A big part of the unit I am currently doing in university is surrounded around group work. You know to build up my ‘team working skills’ and crap like that. They fail to realise that working in a team in a nursery setting with people who all care equally about the result, and working in a group of university people most of whom I neither know nor particularly care about are two completely different situations to me. Team working at work is great, it isn’t for a final product, its for an on-going development. Team working at uni? Not so great.

Now this may make me sound really vain (which lets face it, is true) but while working on my own I have always got pretty damn good marks. I really hate the fact that MY mark is going to be influenced by the work (or lack of work) of others. I can’t tell them that my ideas are better then theirs and that I can write it better then them. I have to pretend to care about what they are saying, and then the final product is just no way near as good as it would have been if I had done it myself. Yes, I know, I sound like I am really up myself. But if I get a bad mark on something I did on my own, I can cope with that because I know that I should have worked harder. And I rarely ever get bad marks on my own work.

In order to assess our methods of working and our team working skills we had to take the Belbin test. Apparently according to this I am a Plant. I am an individual, serious minded and I am unorthodox. I am independent, clever, and original. It lists the strengths of a Plant as ‘genius, imagination, intellect and knowledge’ and the weaknesses as being ‘up in the clouds, inclined to disregard practical details or protocol’.

In short, I am a genius. So take THAT group members.

It is not infrequent for people to exclaim in my direction ‘How can you need more clothes?? You buy almost an entire outfit a week, surely you have built up enough of a collection to last you for years?’. And I do kind of see their point. If you could collect all the clothes I have bought in the last year alone… well, I shudder to think just how much that would be. I freely admit that it is a waste, and I should be ashamed of myself.

But I’m really not. I love clothes, but more then that I love fashion. Sure, I could be one of those girls that just wears jeans and t-shirts year in, year out. Some kind of t-shirt and jeans are usually in fashion at all times. But for me, I can’t see the fun in wearing straight cut jeans when skinny jeans are so much more fashionable and thus more attractive?

The fashion changes seasonally, and with it my taste in clothes. I don’t feel good in last years fashion, and if I don’t feel good I don’t feel happy. I like being happy.

Of course you can argue the point that does fashion equal attractiveness and does attractiveness equal happiness. You only have to look at images such as this….

That is fall fashion 2009. I wouldn’t want to look like that, I hate animal print for one and I would never wear such a ridiculous looking hat. The jumper dress on the otherhand? Now that makes me look awesome. I wouldn’t have known that if it weren’t in the current fashion. And to be honest it probably won’t make me look nearly as good this time next year. Fashion just isn’t lasting. There are certain fashions that go round in circles, popping back up every few years but it is very rare to have fashion that lasts from one year to the next. And even if they do, they are worn or accessorized differently.

Which brings us back to the point, why not just dress how you want, surely if you dress the way you are then you will be attractive anyway. But this is how I want to dress. I can barely describe the experience of being in a shop looking at their most recent collection and imagining myself in all those different clothes. I love the smell of new clothes, the way they feel, the way they look when they have never been washed. One of the few times that I feel truly at peace is standing in a clothes shop, listening to whatever music they have playing, and dreaming of being able to afford the entire collection. You can argue that I will look like a clone, that I will not stand out in any crowd. But you would be wrong. I may buy a new wardrobe each season according to the fashion, but it is me that puts the outfits together. It is me that chooses specific items of clothing and accessories to fit my personality. And it is me that wears them. I don’t walk like anyone else, I don’t talk like anyone else, I don’t smile like anyone else and I certainly don’t think like anyone else. I make whatever I wear attractive by being the one wearing them, by feeling attractive. And I feel attractive by regularly having new clothes. If you don’t, that’s up to you, I am sure you look and feel great in whatever you do choose to wear. That is the beauty of being us.

I am sitting in my room fully clothed (I know, I was surprised too). I also have my dressing gown and a blanket. And I am still freezing cold. Most normal people would put the heating on but my roommates keep grumbling along the lines of ‘We can’t put the heating on in October!’ (I believe this is because many people die if they are a reasonable temperature in October) and ‘It’s not THAT cold! Just wear two coats!’

And that is why I am sitting here in underwear, socks, trousers, shirt, jumper, dressing gown and blanket. Because it is that cold. NOT because I think it looks attractive. (Though layers are in right now).

I don’t know whether I really am that much colder then everyone else, but is not an infrequent occurrence that everyone sneers at  my apparent chilliness. I can be walking around quite literally shivering and people say ‘Don’t be silly, it’s not THAT cold… I mean do you SEE any icicles hanging off my nose? No? Well then it’s not necessary to have heating. Now grow up and be a man!’

But I’m not a man, I don’t want to be a man!

Everyone wants to be a man.

To be able to walk around in sub zero temperatures wearing only a short sleeved t-shirt (and usually some kind of leg clothing unless they are a little bit slutty). Who wouldn’t dream of such things? The very essence of true manliness is to be able to ignore the cold and power through till summer. Man Jumpers? Those are for GAYs.

But the fact is, I am not a man. No, really, you can check. Actually no you can’t check, you can just take my word for it. But since I always speak the truth I am sure you can trust me. I am a girl. A weak, vulnerable girly girl who would carry her quilt around all day if she could. And I am serious about that, I would take it to work if they would let me. So take pity on me and donate some money that I can give to my roommates (and manager) to persuade them that heating really would be beneficial. To me at least, not so much to global warming, but who cares about the state of the world? Which is really more important to you…. the possible long term effects of the world or my immediate temperature levels?

That above comment is aimed specifically at my dear Republican Xanga Friends since I know Republicans like to pretend global warming isn’t happening and pollution isn’t REALLY a problem. I am sure you can sympathise to my plight. As for my more left-wing friends… normally I would say you are right, and you are, but I am cold.

Note: If you are an anti-evolutionist who is going to feel the need to respond in anger/disgust/despair that I am talking about evolution in a positive manner, please read the below disclaimer before doing so.

The other day I saw the film Creation. A film about Charles Darwin. It left me in complete awe, just thinking about the miracle that is life. The fact that over millions of years life on this earth evolved to become us alongside every other living thing. That I am the product of billions of tiny little changes and adaptations. That we can dig into the earth and find fossils of what came before us.

Now I realise that Evolution is technically a theory. But it is a theory in so much as unless someone has a secret recording of the earth from the moment of it’s creation to this day, it can never be proven one way or the other. But the evidence is there. There are layers of earth in which differing types of fossils have been found. Evolution is the best explanation for that. No one has come up with a better explanation. Other then ‘God says it didn’t happen so it didn’t’.

Every now and then evidence is found that doesn’t quite fit into the map of evolution. And so the map is shifted slightly. Nothing has been found that completely destroys the map. Most evolutionists are not pretending that we somehow know exactly what happened, how it happened and in what order. We are saying that something along those lines happened and that it is amazing. It is not an attempt to ‘disprove’ God. It is not an attempt to make Christians (or people with similar Creationist ideas) look stupid. It is certainly not an attempt to ‘brainwash’ people against Christianity. That is a misconception created by Creationists out of fear that people may stop blindly following their way. That is a misconception created out of despair that a two thousand year old idea may be slipping out of their grasp.

To me, the idea of evolution is as incredible, as mind blowing, as amazing as a Christian feels about Jesus dying on the cross for them. To me, it is worth learning about, it is worth thinking about. To me, it solidifies my belief that there is a God.

You can choose not to believe it happened. You can choose to tell your children that what school is teaching them is a lie. But you can’t remove the fact that there is evidence to support it and no other reasonable explanation for how it got there. You can’t remove the fact that there are people on this earth who are interested in the world and how it became what it did. It is not going away. Your children will be taught it at some point in their lives. And they will not (or should not) be taught ‘intelligent design’ alongside it. That is not a scientific theory. That is an idea based on a religious belief instead of scientific evidence and therefore should not be taught in Science lessons.

It is not a war. It is not a competition. Stop acting like it is.

Disclaimer:I realise that I may have spoken about evolution as a fact. But before you complain and insist I constantly and always refer to it is a theory, please consider the amount of times you have used sentences such as ‘God IS amazing’ ‘God performED this miracle’ ‘God HAS saved me’. I do not insist that you adapt your way of speaking to ‘God MIGHT be amazing’ in order to acknowledge the fact that there are people that do not believe that there is a God or people that would argue that there is little evidence to back up the idea of a God. I accept the fact that in your heart you believe that is the truth. In my heart I believe that evolution happened. This is not an attempt to start an argument. I have respect for all your chosen beliefs even if I feel that they are wrong, have respect for mine.

Today is a sad day. I had many vitally important topics to write about… the miracle that is evolution and the fact that no one really knows who the leader of Switzerland is, amongst others. But all that must be postponed in the light of the premature death of one of most significant men in the world of Pop Music.

Stephen Gately

Stephen was a member of the amazing boy band Boyzone who sung classic songs such as ‘No Matter What’ and ‘Love me for a reason’ (let that reason be love!). They proudly sung out through most of the ’90s warming young/teenage hearts with their beautiful Irish voices.

Stephen was the ‘cute one’, the one that made you feel just a little bit giggly. In 1999 he came out to the world, proclaiming that not only was he homosexual, but that he was in love (with a man!). Many female fans immediately screamed, fainted and cried for the loss of the vague possibility that he may one day fall in love with them. Many homophobes proclaimed their disgust at the band calling out ‘Gay people can’t be allowed to sing and be in love and stuff! That might make other people think ‘Oh Em Gee, I am going to be gay now too!’ and then the human race will die out and we will all go to hell and it will be like really bad’.

But the world came to terms with it and slowly moved on. It became apparent that the homosexuals were all around us. Some of them shouting loudly about it and some of them just quietly getting on with their lives. At first this was a scary realisation… I mean what if your next door neighbour or someone was gay? The gayness might come through the wall and get you! But then people began to understand that gayness was not contagious and in many people’s eyes a fact of nature. And it was all OK.

Back to Stephen…..
Yesterday was his last day alive. He died suddenly in Majorca (I always knew that place was deathly) leaving his husband and the world in mourning.

 

And so I hereby proclaim this day (October 11th) to be Stephen Remembrance Day.

As you probably noticed Obama recieved a Nobel Peace Prize. Of course I only knew this because everyone on Xanga is posting about it, not because I read/watch the news. Who needs World News when you can watch One Tree Hill? The world is not nearly as entertaining as the lives of pretend young people living in a little town in the USA.

Disclaimer: I am not implying that I ignore the plights of the world and immerse myself in the lives of pretend people. I watch the news like three times an HOUR.

Reading everyone in uproar about this…

‘A black man can’t be considered peaceful!’
‘He hasn’t done anything! He hasn’t even declared any wars!’
‘He is like so not as intelligent as GW Bush! He was REALLY good at declaring wars’

… made me think about the opposite of a Nobel Peace Prize. A Nobel War Prize.

Every now and then I like to waste a day. Today I did some food shopping in the morning and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day lying in bed watching One Tree Hill (I am on series 2 now!). It always leaves me feeling ridiculously sleepy. But I like it.

I haven’t done my washing
I haven’t vacuumed my room
I haven’t cleaned the bathroom
I haven’t made dinner
I haven’t ordered a new printer
I haven’t written some stuff up for work
I haven’t read through the handbook for my university course that I started on Friday

But I have found out that Nathan and Haley are (so far) happy with their marriage despite his mother being completely against it. I have found out that Peyton and Brooke are best friends again and that Lucas has decided to be a better person. I have found out that Dan wants to make amends with Lucas and that Lucas’ mother is going to go back to college.

Today I am watching pretend peoples lives, tomorrow I will do all the things I have to do for my own life. And then I will work all week and probably do the same again at the weekend.  Because it makes me happy. Maybe it is a wasted day, maybe I could have done something more productive or worthwhile, but if I enjoy spending the odd day watching episode after episode of some TV show why shouldn’t I?

Disclaimer: I put naked in the title simply in an attempt to increase the number of people that click on the title.

In the words of Dictionary.com (the undeniable fount of all knowledge. Take that Wikipedia) ‘awesome’  can be defined in the following ways….

Now, as many of you may know, I am in fact, awesome. So much so that Xanga’s favourite Married Freshman put to me that the word ‘awesome’ should be replaced with ‘claire-some’. In response to this I rather modestly insisted that I am not at all awesome, not when you look at all the other wonderfully amazing people in the world… oh…. wait… that was a different person. I actually liked the idea so much that I decided to write an entire post in reference to my own awesomeness. Or should I say… Claire-someness.

Back to the definitions…. ‘an awesome sight’. What do you picture when you hear that phrase?

   

We all have something that makes us as awesome as all of those images. The strength of our character, the depth with which we love, the intelligence of our thoughts and ideas, the power with which we fight for what we want or what we need, our faith, our ideals, our talents, our beauty, our joys.

To learn to love yourself is to learn to realise your own awesomeness.. You cannot truly love another person until you can truly love yourself. Compliments and loving actions from a self-depricating person seem empty to me. It seems as though they are doing those things in the hope that if another person loves them then they will feel worthy.

You are you and you are [insert your name here]-some. I am me and I am Claire-some.

Take some time to look at yourself, and all the things that make you who you are. All the things that make you beautiful, wonderful and awesome. Don’t focus on the negative. Yes, you may have a bit too much weight around the middle, you may get angry too quickly, you may find it difficult to trust others, you may find it difficult to keep friends, you may find it difficult to study. But that is not all that you are. That is not what defines you. And seen in a different light all of those things can be turned into positive things. You just have to try. Look at yourself through someone else’s eyes.

You are awesome. Just look.

P.S. In order to avoid any arguments, some of the people I tagged have not been linked simply because I ran out opportunities in which to write ‘awesome’.  This is not in any way representative of your level of awesomeness. Those who have neither been tagged nor linked are equally as awesome as those who have been, I just couldn’t tag ALL of my friends because no one likes that.

I am a self confessed girly girl. I enjoy being a girl and embody many of the stereotypes that surround being female.

I love shopping, I love clothes, I love pretty dresses.

I love make-up. I love spending hours getting ready to go out somewhere.

I love Sex and the City.

I love it when men whistle at me in the street or stare at me in the pub.

I love the fact that there are men who will willingly do things for me just because I look pathetically at them.

But I am also quite capable of doing all those things myself. And if I don’t know how I can easily teach myself how to do it.

But why should I learn how to put up a shelf when I can look at a man and have them (happily) do it for me?

Don’t get me wrong I am so glad that women fought to let us have equal rights. I am glad I can vote. I am glad that I have the opportunity to do whatever it is that I want to do with my life. But just because I CAN take up football or become an engineer doesn’t mean I have any desire to actually do that.

Because let’s face it, who really wants to watch women do any sport other than gymnastics or dance? It just isn’t really that interesting. Not that men playing sport is that interesting to me either, but if I had to choose I would choose to watch the men play.

I think that if you want to take up sports, or build a car from scratch or do all your own home improvements then that is great. For you. And I will offer you my congratulations. But don’t look at me like you are somehow superior to me just because I choose not to. Just because I choose to ask a man to do it.

If that man wants to do it for me. If I really don’t want to. Where is the issue?

It is not as though I am just sitting around doing nothing for my life. You only have to ask me about my career to realise just how ambitious I am. I just  happen to have a career that doesn’t involve doing stereotypically ‘manly’ things. And neither do I want to do them in my spare time.

Are you a girly girl or a manly man (or neither)?

Disclaimer: I have no problems with girls who are not girly or men that are not manly or vice versa. I also have no problems with women who play sports. I think you look fantastic running around all sweaty and crap while kicking a ball!

Disclaimer 2: I am not really making light of sexism, when I put ‘the pro’s of sexism’ in the title I did it to increase the number of people that click on the title.

Yes, I KNOW, it is way too early to be thinking about Christmas. But the fact is everyone is being a wee bit melancholy. And so I think that we need some good old Christmas Cheer!

Christmas is my favourite time of the year (other then my birthday of course). I love the month or so in the run up to Christmas, where everyone is gradually doing their Christmas shopping. When town opens for ‘late-night shopping’ and you get to go shopping in the dark all wrapped up warm in your coats and scarves as you walk round all the many many shops, stopping off for dinner at a restaurant somewhere. When the High Streets are lit up with white lights in the shapes of Santa, Stars, Hearts and a range of other Christmas themed styles.

I love getting our tree and decorating it. We have a real tree, usually about 6 ft high. We cover it with a collection of decorations accumulated throughout the years. They don’t match, there is no colour co-ordination, there is no method in how we place it. It looks as though we took a box of decorations and just emptied it over the tree. It looks beautiful.

I love the actual day. We have Christmas Day on the 26th because my mum always works on the 25th. We wake up and have breakfast together and then gradually begin preparing the food to be cooked. We eat around 2ish and then when it is all cleared away we go into the living room to open all the many presents under the tree.

I love it because we all come together. Myself, my younger sister, my two older brothers and one of their girlfriends and my mother and father. We all squeeze round our table and squash into our living room and then we all go to sleep in our childhood home.

This year I get to decorate two houses. I have to persuade my roommates that they really DO want to have a real tree. I will promise to clean up after it. And I will get my own decorations and decorate my own tree. And then I will go and decorate my parent’s tree.

I am so excited for Christmas.

But as everyone keeps telling me…. it is Halloween first.