Before 30 - Update

So, how's my before 30 bucket list progressing?

These are the things I've finished:

4. Do MindMapping for one month.

I'm glad I did this, and I really learned a lot from it. Some of it was really simple stuff, like realising that my energy and mood would drop if I hadn't had enough water to drink or food to eat. Or allegedly simple, as I'd often find myself feeling below par late afternoon and then realise I'd had one glass of water all day.

I definitely credit using one of Liz Miller's methods with my success at clearing out and organising my room after years of being unhappy with it. And I'd put up with being unhappy with it because I'd avoided thinking too carefully about how unhappy it made me, settling for postponing the much needed sort out indefinitely. But I couldn't avoid thinking about it when it was a category on a 'rate how happy you are with these life elements' exercise. That trigger, not more than a minute or so, was enough to get me started thinking about the reasons I didn't do anything about it. And now the cats are vexed that I've given away their favourite sun lounger, the piano stool.

(I would highly recommend Liz Miller's book, MoodMapping, as one of the two self help books I've read that don't completely suck, and trust me, I've read more than I want to admit to.)

5) Get a decent haircut.

Done! This might seem like a silly, everyday thing to put on a bucket list, but apart from having my hair cut twice in China (and how, how have I not posted about getting my hair cut in China?!), I hadn't had a proper haircut since I was 21. Even when the state of my hair was causing me daily vexation and I could afford a decent hair cut I didn't do anything about it. Even in China, where one haircut cost the equivalent of £1.50 (I'm avoiding converting that into dollars as it's too depressing at the moment) and one was a barter with some hairdressing students who were going to live in Australia, the only reason I got through the door was because my friends were going too.

So I got in done, and might even post a photo sometime (I keep meaning to take some photos of myself but never get round to it). It even brought up some issues about 'why do I feel I can't spend money on myself' and 'why do I have trouble tending to my physical appearance?'. And after all, I am all about the issues.

Goodness only knows what's going to happen when I finally get around to going ice skating. Although seeing as I'm rambling all over the place already, I might as well throw in that I tried to persuade an ex-boyfriend to go ice skating at the Tower of London or Somerset House and he refused because he was afraid he was going to fall over and get the tips of his fingers sliced off. (This sort of thing may well be why I'm not so devastated about being single.)

37. Organise clothes and shoes
38. Organise paperwork
39. Organise books
40. Sort out other possessions

I know I've blogged about this more than once, and written about it already this post (hey, I've got to make the most of my material), so I'll just say I cannot believe how much better I feel for having done this. Not only do I feel so much lighter, my bedroom seems to have grown by several feet and I have the toasty-happiness of having helped several charities.

I was going to give updates on the endeavours that I'd started but I've written way more than I thought I would about these. Not to mention that it's edging towards eight here, and I feel I deserve a New Year's Eve Eve glass of wine.

Looking Back...and Forwards...

I've spent most of the last week hibernating. It wasn't what I'd intended to do, but it was what I seemed to need, so I let myself run with it. During my hibernation, I wrote two long lists, one of everything I was happy about in the past year, and one that I was unhappy about. I am definitely doing this, or something like it, every year from now on.

The list of things that I was happy with, proud of doing, successes, things I'd learnt, went on for four A4 pages, whilst the negative list covered only one. And yet, predictably, I've probably spent more time dwelling on those. Just by writing this out I shifted my perspective, from 'argh I can't believe the failure' to 'Ok, there's been some fail, but there's been way more good stuff, and you've actually learnt stuff from the fail, so surely that's not entirely a fail then?' Which has been pretty sweet.

These are my most important lessons of 2009. Seeing as they're more 'woah, cosmos' type lessons, I'm going to be trying to live them in 2010.

Trust my intuition. Trust the feeling inside that tells me what is and isn't possible, the feeling that says 'this looks interesting' or 'get me out of here'. Learning to ask myself questions and not censor the answers.

Permission. Permission to trust myself and my intuition. Permission to invest in myself. Permission to feel things like anxiety and fear without beating myself up about feeling them. Permission to dream, and then to work out how to make these dreams real, and to risk doing it. Permission to risk failing.

Control. Believing that I control my own life. Not allowing other people to control how I feel about myself, by measuring myself as a success or failure against someone's else's yardstick, and then accepting that judgement.


Now, I'm off to hibernate some more....

Snow + Beach + Sunset

Yes, more snow/beach photos. I know I’m probably going a little overboard on this, but I have never seen the beach look so beautiful, and who wants to restrain themselves from sharing something beautiful? (Obviously this is where my inner cynic gets all fluffed up and starts muttering about people who consider faeces and other-bodily-substances-that-will-not-be-mentioned in art to be beautiful, where yes, I do wish they would restrain themselves. Anyways, back to the winter snow beach thing…)

I keep being greedy to look at these photos, and my homily for the week is that, whilst I would still rather live somewhere warmer, and I’m totally not enjoying nearly breaking my neck on the iced over pavement every time I leave the house, winter does have its good points, its beauty.

I’ve appreciated the clear blue skies and sunlight, the stunning sunsets and crisp air, too. I’ve appreciated having some moisture in the air, after last winter in Shijiazhuang where the air was so dry that walking down the street made me feel like it was assaulting me [the air, not the street].

But perhaps what I appreciated most was the moments of stillness, of tranquillity, that I experienced on the beach. Moments to keep safe, and bring out the next time I have to call a bank.

What other wintery worlds are out there?

Snow + Beach

We've had the unusual occurance of snow that hasn't melted as soon as it lands this week.

So, for the first time in my life, I've seen a snowy beach.

I couldn't resist taking photos until my fingers were too cold to work the dials of my camera.

And there's more to come later in the week...

The Sky Saves The Day (Again)

Yes, I know we've only just had Skywatch, but I couldn't wait until next week to post these photos. I had yet another super frustrating day. You know the type, when you think, aha, this will take ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and you're still wrestling with it four hours later? Yep, one of those.

So again, it was 'take some deep breaths and look out the window time'.

On applying for a Career Development Loan

The snug, smug feeling of 'all's right with the world' that I woke up with this morning was clearly hubris. Or perhaps I should have just realised by now that any dealings with those providing educational finance in this country is fated to induce a serious need for wine in the unfortunate person coming up against systems that must've been designed by someone who took as a model some of Kafka's more nightmarish writings. But, at least it's good to know that it's not just Chinese banks that reduce me to a froth mouthed frustration.

And how stupid I was to think that, just because I had account with a bank for thirteen years or half my entire life, that they would actually have my details correctly. After a short verbal battle with the Indian call centre, where the fact that I had to ask the person to repeat themselves when they were asking 'what's your address' made me wonder about the definition of 'fluent English speaker' that the bank was using, I was told me the information I'd given them was wrong. But they couldn't tell me which bit of information was wrong.

So I had to walk walk the mile and half or so into town, to go and sort it out with my branch, whilst trying to suppress a mini meltdown that someone of nefarious intent had somehow hacked into my account and my overdraft was probably buying them a new plasma screen TV. The only thing 'wrong' with my information was that my home telephone number wasn't there, but as the rather astonished young man who talked to me said, they shouldn't ask you security questions about data that doesn't exist. (Why on earth no-one has put this on the system in the last thirteen years is another matter entirely.)

But, the system is mightier than mere mortal common sense.

Walking back home it started to snow. My boots started to leak. Just a little bit, but that's just a little bit more freezing water than I like inside my boots. It was one of those moments when you just want to be, like, universe are you KIDDING me?, and then feel a bit guilty because, after all, this is hardly a major disaster.

So then I phoned them back, and everything went OK, but frankly, by the end of the call I was past caring whether or not I get approved for the loan, I just want to never have to call them up again.

So then I confirmed to national stereotypes and make myself a cup of tea, confirmed to gender stereotypes and ate some chocolate, and looked out of my window at the beautiful winter sky, took some deep breaths and attempted to relax. And it's sort of worked. A glass of wine when I'm watching Supernatural later might not go amiss though.

*CDL loans are how most people finance postgraduate study, and as only two banks offer them, they can pretty much treat you as shoddily as they like.

View more relaxing skies at Skywatch Friday.

Continued

Yes, I'm still on the throwing out theme. You may possibly have underestimated the scale of the clear out, like the people at the charity bookshop, who obviously didn't believe me when I said I had over a hundred books to bring in, and then were all like, 'Oh you do have a lot of books, don't you?', looking all surprised when I turned up with them. And I stifled an urge to retort, 'well, if I said I had over a hundred books, maybe that's because I have over a hundred books!' but I refrained and just smiled nicely instead.

Yesterday, was tip and book charity shop day. Today was give furniture away day. I found a great local charity that comes to pick up furniture and divested myself of:

• A bureau that is incredibly uncomfortable to work at. I've hardly ever used it, except to do a few holiday university assignments, and I remember more about how pissed off I was about how uncomfortable I was, than anything about the essays themselves.



• A wardrobe that I can't actually hang my clothes up in. It's a man's wardrobe, and, the last time I checked, I was definitely not a man. (I hung dresses and stuff on my bookshelves. Obviously.)



• A double piano stool. This provenance of this piece puzzles me, as I've never lived in a house with a piano. I doubt if anyone in my family can even play the piano. Yet I had a piano stool in my bedroom. Strangely enough, it didn't get much use.

So I've established that these furniture items were neither well used, nor particularly well-loved. And yet, whilst I was waiting for the removal guys to pick them up and take them away I had a strange clenching feeling of 'omg I can't believe I'm getting rid of these', and it was only at that point I realised how strong the security bond of familiar things is.

But they were carried off to be renovated and resold. And instead of having any pangs of remorse, I felt fantastic. Like ripping off a scab (this is meant to be a good thing). Like the glee in throwing the monstrously hideous dressing table mirror (the dressing table that went with it was coated in white, pink and brown patterned padded vinyl, which mercifully vanished years ago), that I'd tried to improve my painting the white and gold frame deep purple and sticking virgin Mary medals to, into the rubbish pile at the tip and hearing the glass smash.

I almost can't believe the amount of stuff I've got rid of over the last five days, probably half or more of everything I own. The trouble is I think it might be addictive. I'm now finding myself looking around at my life (not to mention the three items in my room that haven't been dejunked yet) and wondering what else, that I live with, that I might even be attached to through familiarity, I would be glad to get rid of...