Michelle kind-of-doesn't-exactly-do-Lent. Again.

This was my dinner today (fork included for scale), and has been my dinner for the past 7 days.

What was I doing?
In a nutshell, the Tearfund Rice and Beans Challenge.  I was Fasting, but rather than cut food out altogether as I have done before, instead I limited my diet to the kind of menu that nearly a billion people in some of the world's poorest countries have to get on with - rice and beans, and not a lot of either.  The  money I didn't spend on food that week is being donated to the Quicken Trust.  My menu for the week was as follows:
Breakfast - 25g porridge oats
Lunch and Dinner - 35g rice and 30g beans, and a tablespoon of veg for the day (I used onion or tomato to flavour my meals.  It works out at about an eighth of either per meal)
Drink - Tap water

Why was I doing it?
Although it is still Lent, this isn't exactly Lent-related (I don't like arbitrarily giving something up just because you're supposed to.  I'd rather use the time to respond to an issue that's on my heart at the time.  See Last Years Lent where I decided to experiment with Fairtrade shopping, buying things instead of abstaining from them!).  In less than a week I'll be heading out to spend 9 days in Kabubbu, a village in Uganda, as a volunteer with the Quicken Trust.  This charity has been working with the villagers to help make Kabubbu self-sufficient and self-perpetuating, so that the people there can provide for themselves in every stage of life.  As you can imagine I'm both excited and nervous about this trip, what I might encounter there, the people I'll meet, and what it will mean for the way I live my life when I get home.  I think as a Christian it will be especially challenging because issues like God, suffering and man's place on earth are all thrown into the mix.  Also, living away from home, I'd been a bit left out of the loop in terms of organising the trip, so I was feeling unprepared about that too.  I felt the need to present all these issues to God somehow, to get his perspective on it all, let him start preparing my heart for this trip, and to start grappling with these issues now, as well as just packing my bags.  Rather than pray in words I decided the best response would be to do something practical as a prayer, so I used the Rice and Beans Challenge as a guide and extended it to the whole week.


What were the results?
This month has been a real grower for me.  I've been taking lessons on the economy, reading about gender issues and sustainable living in my own time, and through this fast I've been empathising with people across the world and learning about corporate and global injustice, so all these things are combining and interlocking in my brain at the moment, but I can identify a few general ideas that stuck out from them all.

• I fasted once before (a total fast, no food, only drink), God used that to teach me how he is the most essential component to life, even more so than food, and how we need him continuously, not just once.  This time round I sort of levelled up and learned how God also designed us to have lives that are full and display how good he is.  A big part of this is variety and how it displays God's creativity and goodness - turns out variety actually is the spice of life!  There's a difference between existing and living.
• Became very aware of how of just much we consume as a nation, how we expect food, money and other resources to just be there for us if we want them, even when we don't need them.  Our culture has told us that we should be able to have anything and everything we want; but in reality this is not possible, or sometimes it brings terrible consequences when we do.  We hurt other people, both directly and indirectly, in order to benefit ourselves.
• I think there needs to be a point somewhere between the two where we get to experience life's diversity but do it in a way which doesn't damage other people, or the world as a whole.  Where we are grateful for what we have but don't get greedy for more.  This is going to take a massive shift in culture and attitude.
• Accidentally (!) lost a few pounds in weight, which sounds great until you realise that the people who have to live on this diet permanently will continue to lose weight indefinitely until they begin to starve.  I've only been doing this for a week but some people have been living this way their entire lives.  Food (or... lack of food) for thought.

I kept a diary of each day, included below the read more if you want a bit more of an insight as to what the experience was like and just what was going through my head.  As is usual with my diary-write ups I've improved some sentences, but not left anything out.

Spring Colour Challenge 2012

I got out of work early on this lovely and sunny first day of spring, so with the extra time I set myself a Colour Challenge.  Basically I have to find as many colours as I can within my time limit.  Here's my results (click to enlarge)...

If you want a go, here are the rules:

1)  You have half an hour to find as many colours as you can, record them with your camera, and get back to your house.  Get your skates on!

2)  You must do this in your local neighbourhood.  The boundaries are as far as you can walk from your house in 10mins, or cycle in 5 mins in any direction you choose.

3)  The colours have to be 'alive'.  A red letterbox, purple wall, or blue jumper doesn't count.  Animals do, if you can get them to stay still long enough.

4)  Don't trespass on private property or make a nuisance of yourself (not that I think you would!)  So you can lean over a fence, but no sneaking round other people's gardens :)

5)  Different varieties of a colour is fine (e.g. light yellow, dark yellow, butter yellow, greenish yellow).  Green doesn't count.  I did start trying to do green but I think that's a whole other challenge!

6)  Post your discoveries on your blog/Facebook/Twitter page so everyone can see all the cool stuff you found.  GO!!!

It's time to play the music...

I've been really appreciating band lately.  I play first clarinet in Loughborough Concert Band, which I joined after I graudated and was trying to find cheap ways to occupy myself whilst jobhunting.  Since picking it up in high school (although I'd dabbled in a few other instruments beforehand - we're a pretty musical family) I'd been playing pretty constantly throughout the years but it fell by the wayside in uni due to my lectures not fitting with the days their band practised.

I didn't really realise how much I'd missed playing in a group until I started up again, but there's something about playing alongside others that really takes you out of yourself.  Practising on your own just isn't the same, even if you try and play with a backing track.  I think other people have the same thing with sports.  I spoke to a friend who does rock-climbing recently and part of why she finds it so relaxing is that when you're dangling off a cliff-face you really can't think about anything else.  It's the same with music.  When you're playing you have to concentrate on one thing and one thing only, because if you don't play your best it ripples throughout the band.  Everyone's got their heads down (or up, rather - observez le conducteur!) and is pulling together to produce this sound, this movement of music.  Everyone is vital, everyone is necessary, and if they don't play, you notice.  The balance is thrown off.  This is especially true of the lower instruments; the trombone, tuba, french horns and bassoon.  Those instruments whose parts are often simpler, or don't play the tune.  It may seem like they don't get a lot of time in the spotlight but I miss them when they aren't there.  There's a depth and breadth to the sound that is absent without them. 

Existential Crisis

Last Saturday I went up to Bradgate Park with my friend Katie.  I was having a very busy day, dashing about trying to get through as much of my to-do list as possible, and was even late picking her up.  It was just one of those weeks where there's too much to get done, not enough time to do it, and when your goal is something that takes a little time (in my case, trousers that fit) the result is usually frustration and stress at your own ineptitude.  Despite this Katie and I hadn't seen each other for a while and I'd forgotten just how well we get on.  Within minutes we were cackling away at pretty much everything, including our inability to actually find the park!  We got there in the end though, sneaking in through the back gate

Suddenly I felt completely calm.

3D or 3Don't?

There's an interesting article in The Guardian today about the rather dissapointing sales of 3D cinema tickets in 2011.  Initially the 2009 reboot of 3D films that avoided the old red-and-blue glasses of the 1950s proved very popular, with James Cameron's Avatar being made specifically as a flagship for the technique, and no one can say that it wasn't a very pretty film (even if the plot wasn't as groundbreaking as the effects.  The jury's still out on whether it was a blue version of Pocahontas, Fern Gully or Dances With Wolves). 

For a while 3D films did well, but now their popularity seem to be declining rapidly, with more people opting for the standard 2D versions.  The author of the report on this believes that now the inital period of experimentation is over it's mainly due to the recession.  When a 3D ticket costs half-again as much as a 2D ticket it's just too big a spend, espcially if the cinema trip is a family outing.  Additionally those with contacts or glasses may find the 3D specs hard to wear, and a friend of mine who is partially blind in one eye can't see 3D at all - she has to wear the glasses just to stop seeing the picture in double!  However the theory that it's all down to the recession has a problem as it assumes that once the economy picks up the 3D ratings will return fully to their old figures.  I don't think that will be the case, in fact I think there's something else going on altogether.

ENFP

Sorting through some papers, I found something I'd forgotten about; the results to a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I'd taken part in a year or two back as part of a group exercise.

Screw your brains in...

Spring cleaning

There's something about the whispers of oncoming spring that makes you just want to Get Up and Do Something.  Winter is a time for bunking in, staying warm, eating hearty foods, huddling and hot water bottles, everything slowing down in a subconscious effort to preserve heat and energy, regardless of how good your central heating might be.  But even if it's still chilly you know spring is coming.  The world around you is stretching itself, ready to burst back into life and you can smell it. I'm not kidding, you can smell the day that one season becomes another.  Try it sometime.  I'm not the only one to have noticed this, so I'm going to defer to Mr Badger and Mr Mole at this point:

`Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.  It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor [...] and bolted out of the house without even eating to put on his coat. [...]  It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting--everything happy, and progressive, and occupied.  Chapter 1, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

'...once the year has really turned, and the nights are shorter, and halfway through them one rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if not before--you know!----'  Mr Badger, Chapter 4.

Illustration by E.H. Shepard

The other thing that spring is good for is giving you a good kick up the behind.  In winter everything slows down, and it's often hard to keep up with the good intentions you had during the lighter months when you weren't so tempted to bundle it all up under thick jumpers.  It hit me yesterday that I've become a bit lax in some areas over the cold months, and now that the sun is coming back I want to pick up the slack.  That in turn got me thinking about the changes I've already started making over my life in the past year...

Anticipation...

The more I see of this film, the happier it makes me.

When Merida rips the constricting clothes open yelling "Curse this dress!" and starts firing off arrows I want to cheer.  For her culture it may be completely out of order for her to "shoot for her own hand", but all she wants is for someone to recognise her for who she is, and to not be paired with a man she doesn't respect.  This strikes me as very sensible.

It reminds me of a scene from Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart, which is about a girl who is inspired to pursue her talent for writing when she meets a boy whose passion for violin making is deciding his whole future.  Through the film they get to know each other better and early one morning the boy arrives back from studying violin making in Italy and immediately cycles over to see her.  He wants to show her the sunrise from his favourite spot on the hilltop so she hops on the back of the bike and off they go.  But on the road up the hill the boy starts to struggle.  She asks:
"Should I get off?."
"No, stay on!" he replies.  "I decided I was going to ride up this steep hill, carrying you with me."
Her face says it all.  "Who said you could decide that?!"  She jumps off the bike and starts to push from behind.  "I don't want to be just a burden for you.  If I'm going with you I'm going to help you."  He agrees, and they reach the top together, each pulling their weight.

I've use that scene to explain to people how I feel about particular issues in the past; mainly money.  It seems like a good model for a relationship; two people who both bring something different to the table but neither plays second fiddle to the other.  Each of them gets to do what they can to contribute, and they move forward together, facing the same direction, and each supporting the other so that no one person is forced to bear all the weight.  If and when I do find myself getting into a relationship, although I know there will be times when one of us needs to lean more heavily on the other, for the most part I'd expect to be allowed and supported in being fully myself and contributing to what we're doing together.  And my partner should expect exactly the same from me.

Until that time comes, I'll be shooting for my own hand.  If he wants to match me, let him.

Geek Safari

I've been wanting to do this for a while... Welcome to My Comic Collection!!!

Now calm down, I know what you're thinking, but there's not a superhero in sight and it's only a small collection because I'm actually very picky about what I buy.  I'll borrow from friends and raid the library and get hold of digital copies (I have most of Nightwing on the hard drive) but I love the whole 'Book as Objet d'Art' thing where issues are all bound together with designed covers, can sit on your shelf proudly, and are also reasonably hardy.  This can, however, make them a bit more expensive so I tend to wait until I see something I really want, dither over it for ages, and then give in and splash out on a couple at once.

So here they all are, in the order I bought them over the past four years:

1.  Blankets by Craig Thompson

A friend of mine introduced me to the local comic book shop shortly after I started my degree.  In fact, my first comic book shop.  It hadn't taken me long to work out that I was really into sequential narrative so I was in heeeeeaaaavvveeeeennn!  I had heard about Blankets in a class and although I couldn't shell out the money for it at the time I kept on going back to that shop to flick through it's crisp monochromatic pages, longing for my birthday when no doubt money would be bestowed on me by loving relatives (it was) and I could spend it frivolously on that most nerdy of literary arts, the comic book (I did).

Blankets is 1.5 inches thick, and the first major comic I'd ever seen that wasn't superhero based.  Instead it's a semi-autobiographical story of a young man trying to discover himself through the dramas of his first love, his religious upbringing, his hopes and fears... just the little stuff.  It is beautiful and quiet and deep and I just keep re-reading it.  From then on I was hooked...

Discoveries

Went home for the weekend and found out that my parents have every card I've made them out on display, even ones from last year!  Parents are lovely :)  I even found a card I forgot to scan (yes I shamelessly nicked the line in it from 500 Days of Summer but only because it was such a good one)

... but today you get a card!!!

I also found some photos of me and one of my sisters from when we were little and photographs were still physical objects!  I kind of miss those shiny album photos.  I must be about four/five years old in these.

Our conservatory going up.  It's being replaced this week, so it's weird I found this.
Even at a young age I was all over the paints!

I remember this cake!  I was starting to think I made it up!
Also, check out those rad pajamas :)