Reasons to be gruntled

No, not disgruntled. A list of pleasures, not all of them guilty, but yes, a fair share of them more than a little shame-faced and "I confess..." And as a special treat, I'm going to let my S&S girls ask me one question each about the list that I have to answer. And I think they might have some after reading it.


1. The ice that forms on cliff faces in wintertime
2. Peeing in the shower
3. Hot chocolate
4. Irish people
5. Unrequited loved
6. New DVDs
7. Peanut butter and Oreos
8. Peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off
9. Tall glasses of milk, with sweat beading on the sides
10. Raw cookie dough
11. James Blunt CDs
12. Poppy country music
13. Dirty, grimy, in the bones country music
14. The first crocus
15. Buttercups
16. Skype conference calls with R, M, J, and C
17. "That's what she said" jokes
18. Live music
19. Being hit on and flirting with 46 year old Irish bassists
20. Bassists, generally
21. Mustaches
22. Quotes about history
23. The (second) defenestration of Prague
24. Plaid
25. Miley Cyrus gossip
26. Zefron
27. Playing Monopoly
28. Peacock feathers
29. Weddings
30. Singing or speaking really, really fast
31. Jackson Browne
32. Pickles
33. Raspberry sorbet
34. Eating 21 scoops of ice cream every first Tuesday in June
35. Fenway Park
36. Riding the T from JFK to Kendall
37. The USS Constitution
38. River sounds
39. Honey mustard
40. Earnestness
41. Glitter
42. Dragonflies
43. The color blue
44. Falling in love
45. Kissing Dan
46. Jars, bottles, and other glass vessels
47. Seaglass (or had you forgotten?!)
48. Sequins
49. His ass, cause it's covered in sequins
50. Stupid inside jokes
51. Deep-fried Mars Bars
52. Denim skirts
53. Red-heads
54. Blue eyes
55. My parents' relationship
56. Meringues, especially melting them on my tongue
57. Live music
58. Making jokes about Marvin Gaye
59. Fake tattoos
60. Coins that trains have flattened
61. The ocean
62. Scotch
63. Tequila
64. Really terrible romantic comedies
65. Puns
66. Water
67. Swimming
68. Walking
69. Wearing Dan's sweatshirts
70. Dollhouses
71. Trees with names carved into them
72. Big Macs
73. Frozen Swiss Cake Rolls
74. Frozen Star Crunches
75. Mac and cheese
76. Chicken salad
77. Frozen yogurt with peanut butter sauce
78. Staying up late
79. Climbing volcanoes
80. Late night radio
81. Pub quiz
82. Family Feud
83. Jim Morrison
84. holding hands
85. Wearing dresses to inappropriate events
86. Candlepin bowling
87. Snowden
88. Chocolate covered sunflower seeds
89. The smell of dirt
90. Cranberries
91. Trees that look like they are dying after the foliage is over
92. Snow
93. James Dean, when he smiled
94. James Dean, when he looked broken
95. Flintstones vitamins
96. John Hiatt music
97. Farmhouses with wraparound porches and detached barns
98. Cape houses
99. Trees
100. Life can be beautiful
101. Oh, and this...

Mhairi's Birthday, Mhairi's Birthday, Mhairi's Birthday

Dearest Mhairi/Mhazz/Momar/Mohair/McBoobies

Today you have been alive for 20 whole years. Apart from this making you ridiculously old, it also makes it your birthday! Happy Birthday! I've been trying to write this alld ay, and now there is less than half an hour left till your birthday, so HERE YOU GO! :D ...

On this day, twenty years ago, it was a thursday night and the moon was a waning crescent  in the sky. Somewhere in Washington, Michaelangelo (that is, the ninja turtle) was giving a speech to elementary school students about sea-turtles.The radios in the UK would have been playing Madonna's Just My Love, for it was at the top of the charts that day. The world was getting excited about compact-discs - the forefront of technology. The internet was still only whispered about. As you can see, it was an entirely unwitting world Mhairi was born into, one that did not recognise at the time the gravity of the fact; Mhairi was born, the world would never, ever be the same.

In these twenty years since, Mhairi has radically changed the world. She would spend most of her formative years with a group of wacky individuals she would often refer to as her minions, and indeed they responded as such. She soon overthrew a small country (she didn't want to appear too cocky initially) and devised the perfect society, a model that was soon adopted by the rest of the world when she became its unquestioned ruler. Aside from the odd ice sculpture of her spouting fine quality wine, she was a humble leader.

Mhairi, only 12 years old at the time, decided to step down from the responsibilities of world-leadership a few years in, in order to seek a more personally fulfilling role within the world. Though this caused the perfect-society model to collapse and caused a world-wide economy crash, food crisis and inevitably a rip in the space time continuum, no body really minded, and such things have a habit of sorting themselves out given time (and they had plenty, given the rip in the time-space continuum had dissolved the concept for a while). So Mhairi turned to a quest of discovering her true talent, which so happened to be competitive may-pole dancing. During her adventures at this pivotal period of her life she also happened to find a cure for the common cold, discovered why molecules have mass, and was granted Freedom of the British Isles for single-handedly drawing up an economic plan that averted the looming crisis within the NHS.

Mhairi, now approaching her golden years, has written the first in a series of personal memoirs that give close-up insight into the struggle behind such a beautiful, fantastic life, titled "Mhairi - Fighting With My Bear Hands" and there have been whispers about whether or not she really did have an alien baby.

Mhairi now lives in Hollywood (rumour has it famous, nine-time Oscar winning director Aidan Nicol is soon to make a film documenting her life) in her humble, 80-bedroomed abode, with her partner Roseanne, who constantly makes her sticky.

Wishing the legedary Mhairi McNeill a very very very happy birthday! :)

More loveliness

I quit my job.

Dear Boston:

Take me back, please? I'm sorry; I was wrong. I'm coming home to your intrepid and narrow one-way streets. I'm returning to golden domes and molasses floods and rivers named after men. Concerts in dingy-looking basements and late-night kebab adventures. I'm coming back to you.

I thought capital buildings and capital cities could replace the contentment of sitting under trees on the Common or the view from World's End. That I could make a new family as dysfunctional and wonderful and insane and crazy and lovely as my own.

I'm sorry, my love. Take me back and don't be too harsh. Remember that I love you and that was never in doubt. I just had to see what else was out there. It doesn't work, Boston, not the nonsensical way you do.

I'm coming back to the city that prompted James Carroll to write:

To talk of the purely imagined elements of the mental map Americans carry of this city is the farthest thing from debunking these fondly held ideas as “mere myth,” as if there were anything mere about mythology. What we dream of, whether a lost past or a longed-for future, does, in fact, tell us something quite real about ourselves. Thus, the sentimental fog that wraps even Boston’s hard-edged actualities can lift to reveal something deeply authentic.

Love,

Ashley

Loveliness is divine

AS YOU KNOW:

there's a new boy in town. But we're going back to an old favorite for this challenge post. A little someone I liked to call the Magic Charms (because he's magically delicious?) or more frequently, Paddy O'Furniture (because Robert created the name). Anyway, the scene:

I, cold and alone, have just moved to Scotland like five days ago. I'm jetlagged and all I want is some hot chocolate. So I step into a little cafe called "Juice Monkeys" and I order myself my favorite cold weather beverage. The person sitting at the counter on his laptop, I noticed as I approached the empty register, was rather lovely. He stood, slid behind the countertop, and took my order and two-pound coin. Then he brought me my hot chocolate.

In the meantime, we had a lovely conversation about how he was Irish and thus reminded me of home in, er, Boston, because Boston is wicked Irish? Anyway. He has these gorgeous cornflower blue eyes that just bore into me. And I have a lovely, blustery morning chocolate. I sit there filling out a postcard to my grandfather while I indulge. When I leave, I drop the postcard in the postbox just outside Juice Monkeys, right near St Patrick's Square (OHSOFITTING).

Ten minutes later, my mother calls me to inform me that my grandfather died a few minutes before. I cry and return to the coffee shop for a few more delicious hot chocolates.

It becomes a ritual for me and eventually, I learn Magic Charm's real name (Paul) and that he is older than he looks (31, at the time). He gets so friendly with me that he lets me choose the music he plays and, at one point, sent me with a tenner for strawberries. To this day, I believe that he was as taken by me as I was by him. We remain in occasional communication and some awkward but endearing IsItFlirting? is prone to ensue. It makes me smile, right?

The lasting legacy of this most lovely of encounters (spanning six months, is it still a mere encounter?) is something simpler and altogether lovely, itself.

Hot chocolate. I can't drink it without hearing Paul clear his throat or picturing the way he'd smile through his hair. I feel the warm, comfortable peace of sitting in Juice Monkeys on a gray winter/early spring afternoon by myself, reading a David Sedaris book and carrying on a fascinating conversation about nothing with him. I drink hot chocolate every day and remember a person with whom I had a lovely, perfect friendship. I remember a feeling of sublime peace and sedation. Every single day, I indulge my desire for something sweet and lovely and simple and with it comes an avalanche of lovely, simple, sweet memories of a time when I ought to have been sad, but instead felt warmth and affection.

Beckoning all of the loveliness

Bonj!

I have started the Beckoning of Lovely Challenge! At 7am AliBlah and I woke up and this occurred.

Today has been brilliant, we went out to check on the stump a few times and people had moved things around and rearranged it (because stuff kept blowing over) without stealing anything! We can also see it from the window, and I had to stop myself from watching people's reactions to it all day: photos were taken, crackers were pulled and then replaced carefully when they realised there was nothing inside... beautiful.

We took it in around 7pm tonight, to prevent theft from drunken yooofs, but it will be out again tomorrow with new things :) Will keep you updated on any happenings...

In other news, check out this exciting new Tumblr with lots of pictures of snow and sculptures and wonderful things! I totally did not create it or name it after a family in-joke both me and Mhairi share...

Hope you are all well, happy December and I am excited for to see your projects :)

Lovelove, Crackalacka Craa Craa xxx

Top 10 Pieces of Mathematical Awesomeness

1. Euclid's Axioms for Geometry.

Everyone knows Euclid's Axioms for Geometry – yes, even you! That's because Eucild's Axioms are what you do when you go to primary school and you learn about shapes. Even if you didn't learn anything in primary school, you still know Euclid's axioms, that's how easy they are. It's a shame that the “Lines and shapes” chapter in your primary school maths book isn't called “Euclid's Axioms for Geometry and their immediate consequences” because doing geometry with axioms is really cool.

To understand axiomatic maths you have to pretend you know nothing about the world. In particular, you know nothing about Geometry What are points? What are lines? Can you draw a line between two points? You don't know. Now Euclid is going to tell you five statements about geometry – these statements are the infamous axioms. The axioms are incredibly obvious to anyone who's been alive for more than 30 seconds, but they are all you need to prove pretty much anything you would ever want to know about geometry. Here they are:

1. Two points can have a line drawn between them

2. You can draw any line as long as you like

3. Circles exist

4. Every right angle is the same

5. Parallel lines do not meet *

There is so much you can prove just from these axioms - from really obvious facts (triangles have three sides and three corners) to less obvious ones (Pythagoras' Theorem, the angles in a triangle add up to 360 degrees). You can even prove facts about algebra. You can prove that any number can be uniquely split up into primes using Euclid's axioms. I have no idea how you prove this, but Wikipedia tells me that you can so that's enough proof for me.

Euclid wrote his book of axioms and proved everything I've told you about in 300BC. That's about 2300 years ago. You do hear a lot about how smart the Greeks were, but seriously: they were smart. Maths before the Greeks was all: “I have two apple in one hand and three in the other, I wonder how many apples I have?”. Axioms are really really important in modern maths. And proofs are really really really important - maths is proofs.

*This axiom is interesting - you can prove most things without it and actually for a long time people thought you didn't need it at all. The maths of General Relativity uses a special kind of geometry where parallel lines can meet, it's trippy.

2. The Axiom of Choice

Mathematicians since Euclid have generally been pretty impressed by his axioms. In the early 20^th Century they were so impressed they decided to copy him and invent their own collection of axioms – but this time they didn't just want to describe geometry they wanted to describe ALL OF MATHS. Maths is pretty big and pretty complicated and we know a lot about it, so boiling it down to a few simple statements is kind of a big deal.

To do this they “invented” sets. What's a set I hear you ask? Well, anything is a set! {1,2,3,4} is a set, it contains the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. But 2 on it's own is also a set, but it's a pretty boring set because it doesn't contain anything. Every number up to infinity is a set, and the collection of numbers up to infinity is a set (we write the set of all numbers like this: {1, 2, 3, …} with the ellipses just meaning “and so on”). {a,b,c} is a set and so is {@,£,$,%} and, best of all, YOU are a set! (you're my favourite set). So if we know about sets we know about anything. Okay, we know the maths of anything. Even though all cancers form a set I can't tell you how to cure cancer using set theory :(

So all the mathematicians worked really hard and worked out all the axioms, but there's one problem... we call that problem the axiom of choice. We need this axiom to prove lots of really important, really obvious things. If we don't have the axiom of choice we can't prove that multiplying two non-empty sets together gives another non-empty set. Whole chunks of maths need the axiom of choice to get anywhere. But the axiom also proves lots of things that just aren't true. For example if the axiom of choice is true then we can take a sphere, split it into pieces and put it back together so that we get two spheres of the same size... (Hey guys, you can now get this joke, yay!)

So no one is very sure if The Axiom of Choice is true or not. It's terrible! The moral of the story is never to believe anyone who tells you maths is all logical and consistent, because it's not.

3. The Russell Set

Remember how I just said that everything is a set? Well, that was the original definition but it turns out to be a terrible definition that makes no sense. Don't believe me? I'll show you:

Lets think about a set that contains all sets that do not contain themselves. Pretty confusing set, but there is no reason why it shouldn't be a set. Let's call this set the Russell* set.

Now, is the set Russell a member of the Russell Set?

If it is then

it doesn't contain it's self

and so it's not.

But if it's not then

it's a member of the Russell set

and so it does contain it's self.

As I said, it's pretty confusing. There is lots of clever ways of redefining sets so that we don't run into these problems but it's further proof that logic and mathematics is actually a bit crazy!

*Named after after Bernard Russell, who pointed out this whole problem. You've probably heard of his - he had his fingers in many pies. And he was like... really good at all those pies.)

4. An infinity of infinities.

Okay remember that set we talked about – the set of all numbers from 1 to infinity, or {1, 2, 3, …}. We call that set the set of all natural numbers. And this set is infinitely big right? And you can't get any set bigger than this? Right? Wrong! We actually have an infinity of sets bigger than this. It's crazy, even crazier than I can adequately explain.

The set of all numbers and all their negatives {…, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, …} might look like its bigger, but actually its the same size as the set of natural numbers. The set of all fractions is also the same size – even though there is an infinity of fractions between any two fractions! But the set all decimal numbers – numbers like 4.12392701 – is a “bigger infinity”. It's hard to explain, and it doesn't seem to make any sense. The man who proved this ended up dying in an asylum with his proofs widely mocked. But it's okay because we all believe him now!

Knowing about sets bigger than infinity is really useful for explaining the axiom of choice. Basically, what the axiom of choice says is that if we have a really big infinity of infinitely big sets we can always chose an element from each of the sets.

5. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

Okay, now for my final depressing reason that maths doesn't actually make sense. You know how I told you how great axioms are, well...

In 1931 when he was only 25 Kurt Gödel proved that any systems of axioms complicated enough to prove anything interesting would be incomplete: there will be statements that are true that we cannot prove.

Doesn't it blow your mind that someone can prove something like that?

And the Incompleteness Theorem matters – there is things that we do not know and cannot know. We will never be able to prove that there exists a set bigger than the natural numbers {1,2,3,4...} but smaller than the set of all decimal numbers. Wow.

Did I mention that Kurt Gödel also went crazy and thought everyone was poisoning him?

So for the sake of my sanity (and yours if you've made it this far) I'm going to stop at 5. After all maths is nuts and maybe 10 = 5 ;)

Love you peeps, I'm off to work on my actual maths project!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

challenge post; the concept of lovely

go here, watch and smile :)

This is still one of my favourite videos on YouTube. In fact all of the The Beckoning of Lovely videos are.

So my challenge is: do something lovely. Anything lovely; for yourselves or for others, it doesn't matter. Then come here and write about that lovely thing.

It doesn't have to be extravagant, in fact simple pleasures are often the most satisfying. Practising the concept of lovely can surely only lead to a little bit more happiness in a world that often isn't so accommodating for such a feeling :)

No strict deadline, but before the new year would be pretty nice :)

(Oh, a reminder to Jenny and Mhairi; we're still excitedly awaiting your top ten lists!)

She is a real royal lady, true patron of the arts

Hey girls, it's Friday! (or at least it was when I started writing this, and then didn't finish on time to publish)


I recently joined a group on facebook called "that awkward silence when an Arts student talks about their future prospect" - for the purposes of irony, really. That was before the figures for the arts cuts were public knowledge, so now you could say my membership is of a more bitter irony now.


On visiting that page now, though, God, those people are so annoying. The Arts students are getting all uppity about the snub, whilst non-arts students maintain a sense of smug self-righteousness when it comes to criticising the arts in general. The same mantra; good luck getting employed with that kind of bullshit degree - not even worth the paper its printed on. Blahblahblah arts is stupid.


It's OK, the opinions of ignorant individuals doesn't bother me. I know that the arts industry as it stands in Britain is one the fastest growing, a mass employer, and that we're envied by many countries worldwide for our arts scene. This can be credited to a culture of established accessibility; art is no longer considered as high-brow as it once was, and within education bodies the concept of "creative-thinking" is very much encouraged. It's incredible - to have so much culture absolutely bursting within our tiny isles - it's not only an economical plus, it's a social one too. If we as a society are exposed to arts - and that is arts in all forms, from literature to film making to philosophy and beyond - we learn to express ourselves and communicate ideas in an entirely fulfilling means of conversation. Arts is popular for a reason; its the fibre of life - its everywhere, as it should be. 


What's not OK, is the government's policies on the arts. In recent weeks we've seen a 30% cut of arts funding in England (though only 15% should apply to frontline services) and in Somerset county council the decision has been made to cut funding for the arts by 100% (incidentally, funding for the arts in Somerset only took up 0.004% of the budget - that's how dispensable it was seen from the offset). In Scotland we are facing similar cuts - though the means by which this will be carried out has yet to be decided by the SNP. Essentially, this is going to cause a lot of restrictions on the industry - including those who view it. This holds great potential to see a return to the old, elitist structures of culture - where those who are currently interested in the arts remain there (if they can afford to, financially and in regard to their future prospects, that is), whilst nothing is done to encourage those who are not involved in arts to engage in them. You'll see this through the maintenance of crown jewels such as Opera Houses and the Royal Shakespeare Company, but you can forget any fundings for non-yearly festivals or radical new project ideas. Oh the Conservatives, they just love their hierarchies.


I'm not saying the arts should have priority. I definitely, definitely agree that in face of a smoothly running NHS or a thriving arts scene, the NHS should always have the preference. What I'm saying about this is that the manner in which these cuts are being implicated - so fast and so brutally- is going to have dire consequences to not only economic growth, but is going to undermine the happiness of the nation during times where the nation's spirit is going to be in desperate need of lifting.


What is more frustrating, however, is the fact that the Conservatives' cuts (I say Conservative here because Clegg's backbone has been entirely indistinguishable since he entered the Coaltion) are so blatantly driven by ideology, but the policies of which highlight so many contradictions its sickening. I've always thought this of the Conservative ideology, that it's founded on contradictions that ultimately lead to its failing. What we need to understand about Conservative ideology is that they believe in upholding tradition - the very name denotes this fact, "to conserve". These traditions are preserved through symbols; for example, red phone boxes, the royal family, London cabs - such things maintain a sense of Britishness through their symbolic status to our country. And the reason Conservatives are so obsessed by the concept of the nuclear family? Of course, it's the oldest tradition there is. 


But tell me, because I really want to know, how exactly do you maintain a person's ability to read such symbols, that are inherent to the success of this ideology, when you take away the means by which these symbols are read? If you try to steer people away from the arts, further emphasis must be placed on non-arts subjects in order to encourage potential candidates to favour these areas instead. But symbolism is learned through a creative process - and traditions are abstract in nature; most traditions are merely signfiers of greater concepts. How can you maintain them if you undermine the creative process, if you remove the way in which applying symbolic meaning to life is learned?


Aside from that, symbolism is important to learn not just in respect to the success of this archaic, bullshit ideology, but also to life as it is right now. Take away the arts, then you take away a world-view. Can we really only see the world through facts and figures? I don't know about you guys, but the reason I read books and watch films because of a distinct need to make sense of the world through metaphorical means, through a process that conveys ideas that are often too big to comprehend as a whole - and without those books and films that shaped my childood, that got me through adolescence and continue to offer me an entirely new world-view even now, I can't even think about what a narrow-minded individual I'd be. And that is just two outlets the arts provide. We are surrounded by design; we love to play computer games and watch brilliant TV programmes and buy snazzy, edgy furniture. We as a nation are at the forefront of the arts, we're internationally acclaimed for our talent and - let's not be too modest - our brilliance. And it just makes me so very sad to think that our government is going to dismantle this within five years or more (i really, really hope it's only five though).


I think this is where I draw distinct preferences between the Conservative ideology and the Liberalist ideology; Labour at least strove to provide opportunity for all those willing to take it. The Conservatives, meanwhile, are preoccupied with providing opportunities to those who can afford the expenses of them. On other fronts I'm still making up my mind.


Either way I'm certain; take away the arts from the wider public, then take out the nation from imagination.

it's friday, it's fireworks and remember remember

Remember telling me "don't scream, and let go of the handles, it's way more funner!"? It's funny how that sort of sums up us. Remember snorting rainbow dust? Remember seriously discussing which of each others' body parts we'd prefer to have when we merged as one person? Remember those hours over phones and msn discussing The Story? Remember how we used to be so emo it hurt? Remember our despair that Billie Joe was 40-something and married? Remember oreo-milkshake? Remember getting drunk on cococabana and lying on our backs watching the stars fall from the sky?

Remember the uncool cool area? Remember the spongy grass at the short-cut to the bakeshop, and the pound you lost there that seemed to be absorbed by the ground? Remember when Mr Hayward took us for tea at Hoswick Visitor's Centre? Remember when you asked me to come rowing, but I forgot and you appeared at my door and I was still in my pajamas? I'm still proud of how fast I managed to change into daywear. Remember how scared we were of Mr Lindsay? Remember how he told us his life-story in Japan, to us only and for no real reason other than to talk about his favourite subject (himself)? Remember life is like soy-sauce, love is like rice?

Remember activity Wednesday and Newspaper? I was so shy, and I accidentally drew on your jeans, and you just laughed. Remember town days, and sitting on your knee in the Havly, and getting kicked out of the Havly for being "too loud"? I'm sure you're tiring of such a phrase, but I could listen to you all day at whatever volume you choose. Remember Thursday Period Four? Remember all those discussions about teachers and boys and boy wizards and time-travellers? Remember sitting on a rock by the sea at 1AM drinking lambrini and discussing my boy troubles? Remember then standing up and realising how drunk we were, and then rolling down a hill in the wet grass?

Remember that time when you came up to Shetland and it was glorious? Remember "she's from Boston!"? Remember the Easter dinner? Remember how lemony it was, and how delicious it was, and how Harry didn't like the sweet-potatoes? Remember "do the Ashley face!"? Remember the emotional moneys? Remember me telling you how freaking hot you are as we looked through your myspace photo albums? Remember buying cocktail pitchers from Flints and pulling funny faces for the camera?

It's just the surface. But I don't ever want to forget.

Via Crucis

“Write our great books to teach men who we are,
Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase
The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray
For alms of memory with the after time,
Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear
Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table

Top 10 pictures of Cara's trip to the States!

Hello my dears! Happy October! The best month of them all (Hallowe'en AND my birthday?)!

Anyway, here is my top ten list: Top 10 pictures from my trip to the STATES. As if I wasn't feeling nostalgic enough...

10. This is the day we found a baby. NOM NOM NOM. What?

9. The cutest chairs ever, even if they were a little bit damp. Also possibly the only picture of me and Ashley where we're not pulling faces and/or sporting pizza tongues.

8. Emotional moneys were earned right here. Well, on the whole trip actually, but this sums it up quite well.

7. The ONLY statue of heroic ducks in the whole of North America! Can you believe it?! I'm determined to build one in my garden.

6. I just like this picture. And the Science Museum was so much fun! Musical staircase, yes please. Special exhibition about WHALES?! Double yes please.

5. Because the graduation party was fun, Chris is awesome and that cake was ridiculously good.

4. Continuing this brief theme of "people I met" let me introduce the WIP girls. This is actually what they look like all the time. Love for Waggs, Links and Flipper (pictured), Cricket, Bucket, Kiki, Kooks, Louie, Tex, Koral, McFly, Rocky and Smalls. I miss them and the summer I could have had. And I miss my overly Scottish alter-ego Scottie.

3. My last three pictures are all from the Red Sox game, because I couldn't choose between them and because it was brilliant. This captures the craziness of my blind walk from the station to Fenway, when I managed to keep my eyes shut THE WHOLE WAY. Oh, and I like all the confused people in the background, and Bailey's face (and Bailey in 20 years, standing behind her... time travel oooooh)

2. Papelbon. Me. Me and Papelbon. Do I have to explain?

1. This is my favourite picture from the trip, and I couldn't really figure out why, but now I think I know. I look entirely overwhelmed by the whole experience, which to be honest was the case most of the time I was there.

I LOVED IT AND MISS IT AND WANT TO GO BACK PLEASE. STA TRAVEL NEED TO STOP SENDING ME EMAILS ABOUT CHEAP FLIGHTS.

Oops. Caps lock.

And finally, the two worst and/or hilarious pictures from my trip:

LOOK AT THE FEAR! I was actually speaking about this picture tonight, and realised I was so scared because I thought that would be the moment when penguins decided to learn to fly. And then they would attack me. And peck my eyes out.

I couldn't not post this. IT IS HILARIOUS. I am terrifying...

As I have no classes and no excuse not to, I'm going to try to post weekly from now on. This has been most enjoyable! Ashley, I will see you on Skype soon! Roseanne, Aidan and Mhairi, I shall see you in Stirling on Tuesday! And Jenny, I'll see you in Fundee on Friday, where hopefully we will avoid all the penguin statues...

lovelove xxx

top ten moments of the summer, in no particular order really

10. That feeling when walking out of my final exam with a very sunburnt Aidan thinking "two weeks in Stirling of complete liberation. Bring it on."

9. Dian's party in North Roe, where I woke up in a room full of Christmas decorations and later found a video on my phone of Heather and me sucking helium from balloons singing songs from The Sound of Music.

8. Wandering around my home-village with Ceidiog, pushing an old shopping trolley full of old bike tyres, bamboo, an unmbrella and a portable television we found in a skip.

7. Working this summer with my dad, cutting grass and whelking and setting up antiques stalls in various parts of Shetland and going to his workplace and filiming a bunch of crazy, silly scientists. Infuriating, exhausting and incredible. I owe him a lot of thanks.

6. Coming second place in Young Film Critic of the year award. The real glory was not the money or even getting to shake Mark Kermode's hand (though that was pretty damn awesome), but the fact that afterwards my dad smiled and ruffled my hair. That's the ultimatum in I'm Proud of Yous from him.

5. When Jane was up with her boys, and we had a Spanish-That-Was-Actually-Kinda-Mexican Night, where the Mindtwin and me got a little drunk on Cococabana and concluded the night lying back on the driveway watching a spectacular meteor shower rain down from one of those starry Shetland skies.

4. The film festival in its entirety, but to name a few particular favourites: Homemade in Shetland/Maddrim night and not screwing up the speech, when Jason Isaacs invited us to eat chocolates with him in his dressing room, jammin' in the festival club, the Observer article, the footage we filmed for Stallionhead 3, and not forgetting our favourite honourary Maddrim members.

3. Kevin MacNeil's book launch, and seeing both Kevin and Alan Bisset (AKA Vaguely Famous Guy) again in general. Also finding out that Alan Bisset is a fellow AKD resident. 6.21W, Mr Bisset, all I'm sayin.

2. My last couple of hours of the last semester.

1. Sitting on a sunny hill in Lerwick with a collection of wonderful people - some of who were knitting at the time - and thinking: I must be the luckiest person alive.

Things we found in the fire

Because my life moves fast, and it's not just that my life is moving fast; my life is, in fact, moving.

To DC.

So here is one top ten list. I have two.
Top Ten Things I Found While Packing to Move to DC

10. Memorabilia. Cruise memorabilia, in particular. A magnet of a frog wearing swim trunks that say "Bermuda" across the crotch, lying on a lily pad, and sipping a beer.

9. My S Club 7 CDs. Both store-bought and self-mixed.
8. My book of ticket stubs. I have seen a lot of movies and gone to a lot of concerts. Some highlights included Lifehouse, Hanson, and The Village.

7. The amethysts and peridots I bought at Cambridge Beadworks for Mom and Bay.
6. A photograph of my old best friends before they started dating each other, Liam fast asleep on Courtney's shoulder, on the eighth grade trip.

5. The cropped gray sweater I was wearing the night I thought I was falling love. It was buried on my mom's work table. How it landed there I am not entirely sure, but it sort of brought some strange stuff flooding back.

4. The photocopied letter that JK Rowling sends to everyone who writes her fanmail. I got it in middle school and it felt joyous.
3. The lock of my hair that I insisted on saving after I shaved my head for the first time after the very silly boy told me he liked my hair.

2. A stale copy of Parade magazine with Jonathan Rhys Myers on the cover. I think this was shortly after I saw I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and was going through my Varied Brits phase. (Clive, Ewan, Chewi, Jonathan... etc)

1. This photo:



Top Ten Josh Ritter Lyrics For When You Become A RealDeal Adult (With a Job and Not Living With Your Parents Anymore)

10. Out in the desert now and feeling lost.
9. Saturday night in a town like this, I forget all my songs about trains. Bar with a juke box, you on my arm -- Heaven and Earth are pretty much the same.
8. Below me are the sailors; they're on this journey, too. And each of us must make our unknown way upon the blue.
7. Tell me I got here at the right time and if I did, it's probably the first time.
6. I'll hold it high for you cause I know you got, I'll hold it high for you, your own valley to walk. I'll hold it high for you, though it's dark as death, I'll hold it high for you, it gets darker yet. I'll hold it high for you though your path is blocked, I'll hold it high for you through the thieves and the rocks. I'll hold it high for you, keep you safe from harm; I'll hold it high for you until your back in my arms.
5. My wings are made of hay and corn husks, so I can't leave this world behind.
4. Out at sea for seven years, I got your letter in Tangiers. I thought that I'd been on a boat, until that single word you wrote. That single word it landlocked me.
3. Time is like this fast freight train; you gotta ride, you can't remain behind. And all your friends are on separate tracks and some of them, they won't look back to find the one place that we all have known, the one place we can call a home, the place where each of us began. Sure as that day rolls around, when the road back home is finally found, I know our paths will cross again.
2. Lying on your backs, sun going down, you know it's perfect cause you gotta leave.
1. It's only a change of time.

My friends, I give you the MIT hackers...

Yes, my best friend is one of these hackers. No, she was sadly not a part of this particular hack. (She was busy spending her summer working on a nuclear reactor in Paris, how dull.)

Anyway...

This is what they did... I just thought my Scotch and Sox girls would want to know.

Inspired by Roseanne: a challenge

Hey everyone, have we forgotten each other? I guess you guys all get to see each other at least once in a while (meanwhile I only get to daydream of the time when Cara was in America, sigh).

But Roseanne inspired.

I'm challenging you all to make a top-ten list. About anything. Music, movies, reasons Barack Obama is totally doable. It can be funny or serious or mean-spirited. It can be anything. And I'm going to say by.... eh, September 7th. That should give each of us plenty-o-time.

I'm also going to post a blog alllll about Cara. Because I love her, that's why.

the top ten reasons I am a nerd

First of all, congratulations to Ashley's bruv, that is wonderful news! :)

Secondly, I've been watching lots of vlogbrothers' videos lately in preparation for GOING TO SEE JOHN GREEN ON SUNDAY LIKE ZOMG.

In homage to nerdfightaria, here are the top ten reasons I am a nerd:

• I downloaded flashcard software to help me remember Shakespeare quotes. "We are but stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep."

• I got a daily deviation on dA. In the literature category. Y'know, the least popular category. And it was awesome.

• I wouldn't vote Saxon.

• I fail to understand how people can get bored when books exist.

• I think I'd be a Ravenclaw. Why Ravenclaw? Well, I think I'd be unable to handle the bitchiness of Slytherin. That fear of conflict isolates me from the Gryffindor option, since you need to be brave (and often dumb as hell - though I could do that no prob) and as for Hufflepuff... I'm rubbish at finding things! In fact, I do the opposite, I lose things all the time! Also, Luna Lovegood is my Potterverse self.

• My favourite film in the entire world is Singin' in the Rain. There is nothing quite like tap-dance, Gene Kelly and happy songs to make my life better.

• I wrote stories for fun when I was little. I write stories for fun now.

• My rare moments of wit tend to involve Pokémon references.

• I never forget to be awesome.

• My life ambition, aside from turning my life into a musical, is to meet Stephen Fry. Because he is my favourite person of all time.

Tell me your reasons for being awesome :)

Mischeif managed x

My brother is engaged by now!

In a big way.

Things are about to change for my family. I have excellent, humungous news, but it's a secret until next Thursday. Dundundun!

On Direct Deposit and the degradation of my soul

"How fortuitous that it is my day to blog. Yes, Jenny, I agree with you. And I have like seven years' worth of stories from Cara's Great American Adventure.

But right now, there's something I have to get off my chest.

For all my adolescent photo-shopping (my date with Sean Biggerstaff and Hayden Christensen must have made the waitress at Friendly's laugh when I left behind the accidental photographic evidence and yeesh, but it looks an awful lot like Leo and I were meant to be sometimes), for all my blogging and digital photography-taking, I have a pet peeve.

It's called technology. And yes, I understand the utter hypocrisy of venting my peeves on the internet when the internet is one of my peeves. (Not the mention the "Look at me!" narcissism of the very act of blogging. Blegh. But I do love you very much, Shetland Four, so I'll keep at it.) But you have to understand that I am the daughter of a man who thought he could make a call from a cell phone that had not been turned on (in fairness, he was trying to save the battery... he was on 24/7 call) and who calls his iPod a walkman. And I am a recent iPod convert. While every other music lover in the world -- who doesn't love music?! Seriously, where is your soul?! -- marks their relationship with the Apple device in years, I'm like a toddler. "Well, I've had my -- what is it? July? Eighteen months. A year and a half. That's how long we've been together."

In order to feel any attachment at all to my devices, I need to give them names and personalities. There is Clark, the epically large camera. Bruce the Shark is the iPod and he is the same exact age as Clark. My phone's name is Ronald Reagan and my computers, well, there was James Franco, but I took him off the life support finally, and now I have a Dr. Sheldon Cooper in my life.

As far as MP3s go, I despise them. I buy them, but I hate them. It's a strange, contemptuous relationship I have with them. Sort of like the one I have with mes freres. Except, less hateful? Anyway, if I had it my way, I'd be all about the vinyl. I like them more than CDs and MP3s sort of hurt my soul. It's like this awesome song by Erich Hochstrasser (a Berklee College student whose EP I was given for my birthday and he's sort of a god). This song is called "I Fell In Love With The Girl At The Record Store."

"If someone from somewhere else, saw the things we do,

Little things sticking in our ears, would they talk to you?

Point and click, it seems to stick, music we can't hold.

Digital downloads have eaten all our souls.

Went in for some jams but they don't sell those anymore.

I fell in love with the girl at the record store."

And it's so true. The music industry is a joke now and I blame the advent of MP3s. Sure, I could type up a ridiculous love poem, but to hand-write something, you have to actually love it. You have to live with it. I think it's the same with music. It's easy to not give a shit about digital music because it doesn't feel real. It feels fake and unimportant. But to put something on vinyl, to give it that inevitable longevity, that is to truly love it and believe in it. You don't put Britney Spears or Lady Gaga on vinyl because it won't last as long as the medium.

It's the same with connections we make with people. I hate facebook, I hate email, I hate texting. I mean, sure, I admire and perhaps abuse their convenience. But for real connections, they are pretty pointless. I could email anyone I like, or as is the case lately, dislike and it wouldn't feel like it mattered. But to write someone a hand-written note, that feels like that person is important to me. I could go on, you know how it is with the images we choose to capture on camera.

But what I really want to express my hatred for, and this is an unmitigated hatred, is direct deposit. What happens when the world becomes so super-streamlined and so super convenient that it is actually the opposite?

I use Bank of America (and paypal, if any generous donors ever wanted to help me pay my rent, winkwink) and usually, it's pretty okay. I also work for a prominent non-profit group at a job that I really love and enjoy, mostly. And usually, it's pretty okay. But I am supposed to get paid tomorrow and I have this sinking feeling that it won't be happening. Here's how it all plays out.

So Bank of America has this awesome system with their ATMs so that you don't ever need to speak to a human being. Seriously, last fall I tried to find deposit slips so that I could deposit a check at the counter with a human being, and they were nowhere to be found. I had to hop in the ATM line. The ATMs that can read your checks for you so that you don't even need to fill out a deposit slip. Not only that, but it can count your cash for you, holyshit. And the ATMs are free to use if you're a Bank of America customer. So generally, I deposit my paychecks very other Friday and withdraw whatever money I anticipate needing. Other than that, I use my card for some things, but I have never written a check in my life. Because everything gets paid online with my CHECKCARD, writing checks seems silly. I don't even order them because I don't actually need deposit slips at Bank of America. Go. Figure. Bank of America has STREAMLINED MY LIFE TO THE POINT OF INCONVENIENCE. Don't believe me just yet? Read on, my poor compatriot. You will be astonished.

So this non-profit I work for, I worked there last summer, too. They did this cool thing where they paid me every two weeks with a check. They said, "Hey, do you want direct deposit?" and I was completely free to say, honestly as it were, "No, thank you. I prefer handling the depositing of my checks and don't entirely trust the process of direct deposit." This summer, I got an email two days before I was expected at training, informing me that this summer, there would be no live checks given out to any employees who did not come from another country and that I should be prepared to fill out direct deposit forms. Well, you might be thinking, that's not so bad, is it, Miss Ashley? HA!

Do you know what a person needs to set up a direct deposit? Either a cancelled check or deposit slip -- the sort that comes from the back of a check book and has your account number printed so that ONLY YOU can use that deposit slip. Two things I don't have. Two things I have never had. Because I don't write checks. And deposit slips? My bank is hardly so antiquated as all that.

So I did what any rational Potterboomer might do and hopped online. In an instant message conversation with an exceedingly polite customer service rep named Raja or Sebastian or Flounder or something equally Disney, I discovered the webpage that had the routing numbers I needed for direct deposit to accounts opened in Massachusetts. He also linked me to a page that I needed to fill out online, print out, and give to my employers. So I followed his directions with only the most pressing feeling that only everything here could go wrong. Making it worse, I'm not even 100% convinced I remember my account number because, once again folks, sing if you know it, BANK OF AMERICA does not use deposit slips.

So I handed in the information I thought was correct to my boss and she said, "All right; we'll see what happens." Now I discover that there should be some nine-cent test deposit to my account and God help me, but it's not there. Not only that, but it is after midnight on the day I am supposed to be paid, officially, and the money ought to be in there.

Guess what. It's not.

Fuck you, prominent non-profit and your devious direct deposit ways. And as for you, Bank of America, you made my life so easy I feel like one of those lards in Wall-E. You helicopter parent, you devil in disguise. Between the two of you, I feel disgusted and frustrated. I don't understand why there is an assumption being made by my non-prophet non-profit that everyone thinks direct deposit is such a grand idea. I'll tell you what I want to do to direct deposit--pretend it doesn't exist. Just give me a live-fucking-check and let me put it in the bank myself.

And because of technology, because of my workplace's unwillingness to offer the option of a live check as opposed to direct deposit, because of their stupid assumption that what is good for them is equally good for me, I might not be able to go to Amherst this weekend, or at the very least will not be able to stay overnight. They are paying me. I work for them for peanuts on the dollar; they're barely paying me. God knows the least they could do is to pay me as I wish to be paid. In a reallivecheck. Not this direct deposit bullshit. Maybe from here on out, I'll demand they pay me in gold bullion.

I dunno; I just think that Alexander Hamilton is wicked confused right now.

Today, I thought I'd just talk

I don't think it's a Tuesday. I could be wrong on this account - my perception of time is slightly skewed right now, a side effect of working too hard and then taking it too easy.
Nope. I was right. It's Wednesday.
And I'm listening to Jazz. That's kind of important. In fact, I recommend listening to maybe a bit of John Coltrane while reading this post. I'll provide you a link, in case you're not sure where to start. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j_TDoOPnIA)

BACK TO BUSINESS.

I know business hasn't really been business as usual, but I think that's probably because we chose to start a blog at a very silly time for all of us. We had exams or graduations or lots and lots and lots of summer parties to attend to. Who'd want to take the time to write it all down?
And, well, I'll admit. Our system of challenging each other wasn't really that thought out. Maybe we should come up with a new one if we want to keep going? Maybe a challenge posted at the start of every month, to be completed for our last post of the month? That'd certainly give us more time, and we could talk more about what's going on in our daily lives.

Plan? Get back to me, let me know. One way or another, I'd love to document my first year in Uni. I'd -quite- like to do it here. :)