An Open Letter

No, don't worry, no political chat here...

Instead I'm writing an open letter to a beast called Sentiment and it's backwards looking, neck curling, reality twisting and rose tinting limbs.

Sentiment, I hate you.

I loath you not for those beautiful moments you've allowed me to remember in petroleum jelly covered lens softness, I don't hate you for those old feelings of warm and fuzzy that you've let me keep and relive at random intervals throughout any day, when thoughts of friends, family or a loved one creep into my head, those things are the reasons I adore you and have kept you around for so long.

Sentiment, I use to love you.

Unfortunately, you've crossed the line.

You're keepin' me down man. You gotta go.

I won't say it'll be fun, and it probably won't be quick, but you're out.

One of my oldest friends use to tell me I was able to cut myself out of any situation with surgical precision, the same friend, accused me of being sentimental not three weeks ago!

So I'm done, and instead taking another wonderful friend's advice and writing a list of superpowers that I would like to have. They may not be useful, they may be a little odd, but they're mine, here is a small selection:

• I would like to be able to see into people's shoes -- I hate feet. Those of you that know me well know that I can hardly touch my own, so I'd like to know what other people's feet look like before I allow them into my house and see their feet (this is Asia, where the shoes stay at the door yo.)
• I'd like to be able to cure mild headaches and colds -- Just because this would essentially make me the most popular person in the world, although, it may lead to a Midas touch type situation whereby I would be surrounded by only mildly sick people.
• I'd like to be able to relieve poverty by drilling good economic sense into the corrupt governments of poverty stricken countries.
• Leading on from the last one I would also like to have all corrupt world leaders murdered with no emotional or other negative consequences.
• I would like to have the strength to turn down baked goods, or not finish a slice of cake -- those of you that know me well know that this is the most ambitious.
• Being able to transport myself from one place to another in an instance. For obvious reasons this would be awesome.

As yet, this list contains no real ambitions, I mean, they are really things I want, they're just completely unachievable. I'm working on it though.

Christmas and New Year were awesome thanks to some grade A hospitality. I got a Fuji instax, and some perfume. More than I deserved. This does mean that I've been polaroiding away and have very few digital pictures though. These wee gems were found on my phone....

Double G had some horns lying around. Really.

My language exchange, more an eat and bitch. How cute is that though?

Friggin' cute eh?

Still cute, adulthood looming... dum dum duuuuum...

That's all I have, it isn't much, I know. I have a bunch of unedited entries which I need to get around to posting considering they're far more interesting and insightful. meh.

Dx

Cough, Splutter, Look that way!

I'm listening to a woman's hour podcast, as I do nearly every night before I go to sleep.

One of the topics today is 'coital vocalisation'. This is interesting in a lot of ways, mostly because it flings a certain American ex-flatmates theory that WH was for housewives, right out the spoken word radio window. AHEM, nee-ner-nee-ner.

Red Button

Life in Taiwan is just getting stranger and stranger, and the more time I spend here the smaller I realise the place is.

Take Edinburgh for example, it's a really small place, and bumping into people you'd rather not bump into happens all the time. It seems though that it wasn't quite as small as Taichung. I literally know what everyone else is doing and when.

That means everyone else knows what I'm doing as well. That's not a nice feeling, like the CCTV cameras in London but worse because you know everyone's judging you...

On the upside, it also means that as quickly as scandal is scandalising all the upright citizens, another one comes in to make the scandalized citizens think that the last one wasn't so bad.

Bad form. Bad form indeed! (<-- That's me, judging.)

Done

My mum told me that I had to think about jobs and careers and what I want to do.

I want to tell her that she should think about jobs and careers herself. How do you have a 'yo' momma' argument with your own mother?

Can I not just keep travelling for the rest of my life? I think the bags under my eyes are vetoing that idea. 'Settle down' they say 'eat some salad and get a tan' they say.

So where to settle?

I went to Stockholm when I was on Erasmus. I want to live there, hows about it?

Close enough to the family in the UK, no further to the Israeli family, big city, good looking people, good looking Israeli Swedish babies? Yes, maybe.

Right, so I am now accepting all suggestions as to where I should live, and what sort of permanent employment I should be looking for, and generally, any advice you'd like to throw at me, suggested topics: 'How to get rid of mosquitoes', 'How to make your shower curtain stay up', 'How to make friends and influence people', 'This is where you should live', 'This is where you should work' and 'How to live like a responsible adult'

I think I have a chest infection but look how cute my kids are!

Ok, so I realise it looks a bit like something from the grudge, but it isn't, they're normally more smiley than this!

So, erm, this is England... that little bit at the top is little England, and that little island is Old England and.... wow...

This is teacher Clinton, he's 22, needless to say, this is not true to life, although he does have blue eyes, facial hair, and a bald head, so not too far.

This is an awfully blurry picture. When you go for lunch with a very tall blonde guy in Asia, people will take pictures of you with their super cool Fuji instex mini. You will then have to take a picture on your phone of said picture (which is beautiful by the way) and hope that somewhere out there, there's a friend of yours who has the £50 to buy you said cool camera. Yes.