things i want to buy when i have a job.

a massive landscape picture of something... so far I am thinking Kandinsky, maybe The White Border, to go above our bed, because the back wall is a little naked right now.

A new desk (especially if I get a PhD, which things don't roll off. because old school school writing desks may look kitsch, but they are actually a little annoying, unless you happen to be lucky enough to own non-circular pens.

MORE WEDGE BOOTS because it's technically autumn and you can never have too many boots. OH BOOTS I LOVE YOU.

a new TV, not because i'm a gadget junkie, but because i would like a TV which actually works, so I don't have to watch DVDs on my approx. 2" netbook.

stuff for painting, because i have never felt comfortable splashing out on it so i have always had F grade stuff, and i'm guessing, especially with brushes, you can tell the difference.

start saving for a ticket home for christmas.

lessons from nyc.

1. Eating healthy food will cost approximately 7 times as much as eating unhealthy food.


2. If you show interest in sub-way serenaders, they will show interest in you. Persistently, and also physically.


3. Standard drinks do not exist in Manhattan.


4. "Vodka and Sprite" is NOT the same as "vodka and lemonade". NB: It is, but don't get into an argument with a Polish barmaid in Brooklyn about it.

5. Never attempt to use your understanding of the London tube network as a reference for your understanding of the NYC subway network. It is, most definitely, nowhere near the same.

6. If you think something is worth seeing, chances are, several hundred people agree with you and they are all waiting to see it too. Be prepared to queue (in a wholly disorganised and un-British manner).

7.  Just because a guy who looks like a local is standing at the curb looking ready to cross, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good place to cross. It may actually be that he is just waiting for his dog to finish defacating. NB: There is no dignified way of walking away from said man once you have realised that you have just been stood next to a stranger and his defacating pet for a good few minutes for no reason.

8. Cheese as NY knows it is not the same as the rest of the world knows it. Therefore: always hold the cheese (please).

9. The Statue of Liberty isn't as big as you'd imagine. But you will still squeal out loud the first time you see it (well...I did).

10. The best stuff that'll happen is the kind of stuff you never really considered that would happen. This includes, but is not limited to:
-eavesdropping a high school field trip to the Met, and being amazed at how articulate young Americans actually are.
-watching parents interact with their kids. Anywhere. And realising that maybe there is some attraction in having children after all.
-getting danced on by a tiny Chinese guy, telling him you have a boyfriend and indicating a random black guy, then watching tiny Chinese guy go and shake a strangers hand.
-catching an open mic night by accident.
-sitting with and talking to a psychology professor in a deli because it was the only place there was left to sit.

11. Always tip your waiters and waitresses, thank you very much and goodnight.

chouf ouchouf.

I went to see these guys, Group Freestyle Tangier, performing Chouf Ouchouf ("Look and look again") at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. All I knew about the show was that it featured Moroccan acrobats, so I was really pleasantly surprised when I saw the performance unfold into even more than a showcase of stunning acrobatic talent, but an insightful, thoughtful, funny and finely tuned dance piece and musical collaboration.

I'll have to admit that I have never been to any sort of dance/ acrobatic show like this before, but I really loved it. 

The piece was directed and composed by Zimmermann & de Parrot, and after checking out their site I would really love to see the rest of their stuff. 

http://zimmermanndeperrot.com

heckyeatumblr#9.

http://tumblr.com/xsx1xkgzm5

9. Write about each of the places which you have called 'home'.


Kelso Road, Bury St Edmunds


This is the house where I grew up. I lived here for 11 happy years with my Mum, Dad, sister and number of guinea-pigs and gerbils. It was a smallish house, with a little garden. I remember that every surface was covered in ornamental pigs or pot plants, courtesy of Mum. We had a rubber plant which grew all the way around the living room ceiling. There was at least one cabinet full of the pigs, and they filled the mantelpiece of the fireplace, in front of which sat four very heavy brass crocodiles, which were most definitely not meant to be toys but were always used as such.


There was one bathroom, which was decorated luminous turquoise and black, with some sort of fish in every potential fishy space (ie on top of the toilet, on the window ledge, on the ceiling).


The upstairs hallway, like the rest of the house, was small, but it managed to have room for a huge copy of Steve Pearson's 'Wings of Love', with an overly ornate gold frame.

The Warren

This is the first house my parents ever looked at buying, but as a newly wed couple they couldn't afford it. Fifteen years later the house went back up on the market and they could - so we moved 10 minutes up the road into a beautiful chalet bungalow with a large (for a town-house) garden. We've been here 11 years now, and since then basically re-built the whole thing, as a lot of work was needed. I love this house. It really is like a warren; there's a main hallway with lots of little rooms coming off it, including a hidden staircase which leads to the upstairs, where I live when I come home now. Nice and private since my sister moved out two years ago. Mum and Dad spend all their time in the garden with various odd jobs and gardening, Mum grows heaps of vegetables when the weather lets her, and Dad takes care of all the fruit trees and rhubarb. There's lots of 'stuff' everywhere, but I love all of it, because it's home. Since my grandparents died, we took on some of the ornaments and furniture and paintings. They lived in a really big old country house with high ceilings; their things look COMPLETELY out of place here, but I think that's pretty cool. My great-grandmother was a painter, and we have several of her paintings up, even though they take up half the bloody wall space.


The Ziggurats
 I lived on campus for my first year at university. I had my own little room in a flat for 14 people on the ground floor of the the 'ziggurats', which are listed buildings. Sharing a kitchen with 13 other people was...interesting. And I definitely wouldn't live there again. But I made some really cool friends, and I am glad I spent my first year there.

Bland Road

I have lived here on and off for the past three years, though with different people as registered 'tenants' at each of the addresses, I have more or less lived with the same group of friends, as everyone loiters and we hang out a lot, and cook for each other. I spend a lot of my time being miserable and whining about the state of the house, as it's pretty gross...no-one else really cleans apart from me. To be honest, it's a shame that I have had to live with the friends that I have lived with because if we had never been housemates I think we would all be closer, as I wouldn't be so angry with them a lot of the time. Despite this, I love being able to eat with my friends every evening, and I love that I have met and got to know some of the most interesting, independent, cultured, obscure (?!), honest, loving and passionate people I think I have ever met. As well as this, adventures with aforesaid house mates make for i) some pretty cool anecdotes and ii) some vital life-lessons in patience....

Evatt House

This is where I lived during my year at Newcastle Uni, Australia. I loved it here. There were two 'quads' comprised of 10 blocks in total, each block being two flats of 10. Each flat had their own 'Residential Assistant', and participated in 'blunctions' regularly, which could have been trips to a restaurant, to a movie, dessert night etc...The college had heaps of activities going on all the time, games and nights out....I miss it :( It's also where I met my boyfriend, Sam. He lived just across the hallway from me...we would stay up late talking on facebook chat because we were too shy to go and see each other...sometimes I could hear him typing...Unfortunately keyboards are a major part of our relationship again now, but not for too much longer. I made some really awesome friends here, and even though lots of them have moved on to new cities/ states, I really hope they can come visit/ I have enough money to go and visit them.

Writing all this is making me very sad. So I'll stop now.