Decisions: Good, Bad or Just Decisions? February 16, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: decisions, ranting, semi-intellectualism
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Someone proclaimed today, the day of bad decisions. Which got me thinking; surely there must be some way to break such a vicious circle. For instance, decide to treat yourself to a really nice lunch, or ask out that person you’ve fancied for a while. But then what if this really nice lunch happens to give you food poisoning, or the person you fancy laughs in your face and leaves you feeling like a total loser? Surely that doesn’t make the decision a bad one.
Being the optimist that I am, I cannot call those decisions bad in hind side. But is there never any way of knowing of a decision is going to have a good or a bad outcome? That makes me a little sad. Surely we don’t make any decisions that will have a bad outcome on purpose, in which case you could argue that there isn’t such a thing as a bad decision at all.
Presumably, most people, when making a decision, weigh their options. How carefully they do this is, hopefully, based on how important the decision is or how influential the outcome. So when making a decision you could say that one is convinced this is a good decision. If the outcome is as we expected, or better, we say: “That was a good decision!” But was it really a good decision or was it just a decision?
Wouldn’t it be better to say: “It was a good thing I made that decision!” What’s the difference you ask? Well in the first way of saying it, it’s the decision that is good, whereas in the second way it was the making of the decision that was good and the decision itself remains neutral.
A bit anal, you say? You are probably a believer of good and bad decisions.
The Good Kind of Tired February 7, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: course, happiness, stress, synonym, tired
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There are so many different kinds of tiredness that I get tired just trying to think of all of them. It’s not surprising that there are so many different synonyms for “tired” as well: sleepy, exhausted, beat, drained, bushed, knackered, pooped and that’s just a few of them.
In the past several weeks I have been jumping from one kind of tiredness to the other like a tube journey from South West to North East London. During my course I was tired, but I always got energy out of it as well so I was never completely knackered. Except for when I had very busy days at school and there were deadlines to meet. Then I got stressed and all of a sudden the tiredness would seem twice as bad as it was before.
When I went back to work this week I was kindly reminded what it feels like to be fully drained of all of your energy. By Tuesday morning 10:00 I was sleepy and hungry, which sets of energy alarm code red in my head, but it was way too early in the morning for that.
Today is different though. Today I’m exhausted but I feel happy. Sort of like a five year old after a birthday party with a treasure hunt. I’m too tired to even be experiencing my happiness 100%. This makes it even better because when I wake up tomorrow morning, hopefully, refreshed I will be even happier than I am and I’m looking forward to it.
Moving Out and Moving On February 5, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: butterflies, change, flatshare, Friends, mix cd, moving, new house
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I have butterflies in my stomach, but not because I’m in love, because I’m not (at least not anymore). I have what I like to call the bug of change. If you are, like me, a person who likes a change every now and then, whether it’s just re-arranging the furniture or changing the colour of your hair, you will know what I mean by “the bug of change”. For those of you who still have no clue; something is about to change in my life and I’m really excited about it.
Fair enough, not all change is welcomed with open arms. In fact there was a change a few months back that I despised with all my heart (at that time). And not all change always turns out very well, though this recent change I’m speaking of has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. But most change for me is very welcome.
When I was a child I used to change things all the time. One month I needed to re-arrange the furniture in my bed room. Next month we had to paint a wall a different colour, next week it was my bed frame’s turn to be painted. One year I collected everything to do with turtles the other year it was Winnie the Pooh.
I guess in this respect I have only changed because I change things less frequently. But I do still welcome these changes with the same level of excitement as I did when I was seven. So without further ado: I’m moving into my new house share on Sunday and I’m really excited.
My new house is two stops closer to city centre than where I lived before. The neighbourhood is gorgeous and very safe. It’s on a bus route to my favourite gym where I can go back to my yoga classes. And it’s in the same postcode area where I used to live so I can stay with my dentist and my doctor. A bit of practical info there, but hey it all adds to the greatness of my find. On top of that I’m paying a bargain price rent (which I’m not naming).
I’m a little sad to be moving out of my friends’ place though. I’ve really settled into a routine living with them, and am very comfortable here. But on the other hand, it sort of feels like I’m not taking care of myself yet, so I feel the need to move out and move on. They’ve done so much for me and don’t know if I can ever thank them enough. Pancakes tomorrow and a mix CD when I leave should make a decent start I suppose.
Danger! Shallow Water February 3, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: dating, dating websites, Ex-boyfriend, homework, looks, shallow, swimming, tube
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I love swimming, I used to be on a team, but the idea of having to dive back into the dating pool is one that I dislike as much having to do any ironing (and I iron about once every two years). So just to have a taste and feel what the water feels like I dragged my butt onto the dating website on which I met my ex-boyfriend. Yes-we-met-on-a-dating-website-nowadays-there-is-nothing-wrong-with-that-peopl e-meet-on-dating-websites-all-the-time-get-over-it.
The dating website in question, we always used to say (me and my ex), is really good. It has all kinds of quizzes and questions through which it’s always recalculating your matches and there are fun ways to see other people’s profiles and get in touch with singles.
I’d been getting a few messages over the past days and I had been looking at this matching game and I had scoured the pages and pages of my “matches” but I could not see anyone that I was remotely attracted to. I was not responding to any of my messages either (all but a 40 something yr old American who actually made me laugh out loud and I figured he deserved to at least know that he made me laugh but I left it at that). And it’s not that I wasn’t interested in any of these guys because of my break-up being not so long ago, I just wasn’t.
Until one match came along. I looked at his profile and he was really cute. So I sent him a message, with a pun in it even. He never sent me anything back. And I started thinking and realized that this had happened to me before. When I first got onto the website I sent a fair few messages to guys I thought looked cute and sounded interesting and they never responded.
Even worse, I’d been doing the exact same thing with the message I was getting. And that’s when it hit me that on a dating website you become the most shallow version of yourself. It is mostly about looks, if you’re even vaguely interested in a person it has got something to do with their looks at least. Sure enough their interests come into it as well. But even on that level you’ll act shallow because if they don’t have the interests you like in someone else you won’t be interested in them either.
To contrast this, I was sat on the tube today and across from me a guy was marking homework assignments. I did not think he was very attractive, but just the sheer fact he was marking homework and the deep thought he was in was attractive to me. This is something you can never get across on a dating website and it probably wouldn’t even matter.
I for one am very happy that I wasn’t ready to dive back into the dating pool head first, because I think I would’ve had to climb out with a concussion. Those websites should have a warning sign on them: Shallow Water!
Must Not Like Video Games February 1, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: cursing, dating, flat mates, football, guys vs girls, video games
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So with yesterday’s “revelation” about the fact that I love to take care of people and a severe longing for someone to spoon with when going to sleep, I realized that at some point I have to get back into the dating pool. This realisation combined with my current flat mates excessive cursing at a particular football oriented video game made me come to a very important new realisation: I do not want to be with someone who cares that much about video games.
Don’t get me wrong. I used to like watching video games. Yes that’s right, watching. When I was a child, I never used to have video games so I never learned to play and never developed the urge to play video games hence I don’t have one now. But when the story is good and it involves puzzles and/or humor I love to watch and help out, much like that annoying person in the passenger seat commenting on your driving. Occasionally I like to play one myself, as long as it, again, involves puzzles or funny characters (and preferably pretty colours), however when I get frustrated it loses its fun for me and I stop playing.
But when guys get frustrated it’s like the grossest injustice in the world has been done upon them. Curses fly around the room like rabid bats going after a single insect and the controller is beaten like an Italian makes pizza dough. Worst of all though is that it does not leave the other innocent people in the room unaffected. Most baffling maybe, is that when they do extremely well there is no opposite reaction of utter joy. Succeeding seems to be normal, it’s expected and thus not celebrated.
In any case, it’s too much for me. I do not care enough about video games to have to listen to endless cursing. I might develop a twitch and everyone knows that’s not going to make me any prettier. But most importantly it’ll just put me in a bad mood too. So one of my new criteria, I guess, is “Must not like video games” or at least not care enough to get frustrated about them.
Perfect, or Perfectly Stupid? January 31, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: housework, ponderings, relationships
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Is it wrong to be a people pleaser? As long as you don’t neglect yourself over other people, is there anything out of order with wanting to make other people happy? I would say not. Surely the fact that you want to make sure other people are happy is something the world could not have enough of.
I used to do shopping and cooking every day. I used to do the laundry (and I hate how this words includes everything from sorting to putting it in and taking it out of the machine, hanging it, taking it down, folding it and putting it away, makes it not sound so easy all of a sudden huh), I used to clean the bathroom and water the plants. When we had guests I used to make a little more special dinner and I used to make desert. I listened to music that wasn’t my taste and watched video games. Why did I do all this?
There are two reasons. Love being the most obvious one, but mostly because I did not mind. In fact, I loved it. I love taking care of other people and especially when other people is just that special someone. And I can’t help but think to myself, was I pretty near to being the perfect girlfriend? Or was I being perfectly stupid?
Is there even such a thing as the perfect girlfriend? Is it a mistake to want to do nearly everything for the one person you care most about in the whole word? Or is this the most generous gift you could ever give to a person? We all know that men need a little taking care of. Unfortunately, measuring how much taking care of they need is something that no tool has yet been invented for. Therefore, when you are, like me, someone that likes to do a whole lot of taking care of, you might find you lose yourself in the process sometimes.
Another problem is that one cannot expect the other person to do the same amount of taking care. Fortunately this is something I never did, but I couldn’t help but expecting a little taking care of. Instead I just took care of myself, and probably created the idea that I was perfectly happy doing this. Or even worse, I took such good care of myself; I was too much competition to handle.
Still one can’t do anything more or less than being you. Of course, in a relationship one has to make compromises. That doesn’t mean you’re not yourself, as long as you are happy making those compromises. Call me perfectly stupid, but I have been happy throughout my life making compromises and taking care of other people and I will continue to do so until I’m practically perfect.
Like New (warning: might need barf bag) January 30, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: career, course, job, life changes, vomit
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I don’t think I ever had an inkling of an idea of how much can happen in one month and how much work one can do. The past four weeks have been more difficult for me than four years of university combined, but I have completed them successfully and am almost a new human being.
During the last month I have spent every weekday at “school” from 9:30am till 5:30pm and continued to do coursework at home until 10/11pm and on one occasion until 1am! Yet I was never more tired than after a stressful day at work, though admittedly after the third week it was starting to take it’s toll and I’m happy it’s all over now.
The course I have done gives me a whole new career, and with that a whole new life. This all sounds very please-pass-me-the-bucket-now, but after having gone through what I did in the months preceding I can safely say (and you’ll start to retch here) that I have never felt better about myself than I do now.
I’m not afraid to take it one level further and make you throw up when I say that I’d like to encourage people who are unhappy about their jobs and their lives to take a leap and change their careers or lives around.
I promise not to post anything this sappy and vomit inducing for a while now, but it had to be said.
Blog On Hold January 9, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: course
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It’s been very quiet from my side lately and I haven’t yet explained why that is. I’m doing a course this month (the whole of January) and it’s taking up more time than I had expected to. It’s all for a good cause however. I’m enjoying it a lot and am extremely happy that I chose to do this.
I haven’t felt this good about myself in a long, long time.
See you again in February!
On My Radar Again For Now January 2, 2010
Posted by littlebeadle in 1.Tags: Ex-boyfriend, love, relationships
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I will make my own decisions! That seems pretty plain doesn’t it? But yet we let other people influence us every day. Whether this is because we’re talking to an expert who knows better than us and we blindly follow, because we’re talking to a loved one who we blindly follow anyway or because we’re talking to someone who makes a convincing argument.
When my ex convinced me that him being on my radar was not a good thing for me I agreed with him. Every time I read something he said or about what he did it did not make me feel any better that we were apart. So he did not even have to argue his point. I was in love with him and followed him blindly though with a hint of my own reasoning.
But lately I’ve had the feeling that I’ve come to a point where no contact is starting to do me no good. Not that contact will do me good in particular, but no contact is just keeping me in the same state. The state I’m in (this makes it sound more dramatic than it actually is) is a little bit still a case of blind love. I am not afraid to say here (for the whole two views a day) that I still love him. But what is harder for me to admit is that I still haven’t given up hope.
For me it will not be over until I see him again, until I speak to him again, until I can look him in the eye and see that there is nothing there anymore. No contact is not going to establish this. So in preparation for this moment I might as well bring him back on my radar.
I know he probably thinks this is too soon, but we’re officially still not in contact and so he’s not in a position to comment on it at the moment. I have to say that now when I talk about things that other people, including him, are talking about but I get no reaction from him I sort of feel ignored. This was exactly the same as before I took him off my radar. I wonder if I can put up with this for as long as needed but perhaps I will have to take him off again.
I Want to Be a Big Heart December 28, 2009
Posted by littlebeadle in Broken Hearted.Tags: Ex-boyfriend, Friends, Identity, love, Paganism
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I really have to say that lately I have been thinking nearly as much, or even more about who I want to be than I was in my teenage years. I wonder whether adults are sometimes too aware of who they are and want to change who they are too much which can be an extremely unnatural process. I am definitely one of these adults.
For example at the moment I am very interested in Paganism. For those who don’t know what this is: in short it officially means all other religions that are none Christian, often these are polytheist and even more often people associate them with the Occult and Wicca. I’m reading a book just to discover what it is exactly but I find myself fantasizing about becoming part of a coven, I’m ogling an organizer with all kinds of meaningful dates and celebrations noted in it thinking I will start living by these dates. But then I realize that is not who I am, at least not at the moment. I enjoy reading about it and I can find myself in the descriptions but I do not actually see myself performing any rituals.
I think about once a year I go through one of these phases where I need a drastic change. Going through a break up though I think I need a dozen drastic changes, but some just aren’t feasible. It’s just that, staying the person who I was before the break up just doesn’t feel right. Not that this person was a bad person or weak of character. I feel the need to become an even better person, which is probably much to do with my competitive nature.
I know that the break up, or so I have been told by several people including my ex-boyfriend, had nothing to do with me. But of course I can’t help but think about what I could have done to keep him from falling out of love with me. And I can’t help worrying about a possible future relationship and if the same thing is not going to happen again, however abstract another relationship might seem to me at the moment.
I want to be a person with a very big heart, but I’m afraid that I will end up getting hurt again. Much like in the video for Another Chance by Robert Sanchez where the girl wakes up with a very big heart very morning and it shrinks throughout the day. When she’s found a nice guy and he sees her big heart the next morning he thinks she is weird.
I want my heart to be so big that I can be friends with my ex and help him become happy again without having any ulterior motives. Because I know that he is unhappy at the moment, and he doesn’t deserve to be. No one deserves to be unhappy that is one thing I am not confused about. Sadly this is easier said than done.
