Three things

Three things I found rather annoying today:

1. That patronising sign in the toilets at uni. It tell us how washing your hands is one of the best ways to stop spreading diseases. Actually, that's not true, it tell us that washing your hands is THE best way to stop spreading diseases. Now I'm all for washing hands, but that's a pretty big call. Anyway, the patronising thing about it is how there's a step by step guide next to it, called "Here's how". Which tells you how to wash your hands. Turn on the tap. Wet your hands. Put some soap on your hands, making sure to distribute it evenly over back and palms and don't forget your wrists. And before you leave the bathroom, please don't forget to open the door. It's kind of cute in a really weird way that they tell us how to wash our hands, but what the...!

2. The fact that I'm blogging while I should be writing on my research essay.

3. That the girl at the coffee shop this morning burnt my coffee. I'm a very peaceful person, but not necessarily when it comes to coffee. I like my coffee unburnt and I think someone who makes coffees for a living should know how not to burn it.


Three things I realised I'm very good at:

1. I'm excellent at anticipating when the traffic light at the pedestrian crossing is going to change from red to green. It's really not very hard to do, but I think most people just don't try very hard. I'm one of those annoying people who start walking just a couple of seconds before the light goes green. I love it when everyone else hangs back, waiting, and then when the light changes, they realised they should have walked with me. Because I'm never wrong (well, almost never).

2. I'm good at charming the pastry chefs at work or striking deals with them so they make me one of those killer berry cheesecakes. That cheesecake is the bomb. It's amazing. It's emotional. I typed up something for one of the pastry chefs the other day in return for a cheesecake and when I gave it to him, he said: "You're an angel." To which I replied: "I'll do anything for that cheesecake." Suddenly, he and a couple of other people that were standing around had this strange look on their face. "Let me re-phrase that," I said quickly. "I'll do ALMOST anything for it." He said, "Bugger! I thought that going to be really easy."

3. I think I'm pretty damn good at table football (or foosball, as they call it here, which I'm finding an extremely weird name for it. It means "football" in German, but it's just as strange as calling a certain variety of ham "prosciuotto", which simply means ham in Italian.). I played for the first time in ages the other day and I might have just had a lucky day, but man, I beat the hell out of the boys from work. It was great.


Three things I realised I'm not very good at:

1. Going to bed early. I suck at it. Apparently before-midnight-sleep is meant to be much better for you than after-midnight-sleep, but if that's true, I'm in trouble. I work late about four to five nights a week and the other nights, I'm usually out or then I just put off going to bed until it's really late again. It's disgraceful.

2. Whistling. Actually, I didn't just realise I'm bad at it, I always knew. It's absolutely pathetic, but I just can't whistle. I remember we used to sing this song at school that had a part that needed to be whistled and sometimes I would just do playback whistling. I still can't do it. Believe me, I tried. I got fairly close once when I practised for almost an entire day somewhere on a bushwalk in Malaysia. But it's just not happening.

3. Making long-term plans. It freaks me out when people start planning their Christmas lunch in June. I don't even know yet what country I'll be in in a few months' time.


What three things do you love, despise, wish for or don't care about today?

Bring it on

I still haven't been able to figure out how it happens that one day you feel like nothing makes sense and then without a warning, a couple of days later and with no obvious reason, your world is full of strawberries, smiling people and fluffy little birds who sing the sweetest songs? It's the best feeling when out of the blue, suddenly things are just right. And no, just in case you're going to be all smart on me again, I'm not on drugs. And haven't fallen in love either. And I'm not drunk. Maybe a little bit crazy, but I think we've established now that this is the standard condition and we're all ok with it.

I have been fascinated for a while with how these sudden changes occur. Often they seem rather unrelated to anything and in fact just fall on you like a random autom leaf. I'm grateful when it happens and embrace the change of wind as if it was an unexpected present- which, I guess it is.

I'm feeling very much at peace with myself at the moment, although there's a lot of changes coming up and it's not like everything is just smooth and pretty. But I feel like I'm in a good spot and I can deal with everything.

Woody Allen once said: What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? Today, I say, I don't care. I can handle everything. Even the fat guy in the third row. Bring it on.

Offside

Check out my latest film review on the Iranian movie "Offside" here.

Normal is boring

Apparently, the only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. Which, when I think about it, is very true. I can't think of a single person I know that I would consider totally "normal". Me personally, I'm certainly far from it, and if I may say so myself, quite proud of the fact. My closest friends are all entertaining, great, caring, smart and funny people, but normal? No way. My family? I couldn't love them more, but no, they are not what you would call "normal" either. Which is good.

My good friends now know that it is generally intended as a compliment when I call them crazy, but when I first do it to people who don't know me that well, they sometimes mistakenly get a bit offended. Until I explain to them that I much prefer crazy people over so-called "normal" ones. As far as I am concerned, normal people bore the hell out of me. Having said that though, and coming back to my intial point, what would a normal person even be like? To me, normal sounds like someone who is not passionate about anything (boring), has no quirky habits (boring) and doesn't do anything out of the ordinary (boring). Yet, only being boring still doesn't qualify you as being normal, so where are the normal people? Certainly not in my life. Thank God.

Maybe I should also mention here that there are certain types of craziness I do not necessarily approve of or want too much of in my life. But give me someone moderately crazy any day over someone normal.