I saw Pirates 3 on Friday, obviously, and thought it was excellent. Much better than the second one, which had that irrelevant and trying-too-hard-to-be-funny bit on the cannibal island. This one had plenty of pirating action, battles, and excellent outfits, and Elizabeth gets way cooler. In fact, even Will looks cool at the end. It was also much improved by the presence of Geoffrey Rush, who I think was sorely missed in the second one.

Parents and one of my brothers visited over the weekend, which was fun. We went into the city, A cooked an excellent meal on Sat night, then on Sunday we went to the castle, where they looked around the museum part and I went round the gallery, which had an exhibition of work by Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight, which I enjoyed. Then we went for a meal at the Waffle House, which was gorgeous, as always. They do the best chocolate mousse ever. Mmm.

Monday was a bank holiday, so of course it rained, and apart from going to the gym, the entire day was spent lying about dozing and watching all the episodes of things we'd taped over the weekend. Thankfully "Dr. Who" was much improved from the trash that was last week's episode.

Only two weeks until Trinidad now...really must buy some suitable clothes.

A clean house is a sign of a wasted life

Spent the entire evening yesterday cleaning and hoovering, and yet the house is still mostly a mess. Except for the bathroom, which is shiny. Pah. This is what happens when you never do any cleaning except when someone comes to visit. Because usually I have far more interesting things to do.

Got my second assignment back from my Creative Writing course, and have done wonderfully well so I'm really happy. All the agonising and editing was clearly worth it. The poetry mark is sure to drag down my average, though. Boo.

I can tell I have been really busy, I've been reading the same book for over three weeks, and it's not even a long book. This is very unlike me, usually it's one a week, or one a fortnight at least. Looking forward to being on holiday and spending whole days reading. Blissful.

Child free!

Yet another tedious and sexist article in Grazia this week about women who don't have children. This could have been a really interesting article about those of us who choose to be child free. Instead, it was full of women who didn't have children because they couldn't afford it/hadn't found a man/the man they were with didn't want kids. Not one of them said that they didn't want to have kids at all, even the ones who were "having too much fun" still wanted children in the future.
So yet again, the stereotypes are enforced, that women who don't have children all want them, there are just reasons preventing this. How about an article about those of us who have no desire to have children, EVER. Because we don't want them or need them or have any inclination to do so. It's 2007, and yet all women are still expected to have children, because as women, this is what we are, baby machines. Men who don't want children do not have to live with these assumptions, why should we? They're not told how selfish they are. I don't see why it's selfish to want to enjoy my life and have time to do so, rather than spending 18 years looking after someone else and having to constantly put them first. Plenty of women have children because it's what society expects them to do, and look what happens to the children. So many of them in care, or living with parents who don't give a damn about them. If I was forced to have a child, I'd resent it for the rest of my life, which undoubtedly wouldn't give the child a very good upbringing.
There are plenty of us about who choose not to have children, don't want them ever, and are extremely happy with that choice. It depresses me when magazines that are supposed to be for women only reinforce stereotypes that we're trying to get away from.

Brighton

Meant to update at the weekend, but spent almost the whole weekend asleep, because the week at conference was so tiring. I'm not exaggerating - on Saturday I got up at 11.30am, went back to bed 3.30-6pm, then to bed at night from about 10.30pm and slept all the way through. Sunday I was slightly more awake, but mostly watching TV as it's all I could manage. Thankfully I feel much perkier now.


My hotel for the first three nights was lovely - only a Holiday Inn, but it's apparently a 4 star hotel, and the room was really nice, with an inviting bathroom, which is important to me. I got upgraded to an executive room too, which was cool. Annoyingly, we had to move hotels halfway through, and the last two nights were spent in the Quality Hotel, which was really shitty in comparison, with a room of half the size! It was crappier than the Travelodge I stay in when I go to Leeds. Pah. Thankfully, both hotels offered an all you can eat full English breakfast, which was brilliant for the first four days, but by Friday I couldn't face anymore grease and ate cereal instead. This may also have something to do with the fact that we had two all you can eat Chinese meals, and one all you can eat Indian meal. They were so good at the time, but now... no more all you can eat. It just means I stuff myself to the point of feeling ill to try and get the most out of my money. The Chinese place had a chocolate fountain with marshmallows to dip into it, which was excellent! I also managed to eat rhubarb crumble two days in a row, which I was proud of. This week I am eating many healthy things and no grease or fat, in an effort to counteract the effects of last week. So anyway, food was a major theme.

Conference itself was interesting. I'd been expecting, from what people had said, to be sitting in a room with a bunch of old white men, but really, it wasn't too bad. In both conferences, but especially my departmental one, there were lots of women, many of whom got up to speak. Also, both of the presidents are women, which helps, I think.

Department conference was more relaxed, whereas the national one was much more crowded, stuffy, and uncomfortable, and more formal. National was weird, there were huge political debates which were really interesting to listen to, and then there were also boring, tedious motions about changing one line in the rulebook, which really sent me to sleep. Going from one to the other, you could tell it had that effect on many people, as they all scuttled out to get coffees. Heh.

I never expected it to be so tiring. But sitting listening to people give speeches, albeit small ones, for seven hours a day, is really knackering. I didn't want to do much in the evenings except have my tea and sleep, although I did manage a walk along the beach the one night it wasn't raining, and a walk on the pier one evening when it was raining only a little.

On Friday we finished at 12.30pm, so I did get to explore the city a bit, and go in lots of fascinating little shops - I'd really like to go back for fun one day and explore properly. I went into a shop where they were making fudge right there behind the counter, in huge vats. The whole place smelt amazing. I found a good secondhand bookshop, which made me very happy, of course.

Now I'm back at normal work, which at the moment seems very easy compared to last week, although I'm sure it'll get tedious soon.

Mostly Sleeping

A real update will come soon, all about conference and other exciting and not so exciting things. Meanwhile I have spent the weekend sleeping to recover from the exhausting but fab experience that was union conference.
Back soon...

Travelling

Did my gym workout today to T-Rex, A had made me a special compilation, so that was funky. It worked really well too, good rhythms.

Tomorrow I go off to union conference in Brighton for a week, which should be exciting, even if it's also scary. We'll see. As long as I get a full English breakfast, I'll be fine. Heh.

My suitcase is almost packed. Hey, I have a suitcase! It's getting a pre-Trinidad trial run, anyway.

Must do some work on my creative writing course while I'm away, especially as I feel the poetry section is going to take rather a lot of work.

Last night A and I made a funky compilation CD of cover versions, but not the obvious ones everyone knows. I've been listening to it today (it ended up as a double album) and it's excellent. Because we rock, obviously.

Now, must finish packing, and attempt sleep, although I never sleep very well the night before I go away anywhere. Worth a try, though.

Beltane celebration went well, I was coherent despite getting up at 3am to do said celebration at 6am, and on the way home we had a full English breakfast, which was excellent. Luckily it was a bank holiday, so I slept all day and pretty much all night too. I feel almost human again now.

Saw the Michael McGoldrick trio at the arts centre last night, which was excellent. They're just brilliant musicians, which was both fascinating to watch, but also made me think, with a sigh, "I'll never be able to do that".

Off to the gym now, to make up for the lack of it over the last few days.

Finished

The assignment is done, and was sent off on time, thankfully. Of course, after I'd sent it I kept thinking of things I should have put in it, but that's pretty much always the way. Poetry next, ulp. Not my strong point.

So to celebrate I bought bras. Well, not really, but I went to the Bravissimo shop, especially for those of us with big boobs, which made me happy, because usually buying bras is a nightmare. This time... well, it wasn't fun, but neither was it horrific. So I'm happy.

What's in a name?

While I myself have absolutely no desire to get married, this article on the F-word website, about the changing of names once married, is really interesting, and probably something I would consider, had I any desire to do such a thing. What I don't respect when it comes to women changing their names once they're married, are those who do it with no thought about why they're doing it, but do it because it's the thing you're supposed to do.

Bollocks

Of course, after optimistically deciding that people aren't so bad after all yesterday, today someone attempts to screw me over to alleviate their own guilt, and I feel pissed on again, and am rather losing faith in humanity.

While I sit in the churchyard and ponder this, I overhear a group of middle-aged, possibly homeless (from the conversation I overheard) sitting about in the sun talking about how they want the fairytale, they want to "fall in love, get married, and have kids". This was kind of nice, and wonderfully against the stereotype, since they all looked like stereotypical builders.

The world is weird.

Picket

On strike today. Much more fun picketing in the sun than in the freezing cold in January, and all went pretty well, with most people supporting us, and some lovely supportive members of the public too.

Sometimes I despair of the world. But when so many people will stand up (or stay at home) and protest because they believe something is wrong, it makes me feel a little better.