Dance is supposed to be something that comes from within, a reflection and expression of your person, the hidden language of your soul, the song of your body. And I think I never really felt that with them. I mean I love hip-hop and I want to learn much more of the various hip-hop styles (popping, locking, breakin, house, waacking etc) and be able to use them in my own dancing and freestyling – but the one thing that annoys me is the overriding masculinity of much of this dance form. So call me a big girl, but that’s what I am! And when I dance, I want to express myself.. as a girl. I feel so much more freedom in expressing the girly side of myself than trying to force some masculine aggression out of me because that’s what the dance is supposed to be. Don’t get me wrong, I know not all hip-hop is “gansta” and I even think there is a place for the fierceness and raw energy of hip-hop for a girl. I like incorporating aspects of that in my own dancing because there are times that I feel it too, but going the whole hog and dressing in hoodies and basketball shorts and looking and dancing identical to the boy next to me is just too much for me. I enjoy being a girl. I prefer to celebrate my femininity. Why hide it in baggy shorts and hoodie? I think baggy pants CAN be worn in a tasteful & feminine way, say if teamed with a fitted top.. but I digress *cough*. I just do NOT EVER see myself wearing baggy basketball shorts. Ever.

On the flipside, I’m also not completely on the other end of the spectrum, as one salsa dancing girl friend of mine is – refusing to do any hiphop, or any move looking like hiphop because she considers it “too masculine”. I think there is a happy medium. I think aspects of hiphop can be danced in a way that celebrates being a female (eg there’s waacking). But it’s true that one of the reasons I loooooove dancing latin forms of dance (salsa, bachata, merengue, samba, lambada, reggaeton, dancehall) is because these dances really celebrate femininity and make the most of how a female naturally moves, enhancing our natural body movement to the best of our abilities.

Hm… so what’s my point here? I guess my point is that I choose to stay true to myself. I’m not entirely sure where this is yet. I love aspects of hiphop… but at the same time, it does not fully define my personal expression of dance. I love salsa and other latin dances.. but sometimes feel restricted by the role of girls as “follower” or frustrated by having to be constantly “lady-like” to the point of it being a bit stiffling. Guess that’s probably why my favourite style of dance is reggaeton.

[Blog title quote from Martha Graham (1894-1991)]

So.. Happy 2010 one and all! Hope people are having a good start to the year. Actually (if anyone is still reading this blog) I’d be very interested to hear about your new years resolutions. I’ve been giving mine a great deal of thought and I’m not sure I’ve come to a concrete resolution yet. Maybe by the end of this blog post I’ll have a better idea?

One thing I am sure of is the general idea of what I want this year. My focus for 2010 will be on quality of life. To prioritise my life so that I don’t end up ignoring what is important to me because I’m spending so much time on things that creep and take over my life. For example, last year I ended up working late much too often and that had a negative impact on my health and body – I was tired and sick a lot, and I never had time to exercise (which is really important for my back problems), either because I was too busy, or too tired, or sick. Well, enough of that!! I’m not getting any younger, having just turned 31 (argh!!), and I refuse to give in to age. I refuse to settle for a mediocre life with mediocre health & mediocre fitness. I refuse to spend most of the year trying to combat my colds and/or combat the pain in my back! (Actually I’ve become quite good at back pain and cold management now).

To help me flesh out my idea of having a better quality life, I recently purchased a book called Brilliant Life: How to live a brilliant, balanced life. I’ve only just started reading it, but will report back on it when I’ve read more.

For now, my idea of having a better quality of life includes achieving some (hopefully all!) of the following:

• No more workaholic Kazz! More focus on personal activities (the things I actually love), less focus on work.
• Get fit, get healthy.. stay fit, stay healthy! This includes regular yoga, cardio/training, and swimming at the gym. I know I can’t do it all straight away, but the plan is to gradually increase my workouts from once to twice to three times a week.
• Dance more often with more variety – keeping up my samba and salsa, getting back into hiphop and jazz and hopefully lambada (if my back/neck issue gets fixed by improving my fitness)! Of course I can’t do it all every week, but over the first month I hope to attend a good selection of different dance classes to start, and then I’m sure I will settle into a regular pattern of those which I enjoy and benefit from most, interjecting them every now and then with something different to keep me on my toes (so to speak )!
• Get back into playing piano – and then later this year, start some sort of music project (either by myself or with other musicians)
• Sleep earlier on work nights – VERY IMPORTANT! I can’t function if I don’t get enough sleep which renders the 3 previous points incapacitated
• Make vlogs again – I have been looking over some of my old video blogs and the creativity I put into them. I realised, I don’t want to stop being creative! I enjoy it and I take pride in my creations. So my youtube viewers should be happy with this one. But yes, I want to continue to create videos.. especially now I have a shiny new 16:9 digital camera to play with.
• Nuture and develop the few female friendships I have. I don’t have many friends in London, and I realise now that it is unrealistic to expect the same wide circle of friends that I had in Sydney, seeing as I spent 20 years of my life growing up there. So my aim instead will be to nuture the rare friendships I *have* made here – at the moment there are 2 or 3 girls with whom I plan to make sure I spend time with and get to know better. Maybe even organise a regular girls night out with the 4 of us. Oooh.. maybe even a girlie club of sorts.. à la Jane Austen Book Club.

All of these should be made easier now by the simple fact that I have just moved in with the boyf. Yep big news! We did it the first weekend after NY. I’ve now moved into a house recently purchased by my boyfriend, in central London. This will make my life SO much easier – no more going back and forth between my place and his, splitting my time, packing overnight bags.. no more daily commute from the outskirts of London. I’m now much closer to work, to my dance classes and to the salsa nights we attend. Of course it’s not gonna be all smooth sailing – we have a myriad of home rennovations to complete – we’re re-doing the kitchen and bathroom, we have to furnish the living room and tennants room (we’re renting one room out). I’m up to my eyebrows in home improvements right now. Learning all sorts about kitchen laminate work tops, cabinets, where the boiler can and can’t go, the inordinate cost of modern bathroom sinks and ceiling halogen spotlights etc etc etc. So that is the main reason it’s been a slow start to 2010 for us. But believe you me, I WILL achieve what I want this year!

This is Kazzart, signing out. See ya’s in the blogosphere.

Anyway I’ve contemplated blogging a few times over the past week or so. Been having random thoughts about dance, life in London, and people, going through my mind lately. Maybe I’ll get it all out in this blog post. First.. we come yet again to the topic of life in London. I was contemplating recently that I seem to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with London. Though I know I mostly come across as hating London in all sorts of ways, there are many things I also love about London. And I seem to yo-yo between the two fairly often. Not sure if it will ever resolve into a peaceful acceptance of life as a Londoner. And maybe thats what I want.. a more peaceful life. Which brings me to itchy feet. I’m starting to feel a bit restless here… starting to feel there isn’t much reason for me to remain in London. For example, there are very few people here that make me feel like there is a reason to stay. My boyf obviously.. and one girl friend. Other than that.. I consider everyone else an acquaintance.. people who would say their goodbyes and then forget about you within a week.. maybe two. I don’t even think many would miss me at all here. Is that a bit sad?

I’m also starting think I’m becoming a bit of a workaholic. Sometimes I actually feel happier being at work because it means I’m too busy to think about other things… like my lack of social life.. and lack of true friends. Maybe it’s even a sub-concious reason as to why I keep myself so busy with so many activities, as well as loving them of course. Speaking of which.. I might just list out all the extra-curricular activities I’m currently cramming on my plate:

• lambada dance classes/club
• salsa dance classes/club
• samba dance class
• learning italian (evening course tues nights and self-study)
• playing piano & The Sheridan Trio (admittedly we haven’t rehearsed as a trio since last year)
• yoga & going to the gym/swim

Also a few things I wish I could still do/am contemplating doing:

• hiphop dance class
• jazz dance class
• another music course at Goldsmiths/attempt to finish my Certificate in Music Studies
• try to find more gig opportunities/other bands (jazz or latin) to play with
• write music and/or work on existing songs and record a sample demo
• get back into vlogging and making videos for YT regularly again
• change vocation.. ok only half serious about this but sometimes the thought does occur to me either because I’m sick of the back issues.. or I feel like I’m more suited to different work

So errr… yeh that’s quite a lot. And having jotted it all down.. I’ve noticed almost everything is artistic in one way or another… dance.. music.. video creation. My problem is I just don’t have the creative talent to actually be able to succesfully create things of worth (ie good enough to make a living.. and I’m sure if I tried I would probably lose the love for it). I’ve tried writing music before and I just don’t have it. I’ve tried designing, and well, I can’t. I’m not good enough at dance or playing piano to make a profession of it.. and anyway I really don’t think I could live on a “struggling artists” income – I’ve had enough experience of the reality of that path already. They’re all just hobbies. I don’t particularly want to make a job out of them. Anyway most dance teachers I know don’t do it full time – they all have “day jobs” too.

Hm I’m starting to lose track of where I’m going with this rant.

What is this about anyway… Friends? London? Vocation? Life? Everything I guess. I’m sometimes half inclined to just pick up and leave.. find somewhere new and exciting to go. To start afresh again. To have the opportunity of really making friends. To be someone new. Or to become again that positive & energetic girl I once was.

So I was playing with my blog recently, and during some updates I decided to have a play with the Last.Fm Records WordPress widget. I didn’t like how it was displaying the recent tracks album art (bit buggy too).. and seeing as it was written using jQuery (my hands-down fave javascript library), I customised it with a bit of css & js magic to fit better with my blog style. I also added a bit of extra functionality to display the song title/artist info as text (on mouseover). Quite happy with the results now (its the box in the right side bar called “Kazzart Tunes In”). Also I’m quite happy with the fact that doing this sort of thing is now relatively easy for me, due to the amount of experience I’m getting at work. I’m rather enjoying creating cool jquery animations and impressing account managers, designers and flash developers alike.

So.. enough about work/tech talk. It’s been taking over more and more of my life ever since my recent-ish move in the past few months onto this current client account (which will remain nameless). I am enjoying the work though, which is interesting, creative and challenging (all must-have’s for me to not get bored at work), so I guess I can’t complain too much.

In other news.. got back recently from an amazing week in Sardegna, Italia. It is so amazingly beautiful there and the weather was perfect every single day – blue skies, sunshine and a perfect low 30′s deg C. I am made for the heat. Every day was spent in the sun, either relaxing in the Mediterranean sea or by the enormous pool of our apartment residence. I really wish I were back there right now. Le sigh.

More pics and a holiday vlog to come soon!

What else.. well, I’m still dancing both cuban salsa and zouk lambada. I love both. I’m more experienced with salsa – now I can dance that quite confidently with any partner in the club now, or participate in a rueda de casino. Gone are the days of nervous anxiety, fear of screwing up the steps or worrying about not being able to “follow his lead”. I still screw up sometimes of course, but I recover much better as my sense of the clave “timing” is much more instinctive and natural. I even get son timing. (This is where being a musician becomes an advantage ) Lambada however is not quite at the stage of being able to confidently follow the lead of a partner. However I don’t have the “hang ups” I used to have when I first started salsa. I also have yet to try a proper night out dancing in a lambada club. Not just “have a couple dances after class”. I’m going to try this tomorrow at the London Dance Congress! Going to do the workshops and then go to the party night afterwards. Should be fun!

On the music front.. it’s been a bit quiet, other than jamming with the trumpet player in the London street piano’s festival. However this morning I just managed to arrange a date The Sheridan Trio’s first gig for summer 09 – on Saturday 15 August! I’m really looking forward to it – I really enjoy playing with our trio and it’s been too long…

Another new thing is that I’ve recently completed a 10 week italian language course! (Beginner Plus level). I’ve signed on for the next level (elementary) and classes start next week. It’s tough learning italian, and I don’t practice nearly enough. But I am learning loads, and hopefully will get to a stage where I can start having conversations with the boyf in italian. Not quite there yet!

Well, that’s the latest on the Kazzart news front. Ciao e ci vediamo presto.

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Now playing: Milk & Honey – Didi

A txt in todays London paper completely sums up an attitude I despise in British culture: “Coffee shops are a poor substitute for the pub”

And recieved a questioning response from a follower:

Why’s that cause you such offense? Coffee shops are becoming the new pub after all and not everyone will be happy with that.

It made me ponder – why did that txt in the London paper create in me such a strong response? Perhaps I’m just becoming more opinionated in my old age. I was about to tweet a reply and then realised I most definitely would not be able to fit an adequate response within 140 chars. Lol. So seeing as it’s an issue I’ve often mulled and ranted (to my bf) on in the past, I thought it would be worth getting these thoughts written in a more succinct and coherent form here. Besides, I’m well overdue for a new blog post. But enough waffling.. what I really wanted to do here was answer the question.

I think initially it has much to do with my background and cultural upbringing. I come from Sydney, Australia, where the “cafe culture” is alive and thriving, and more specifically grew up within the ABC (Australian Born Chinese) sub-culture. If we wanted to meet up, we would first suggest any of the numerous cafe’s to meet for a coffee or meal and a chat. Although drinking is quite rife amongst many Australians, my circle of friends weren’t really into it that much – and if we wanted to go out and “party” we would go to a club to dance (like myself, many of my friends were also very into dancing). For me, socialising has always been about food (oh how we love good food), non-alcoholic beverages (eg coffee, hot chocolates, fresh juice smoothies etc) or some form of physical activity (dancing, sports, going to the beach, bush-walking, having a bbq.. whoops that’s food again).

So compare that to Britain, where first and foremost the average Brit’s idea of socialising involves alcohol and the pub. I have been here for nearly 4 years and still do not feel like I fit in with the whole drinking/pub culture. Everytime people mention the they’re going to pub.. well, to be honest I find the going to the pub extremely dull and boring. This is also largely due to the fact that I actually dislike the taste of almost all alcoholic beverages. So why go and force myself to drink something I dislike whilst watching others get roaring drunk and generally making fools of themselves? I would much rather sit in a cosy warm cafe on comfy chairs (who wants to stand the whole night?) and relish over some good coffee and great conversation. Heck, I’d rather sit and watch paint dry.

I also have a very strong disapproval towards binge drinking. It’s a chronic problem in this country and it’s not something Brits should be proud of. Just this morning I read an article in the Metro that stated in a recent European poll, a survey of 35 countries, found the UK had the third-highest number of 15 and 16-year-olds with an alcohol problem. And I believe this problem is inherently due to the mindset of the British culture. The mindset that drinking to excess is cool and fun and even something to boast about. If this is the impression adults give, what other model do the younger generations have to go by? And that txt sent in seemed to really encapsulate this thinking.

To put some additional perspective on my rant, it’s not that I never drink or completely disapprove of drinking. I can enjoy an occasional alcoholic beverage over a meal (have started to enjoy a spot of wine with some good pasta or meat, and am not adverse to a bit of Italian Limoncello following a tasty italian meal). I might even go for 1 drink at a bar/pub occasionally for the sake of conversing with friends or to celebrate a birthday. And if I go clubbing, I may enjoy a drink (preferably something tasty like a mojito) to kick off the festivities of the night (though no more than 1 or at most 2 because drinking and (serious) dancing most definitely do NOT mix). But I think my idea of alcoholic beverage consumption is more closely aligned with that of much of continental Europe. Probably one of the reasons I seem to always feel more at home when I’m over there. It is something to be enjoyed on occasion, in small amounts, and usually to complement good food.

Below is a video recently taken at my dance teacher’s birthday celebration performing a birthday dance with her husband (who is also a Lambada teacher). They look so amazing together!

She is my inspiration in this beautiful art form and as you watch her dance, I think you’ll see why!

(Btw notice the shiny new video player I’m using? I’ve decided to start hosting my own videos.. it’s only a bit of extra work after the video editing – flv compression and incorporating a flash video player into my blog… but seeing as I have the tools and the know-how… Perchè No! Why not!)

So what’s new in the life of Kazzart. Gosh.. where to start!? Well things have improved a bit since my last, rather down-hearted post. My wrists seem to be in better shape for one, haven’t had a case of RSI for a while now. Using an ergonomic joystick mouse and keyboard at work has definitely helped. I’m also very careful now when I practice piano.. I always warm up, I’m careful not to tense my muscles or push myself too far. Oh, and Ibuprofen gel is my friend. What else.. my time is a bit easier to manage now that music college term is over and we’re on summer holidays. I think I might make things easier for myself in the coming year and only do one module instead of two! Two nights a week is just too much for me, with my current job going the way it is. On that note, work has definitely gotten busier with more and more responsibility piling on. I’m now getting involved as Technical Manager/Technical Lead on a number of projects. As well as still doing some web dev work. I’m not sure if I enjoy the TM stuff, but I think it is good experience to have so I will give it a go and see how I feel at the end of the year.

Last month I went away on an awesome summer holiday. I organised a two week holiday for my parents and brother in Barcelona, Spain and Portugal (Lisbon & Algarve). It was great to get away and get some SUMMER. Seriously.. the weather here in UK has been SOOOOOO sh*t it would be blasphemy to call it a “summer”. Strangely, everywhere else in the EU seems to be scorching hot.. it’s like there is some invisible weather barrier between us and continental europe (maybe its the english channel). Anyway.. enough whining about the weather.. I’m becoming more and more british every day.. wait I am already “technically” british lol. So yeh, the holiday was great fun. I *loved* Barcelona.. great food, friendly locals, beautiful city and great weather! Also really loved just chillin out by the beach at the Algarve. The weather there really is just PERFECT.. that perfect mix of warm south european and dry hot north african climate. Blue skies and sunshine pretty much every day! And the sun is actually HOT. Got myself a lovely tan there.. and stocked up on my Vitamin D dosage for the year. Here are some photos from the trip.

Barcelona, Spain

Algarve, Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal

Anyway.. since coming back from holidays.. I’ve been getting back into regular yoga and dancing again. I’ve been gone so long from hiphop even my teacher noticed and welcomed me back! I’m also still going to cuban salsa and getting better each week – which is good coz I really enjoy dancing salsa with my bf.. he’s still heaps better than me though! So fingers crossed I’ll be able to keep that all going coz I seriously need to get fit again! Not to mention, I just feel so good afterwards.

The Sheridan Trio (my jazz trio) also played our FIRST public gig last Saturday! W00t w00t! It went pretty well. Loads of people came, they seemed to enjoy it, the owner was really impressed and we just had fun performing. More about that later… might post some videos too!

Guess that’s all from me for now.. it’s home time!

Anyhoo. Lots of things have been happening in the life of Kazzart. The biggest would be my break up with Kwai (as of about a month and a half ago). There were many reasons and as always, these things are complicated. But I can definitely say that it had been a long time coming. It may have seemed a sudden thing to many people, but outsiders can never see what is truly going on under the surface. (I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details.)

Ok so what else has been happening. Life has been up and down, and as always busy as ever. Sometimes I almost feel like I’m drowning in all the things on my plate. Let’s list em out shall we:

• Work – this in itself would be enough to keep me busy as I’ve taken on a technical lead role part time (getting into scoping, estimates and functional requirements) as well as still a senior web developer the rest of the time!
• Music college (3rd and final term of my first year in Certificate of Music Studies) – for my Monday night class, the final musicianship assignment is due this coming Monday… I am SO not gonna have time to do this by Monday – I haven’t even started it yet!!! And we have to compose, arrange and score out an entire song of 3-4 mins length.
• Also my other module (the jazz performance ensemble class on Tuesday night) needs a lot of work. I’ve decided to do an arrangement of the old jazz standard “The Nearness Of You”. So far I only have a basic idea of the head arrangement – as half ballad and half gentle bossa (think Joao Gilberto). We had our first run through last Tues which went fairly well, and my teacher kindly suggested some reharmonisation of the chords for the ballad section – he even came up with some chords to use which was extremely useful! I am also imagining an intro of only 4-part horns harmony, based on the reharmonised chords, which I started last nite and am kinda halfway through writing. Then I will also need to write some simple harmonising/counterpoint horn lines for the bossa section of the song. Ack. I suck at writing horn lines. But I really want this arrangement and performance to be good because it’s gonna be a concert which we can invite people to – and I’ll be inviting my parents and friends along this time!
• Speaking of parents – my parents are also in London! They arrived last Saturday and will be here until end of August, travelling back and forth between London and various European destinations. It’s been nice having them here, staying with me, and they have even been cooking and cleaning! My flat sure is a lot cleaner now lol. But for some reason I’ve been getting less sleep and have been really tired this whole week. Guess it’s just affecting my regular schedule and sleep patterns.
• More with music – I’m playing in a jazz trio now (with people I know from college – and we actually have a name.. we’re gonna be called “The Sheridan Trio”). We have our first gig next Saturday 24th.. and so this weekend we’ll be rehearsing on Saturday AND Sunday to get the two sets down solid. If you’re interested the set list is:

  Set 1

  • Cantaloupe Island
  • But Not For Me
  • Freddie Freeloader
  • The Nearness of You
  • Blue Bossa
  • Autumn Leaves
  • Cry Me A River
  • Straight No Chaser

  Set 2

  • It Could Happen
  • Ain’t Misbehavin
  • Blue Room
  • Softly As In A Morning Sunrise
  • Since I Fell For You
  • All Of Me
  • Corcorvada
  • So What

  This gig is just at a private party, but we have a possibility of a public gig at an italian cafe in Soho called Piada, just a couple doors down from Ronnie Scotts! (I know the owner of this cafe because there is a Piada near my office too and I’m quite a regular there).

• I’m also still attempting to keep myself active, fit and healthy – though I haven’t even been to dance class in probably a month and have only barely been able to make my weekly yoga class at the gym. I have, however, been trying a few new things – last week I tried an adult gymnastics class for the first time in like 20 years! I was able to do a front hand spring, but failed miserably when attempting the back hand spring (still have a bruise on my knee a week later for my efforts). I’m also intending on getting more into salsa.. particularly cuban salsa. I’ve had an on-off affair with salsa for the past 2 or so years and I keep meaning to get myself going regularly to a class, but I’ve just not found time in my ever-busy and ever-growing schedule. Hm.. and I’m trying to find the time now? LOL. One can only try eh.
• Travel – I still LOVE to and intend on travelling as much as finances will permit, which unfortunately atm, is not much at all. I did take a recent mini-break to Madrid, Spain over the May long weekend (4-6th). It was a wonderful trip, and Madrid is a beautiful city, esp at that time of year. Not too hot, but pleasantly warm and sunny. We were quite lucky too with the weekend averaging a pleasant 28 degrees and plenty of sunshine! Took lots of photos too. Below are a sample of photos taken on a friend’s camera. I still have to upload the photos from my camera, but these will do for now. Enjoy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Well I think I’ve pretty much listed most of things keeping me busy at the moment. Obviously there are the usual household matters like grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, looking after bills and finances, look after Ella etc etc.

Anyway… I was kinda feeling a bit depressed today for some reason (which is what prompted me to blog). I think I get this way when I think too much about my life.. and the decisions and mistakes I’ve made. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever learn from my mistakes. And even though I’m doing a lot, “achieving” a lot and keeping myself mega-busy all the time.. I feel quite alone a lot of the time. Perhaps thats why I keep myself so busy.. so that I don’t notice it. I still don’t have many friends here in London, and no real, close friends. Sometimes when I really feel the need to talk to a good friend, to share the burdens on my mind, it just strikes me that I actually have nobody here I could do that with. All the people I would turn to and talk to are in Sydney – and even then, I’ve been away for so long (it’s been 3 years now!) that, well, people just forget about you. You lose touch, you’re on the other side of the world, you’re not a part of their lives anymore, and I think people just stop caring as much. It’s understandable for sure.. but it’s just.. a bit depressing when they are the only people you consider real friends and they’re just not available (or perhaps not interested) for the short time you catch them on msn. I’m really not sure what I can do about this. Of course I want to make friends here and I know I need to do this – but I don’t know why it’s so difficult for me. Maybe I just shouldn’t expect the same level of friendship that I have with those I spent many years growing up with. But even so.. I met people there that had quickly become close friends in only a matter of weeks. Why don’t I meet the same sort of people here? I still believe that it’s a cultural thing – that there is something about the culture and people’s mindset in London (and I hear this from other expats about British people in general too) that makes them more difficult to get to know, to form a close friendship with and have meaningful conversations with.

Meh. I dunno. I am possibly going to be staying in London a lot longer than I originally planned, so I think I really need to sort this issue of loneliness out. *sigh* Anyway.. well thats the latest (minus a few details ) from the life and mind of Kazzart. Bit of a mammoth post I know.. sorry!

But I guess you get used to the additional burdens over time and you get better at dealing with them as they come. It’s still a constant struggle because its like, as soon as you get used to one thing, something new comes along to challenge you – but I guess that’s what makes life interesting?

I always feel like there is so much I want to do and never enough days in the week, or hours in the day to fit in everything. Maybe I’m just particularly.. ambitious. I’ve never wanted to have a boring life. At the same time, I’ve never wanted a stressful, too-busy-to-stop-and-talk life either!! But there are so many wonderful, cool and interesting things in the world to try and experience! I don’t want to be a “pleb” – who just goes through life as expected, goes to work and goes home to eat and watch tv like a couch potato, has no time or energy for anything else, no other passions or hobbies they love, no inspirations to challenge themselves with, no new experiences to try and learn from. Having said that.. I also want to be someone who takes care of themself.. with all these things to do be it career or hobbies, I don’t want to be an overworked zombie whose health and body suffers because they just have no time to exercise or cook or eat healthily. I like my body and I think it deserves some T.L.C! It’s hard to strike that balance. I know I’m still learning…

Hm I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. I started it months ago and never got around to finishing it. So I have completely forgotten where I was going with it originally. Sorry. Hopefully you get the general sentiment.

A 5.7kg traditional roast goose with pork, sage & onion stuffing with apple sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy plus carrot and parsnips roasted with sage dressing, roast potatoes, gourmet stuffing of pork and mushrooms wrapped in bacon and finally pork and cranberry chipolata sausages wrapped in crispy bacon. Mmmmm….. It was yummy.