualities of God, but sometimes the translation misses the full meaning of the word, which is a shame.

Rabbi Malka Drucker talks about it like this:

In Hebrew the word is hesed, which is also translated as mercy and grace. It is unconditional, causeless love, the love we have not just for those nearest and dearest, because that's easy. It means behaving as if we love to strangers and even those we don't like [...] [L]oving kindness [is] the behavior we offer when we may feel exactly the opposite of love. And how do we know that this is what God wants us to give each other? Because we are btzelem elohim, in God's image, and hesed is God's chief attribute upon which we most depend. Loving kindness is what God gives us, no matter what. The love that never stops, never gives up, no matter how unworthy we may feel. God knows better than we who we are and who we may be.

Ok, now I really must go.

Theories on assertiveness and self-esteem

I don't know why I'm such a scaredy-cat [miaow] about some things. I suppose it's lack of assertiveness , which I am working on (i.e. trying to become more assertive, not less!). I wonder why some people are more assertive than others? I suppose it has a lot to do with upbringing and how your parents treated and responded to you, and also to do with past experience, as well as your own opinion of yourself as a person [level of self esteem], which is again influenced by upbringing etc. Parents can have a lot to answer for. I think assertiveness and/or self-esteem (for they are closely linked, I believe) can also be inherited from parents, or just absorbed by osmosis - the attitudes your parents/guardians have rub off on you.

If your parents don't think you have valid opinions, or don't let you express them at all, you're probably going to grow up to believe that what you think doesn't matter and might not have strong opinions about things at all until a much later age than other people (if at all). If you're always told what to do as a child and not given a choice, you're probably not going to be great at making decisions when you're an adult. Lots of negative criticism doesn't help either, leading to feelings of 'I'm not good enough, I'm never going to be good enough, I can't do anything right and I musn't do anything wrong, etc'. Equally, if your parents/guardians don't tell you when you've done well, you're either going to try and try but never feel you get it right, or just feel like you may as well not bother. Obviously, there is more to it than that, and these things are all generalisations and assumptions, but I'm not a psychologist and I'm just expressing my opinion.

I might write more about this another time.

Take me to your leader

I am supposed to be a team leader/supervisor. I say supposed to be, because most of the time I don't feel like one, or at least not an effective one. It is difficult being a supervisor when you are not a particularly assertive person. On top of this, I find it really hard to make decisions when it's not a clear cut case, and particularly when people's feelings could be hurt if I make the wrong decision. You can tell I'm not exactly ideal management material! The weird thing is, I actually enjoy being a supervisor and having a group of people to look after. It helps that my team are very well behaved 99.9% of the time. I'm not sure what I would do if they suddenly stopped working hard and started being rude!

We (two senior library assistants (SLAs) and I) were talking yesterday about having to justify our higher pay scales to the library assistants [we decided having more meetings on our own might do it - not entirely seriously], and I was then thinking well, how do I justify getting paid more than the SLAs? What do I actually do that's harder work than what they do? I suppose I (at the moment) have to do rotas, and I have to speak to and deal with bad students, which isn't very nice sometimes, and of course I am supposed to supervise the office. However, I'm pretty sure either of the SLAs could do this at least equally well. [One of the SLAs may well read this so I should add that I'm not trying to flatter people, I'm just giving my true opinion]. I think the supervisor side of my job will come out more next term, when we will be doing more stuff with fewer people, thus increasing the need for prioritising and 'control' of tasks and workloads. I'm quite looking forward to the challenge. It will be interesting - hopefully in a good way!

I feel that I need to prove myself to some extent, because I feel like I'm a bit of a 'Weak King' a lot of the time at the moment, like I'm sort of floundering along hoping it'll be ok in the end. My memory is quite bad, which doesn't help when it's Thursday night (or whichever day) and I've forgotten I need an extra person for the rota, for example. The decision making thing is a Thing as well. I wish I could be less emotional about these things. [Overuse of the word 'thing', I fear]. Some managers seem to be adept at making decisions which are pretty much bound to upset people and not minding. How do they do that? Maybe it's better for the soul not to be able to, although I don't know any managers who are really bad people. I suppose they're just more pragmatic than I am.

I've found that it's quite easy to be paranoid when you start supervising people. When I'm having a paranoid moment (usually after I've done something wrong) I think, 'what if they think I'm rubbish and a bad supervisor, they must think that because I know I am, what if they all secretly hate me, I bet they wish they hadn't given me the job, I bet X thinks they could do a better job, etc, etc'. I do, in dark moments, feel like most of my team could do my job and that it's only my library qualification that warrants me doing it.

This year (it's nearly a year since I started my current job) has definitely been a fairly steep learning curve. Sometimes it has been difficult, and library politics haven't helped. However, I'm a lot happier in my work now than I was a year ago, and I'm looking forward to what's going to happen next. For helping me through this year I'd like to thank my agent [non-existent], my lovely Reader Services team, my family and friends, the Academy [University] and of course my dear husband who has always been sympathetic when I've whinged. I'll keep my Oscar in the bathroom...or maybe the kitchen.

Schwartzwaldekirschtorte*

Sometimes, the way people write or speak really annoys me. [Yes, I know this is ironic given my propensity for inappropriate use of parentheses]. I don't mean their accents or grammar (although bad grammar does annoy me, even though I'm sure I don't use it properly myself), I mean examples such as the sentence in [] above. Why do people insist on using long or unusual words, when they could have said the same thing in a much clearer and more concise way? I know, I know, we shouldn't dumb down, and I agree, but I think sometimes people just use long words to make themselves look clever. I do.

People in certain sectors of society are particularly guilty of such crimes, in my opinion. Major culprits include writers for The Guardian newspaper, especially the ones who write about nothing much in the g2 supplement. I quite enjoy reading g2 in the staff room at break time, it just about fills the time-gap nicely, but I am often irritated by the style of writing. They may not always use long words, but, to me, it feels like they're trying to tell me how intelligent they are - 'Look, I am so clever and I have opinions and because you're not as clever as me you have to accept them'. I find the tone very condescending sometimes.

I think the root of my annoyance is probably jealousy, with a bit of insecurity thrown in. They're probably getting paid lots of money to write their own opinions, and they probably really are more intelligent than I am [did you know the majority of people working in the media went to Oxford or Cambridge?], so that's two reasons for me to envy them. Also, I suspect I feel slightly intimidated by their long words and Guardianesque writing style and worry that I don't understand.

Some students and academics are also guilty of using long words on purpose. I know one student who use the most complex word he could think of because he thought he would get better marks - I think it worked! This kind of word usage isn't so bad because the person reading the essay should be able to understand what's written, and it's not going to make them feel stupid.

A classic example of mis-use of language in speech was in a church meeting on Monday night, where the vicar spoke at length about his pet topic and used lots of acronyms and jargon and I hadn't got a clue what he was talking about! Management-speak is a classic example of mis-use of words that I'm sure many people in employment can identify with!

I like words, and I think people should make full use of the language available, but sometimes it is better to be clear than clever.

*The title of this post is Schwartzwaldekirschtorte because this is one of the longest words we learnt in German lessons at school and we always tried to fit it in to our work somewhere. I suppose 'trying to make people think you're clever by using long words and annoying writing styles' could be known as Schwartzwaldekirschtorte Syndrome. I suspect I am not immune to this syndrome.

An alternative view of 24

This article was in The Guardian in January this year:

The depraved heroes of 24 are the Himmlers of Hollywood

"The message of the TV series, that torturers can retain their human dignity if the cause is right, is a profound lie "

I thought it was very interesting, and it made me think about what I'm watching, and what message it is giving out to people. Having said that, I'm still watching season 3.

Who are you?

How well do we actually know our work colleagues? It occured to me today that there is a kind of filter through which we see our colleagues, which they put in place and which we in turn put in place to filter their view of us.

I suppose that, to some extent, this is true of all forms of social interaction, but I think it's truer still of colleagues, because (usually) you only get to see them in one sphere of their lives. 'Work' is a very rigid environment, with lots of rules and expected behaviours and patterns of interaction. There are boundaries on what you can talk about with colleagues, and boundaries on how close you can get (socially and physically) to them (unless you develop a relationship/friendship with them outside of work, but that's a different sphere). It seems something of a shame sometimes, because I think some colleagues would make excellent friends (although they may not feel the same about me).

But anyway, the filter...

People at work, can, to some extent, choose how they present themselves, in terms both of their physical appearance and the information they choose to reveal about themselves. It's kind of like a blog or personal website really - somewhere you can potentially let people see just the 'good' aspects of yourself and handily omit the less attractive ones.

In reality, this only works to a certain extent in the work situation, because people's personalities are quite diffiult to hide, unless they have some sort of pathological disorder (?), or they have particularly insensitive or unobservant colleagues.

In some places, where there isn't much interaction between colleagues I expect you could pretty much hide your entire true personality, maybe your entire life outside of work, from your fellow workers.

Small things

Hmm guess the font was no different!

I was saying in the staff room yesterday that you can tell a lot about people by small things they do, or don't do. For example, people who don't return their cups and saucers to the canteen or, similarly, don't return their books to the shelves say a lot about themselves. To me, such behaviour indicates several character traits:

1. Laziness
2. Lack of consideration for others
3. Selfishness
4. Lack of thought

Of course, people who 'dump and run' on an occasional basis might just be busy or desperate for the loo or something.

I am trying to write an article for the CILIP Gazette. It has to be done by 5th April. I am just not sure what to write about. The piece is supposed to be my opinion on any issue affecting libraries/information professionals - either in terms of the wider profession or more specific to my sphere. I can find plenty to say when I'm chatting to people or whatever, but when it comes to actually writing a piece 'to order' I seem to be stumped. Will have to do some brainstorming. That's how I usually write essays etc, just put everything in my head down on paper and then try to get some sort of structure to it. I think once I've actually decided what to write about it'll be better, but at the moment I am feeling particularly vague.

I'm also looking for mentor to guide me through my chartership, but I'm rapidly running out of time until the deadline for the amount of time allowed between registering for chartership and finding a mentor is upon me. Maybe I should go and email a potential mentor.

Just realised I have forgotten to post a wedding invitation reply. Must do that tomorrow.

Bee

Things have been really busy here recently....just general business - lots to do but nothing really exciting. Just things like cleaning, doing the garden, writing thank you letters, going to work etc. I have done quite a few late nights recently, as I had to swap some when I went away. Work has been quite stressful this week, as we have been short staffed and very busy at the same time - never a good combiation. Oh dear, my compy is crying for its battery...Fear not, it is ok now. Anyway, yes short staffed we were, due to illness and also people being in amateur operatics productions! I'm going to see one of them tomorrow night. As well as these, shelvers have been off and the shelving had got out of hand and was looking rather horrendous. However, everyone has mucked in to shelve and things are now looking better. Had to negotiate with D for people from his team to help on desk. He said no but said he would ask them to shelve, which did help. Politics. Hmm. Things are also a bit stressful because of uncertainty (still) about The Integration, aka ISS. Still no job descriptions and apparantly They want people to make a decision by Easter.

Enough about work, but what else is there to write about? What did I do at the weekend? Cleaned house, bought CD rack, which A put together. Put CDs into CD rack. Ohh I know, we watched all three episodes of the original Star Wars, which I had never seen in their entirity before, much to the horror of my husband and colleagues. Amusing thing of the week last week: E at work doing his impersonation of Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!" Hmm, ok this doesn't work so well in print. Enjoyed SW, especially the aforementioned AA, who of course I looked forward to throughout the whole series, and Yoda and the 'man' himself Darth Vadar. Poor DV.

Why do I abbreviate so much? Because I am lazy.

So now I have officially joined the cultured ones I can talk about SW with my colleagues instead of thinking about what to say to Ms Bloggs who doesn't want to pay her fines why should she she should of [sic] been sent a notice she relies on them why should she take responsibility for her own books/degree/life when there are librarians to do it for her? Oops did I mention work again? I am obsessed, I apologise. In fact, I am so obsessed that I checked my work email from Changi airport in Singapore while on honeymoon. The shame.

Maybe I just worry too much.

H is visiting this weekend and the house is not clean. Hate house not being clean when we have visitors but not sure when I am going to clean unless I do it Saturday morning before she and T get here. However, on Sat. a.m. I also have to get back from work and get a day's parking permit, in order to avoid H getting a potential £60 parking fine. Have bought bird feeder for garden. We cut down the budleia (not sure how to spell this, sorry) the other Sunday, and now have about 1o black sacks full of branches to get rid off. N offered to take them to the tip for us, before we asked (although I would have done if he hadn't offered, such is my keenness to get rid of the bags). We tried putting the bags out for the bin men, but they didn't take them because they weren't in the requisite brown sacks. I was not amused, although we should have known better than to try to gain their sympathy with a note explaining our lack of brown sacks.

Watched The Office the other night. The best bits of that are the shots of the office and the sounds of the noises people make when they are pretending to work, even though everyone knows they're not working and are doing an equal amount of non-work themselves. Been there, done that. Genius.

Better slope off, sloth-like, to bed.

Little fluffy clouds

Yes, I know, I'm a bit late reading this one cos everyone else has already ready it (?), but this is my train read of the moment. The cover on the left is the UK cover, and the one on the right is from the US. I think I prefer the UK version, although the US one is also nice. Anyway, I haven't finished it yet - I'm just about right in the middle. I'm enjoying it. I bought it a long time ago, but had put off reading it, because I was a bit intimidated by it, to be honest. I really only bought it because of the hype (yes, I admit it!), and because I liked the cover. It's nice and shiny in real life. Each story is interesting in its own right, but I am kept reading by my desire to know what happens in the end of each one, and how the bigger picture unfolds. The devices he uses are clever - and have the desired effect of making you want to read on. The use of different writing styles and forms of language are also clever, but some can be an effort to read, especially the middle section. The little mysteries are important, as they keep the reader wanting to read, when otherwise they might be tempted to give up. This isn't a very profound review of a book that gives off such an air of profundity, but I haven't finished it (the book) yet. Also, I am never sure whether I like books where the author uses so many devices. They make me suspicious that the author is trying to get everyone to see how clever he is, but only because that's the kind of thing I would do if I was an author.

Why is it that actors can be big fat and flabby, but actresses can't? And why aren't actresses called actresses anymore? Do people think that 'actor' sounds more like a serious profession, is it a weird attempt at equality - or what?

It's so cold here. Really bitter now, with a sharp wind for good measure. Even the short walk from the station to home was enough today. Apparantly it's supposed to get worse over the weekend! We have had a few frosts this week - I almost slipped on some frosty bits on the way to the station. The potential for slipping is one of the things I don't like about winter, in fact it's probably the thing I like least about it. I do like sunny winter days though.

We had Staff Development again today at work. It was all about effective communication again, but this time about how knowing yourself can be an aid to effective communication. We studied three psychological theories to do with the ways people communicate: Eric Berne's Transational Analysis (TA), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ). In the TA self analysis bit I came out as equal adult and child modes and slightly less parent-y (scores of 12, 12 and 10 respectively). As the person leading the session said, I need to have a much lower child score if I am in a supervisory role. I could definitely see that I am in a kind of constant battle between my adult and child modes, and I need to make sure that it's the adult who 'wins' more often. I think one reason I came out with such a high 'internal child' score was that I don't like making decisions, which in turn comes from lack of confidence. The session leader said later that I am actually a logical person (=internal adult=good manager/communicator) but my failures as a supervisor come from lack of confidence, and I agree. It has always been a problem for me, and I must try and use some of the techniques I'm learning now to try to overcome it, and bring the 'internal adult' to the fore.

Wow!

Wow, my posts are so boring that no one can even be bothered to vote on how boring they are! That has to be an achievement.

I sent the invitations - well, my half of the invitations anyway. Mr C still has to find addresses for most of his friends and family. He was supposed to phone some people tonight, but has not! Apparantly he can tell how stressed I am by the speed of my typing - the faster I type, the more stressed I am. Beware!

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is on (hence the above pic). It's a good'un, but not as good as the first one.

Here's an article that made me think, and made me ashamed, this week:

Supposing...We all had instant suicide buttons on our heads

Hello Tuesday!

Tuesday! Today was quite good. Lots of amusement in the office. I am going to get more responsibility now Boss has got a promotion - not sure if I will get the pay rise to go with it though. Hmm. Well, you never know. I always seem to write my blog on a Tuesday night. I wonder why that is. The TV is really loud. Maybe it's just the adverts.
And now it's the news. Apparantly it is bad syntax to start a sentence with 'and'. I am not so sure.

Had driving lesson today. It was ok, although I stalled in the middle of a roundabout, which was a bit dangerous! Did a good reverse round a corner though. I actually prefer the manouveres to driving around, which I believe is unusual.

Annual check up at the hospital for heart on Friday. Not sure what doctor will say as I couldn't do the MRI scan.

You know what? Sometimes I think about stuff that is happening in the world and for a moment I think it was a bad dream, but then I realise it is reality. For example, terrorism, Iraq etc. I always thought the 'good' side would win, but my own country isn't doing the right thing, and we are not safe anymore. I'm not really very old, but the world has changed so much since I was a child, even since I was at University. Such a different world now. Shame we didn't realise how fortunate we were then.

Does anyone know the song 'The night I heard Caruso sing'? One line says 'I thought of having children but I've gone and changed my mind'. (See below). That's how I feel 99% of the time. I don't think it is a good idea to bring children into this world. Maybe things will get better though. We will see.

"The highlands and the lowlands are the routes my father knows,the holidays
at Oban and the towns around Montrose,but even as he sleeps, they're loading
bombs into the hills,and the waters in the lochs can run deep, but never still.

I've thought of having children, but I've gone and changed my mind.It's
hard enough to watch the news, let alone explain it to a child,to cast your eye
cross nature, over fields of rape and corn,and tell him without flinching not to
fear where he's been born.

Then someone sat me down last night, and I heard Caruso sing.He's
almost as good as Presley, and if I only do one thing,I'll sing songs to my
father, I'll sing songs to my child.It's time to hold your loved ones while the
chains are loose,and the world runs wild.

But even as we speak, they're loading bombs onto a white train.How can
we afford to ever sleep, so sound again."

It's a beautiful song. Apparantly it is on the album Idlewild (the album by Everything But The Girl, not the band Idlewild)

I'm sorry this post is so negative. Maybe it's cos I watch the news whilst I write!