All entries for January 2006

Quick! We're all gonna die of bird flu!

Just in case you are worried (apologies if I am by no means the first to notice this), please take the Warwick I-fear-I-am-going-to-die-of-bird-flu-test. No panicking now, you're unlikely to get bird flu after you already had SARS the other year…

: 31 Jan 2006 17:50 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Timelines

The other day, I was talking to my flatmate Niki at dinner when she asked, "So, when you think of time, how do you think of it?". Needless to say, I was a bit confused by this statement coming à propos of nothing, so I asked her to explain more fully. She then asked, how did I picture time, in terms of days, weeks, months and years. What's strange is that I knew just how to answer her. When I think of a year, I think of it going like this…

April —————————————————> December

———————————————————————-

l

l

l

January

Starting at the bottom (January, obviously), and taking a sharp right at April. This means that I guess my life looks like a staircase, which I just spent 10 minutes drawing out in underscores and l's, but which blogbuilder won't let me show. angry face (well, not so much angry as ever so slightly bemused. You get the idea…)

Which is nice, now I think about it, it's like my years are climbing towards something, even in the literal way that I think of them. I'd never considered that before.

Niki, on the other hand, thinks of her years as being a kind of upright oval, going anti-clockwise downwards towards June and then up towards December. As for weeks and the progession of each month, she thinks of each week as progressing in a linear fashion from right to left . Obviously, this clearly proves her to be insane, but that's another topic for discussion entirely. When I think of a week, it moves from left to right, and when I think of a day it climbs vertically towards midnight, then kind of drops off in a curve down to the bottom at 6 a.m.

So, I mentioned this to some friends (two of which philiosophy majors) and none of them were able to elucidate how they think about time. So now I would like to know if Niki and I are, in fact, confirmed crazies, or if there are other people who have considered this… thank you for your time given in this groundbreaking piece of research.

: 29 Jan 2006 18:37 |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

¡ Flamenco !

Well hello there kids! Long time, no blog, I know, but with the promised 10meg ADSL hitting a rue des Stations near me in the next week*, I thought I'd better get back into this blogging lark. It's the only reason I'm paying however much I'm paying to be a part of the Warwick Graduate Association (that and continued library membership, which I am obviously getting a lot out of here in France. I wonder if they do mail order…), and so I ought to use it. Plus it will give me something to do with my brain with all this free time. I am still on the search for something useful to do with my free time, but in the mean time, I thought I would take up flamenco.

Those who are close to me know how much I love to dance, and to dance flamenco has always been a dream of mine. After my sister bought me Strictly Ballroom (possibly my favourite film, and controversially beating Dirty Dancing in the "favourite dance film" stakes), my passion was inflamed. I never dreamed, however, of reaching the dizzy heights of dance fame that I have achieved in such a short amount of time.

As you can see, I have already earned my place as flamenco's hottest new talent. Somewhat embarassingly heading the line-up in preference to hot Spanish names such as Lita Delgado, I have nonetheless earned my position by wowing the critics both Spanish and otherwise. Unfortunately, the mullet didn't quite cut it, and I have to wear a wig, but I feel beautiful and elegant in my (home-made) full-skirted, beaded dress. Obviously, I am not leaving my pupils out in the cold, and they support me fully, knowing how much my entertaining career means to me. Now just bring on the tourist season…

*ISP Alice's claims cannot to date be guaranteed

** neither can mine

: 08 Jan 2006 15:04 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem