here again......

suprised to find it's a year since I last posted.
Last time I wrote here I said this....

To update:
1 - I still feel comfortable at work - the job is interesting, varied, stimulating, challenging and I'm in a good team.
2 - T's Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment is still not working fully yet, so things are still quite unpredictable and it's hard to plan ahead. The challenges of disablism are constant and our relationship has changed to adjust but life is fairly stable.
3 - I work 3 days a week but have been doing extra days for other organisations to earn a bit more - on average have worked 4 days most weeks. This has been a bit too much. My colleagues are keen for me to work full time, but I'm sticking to my plans.
3 - When I am not working, T and I still get out and about in the campervan a lot - we spent 2 and a half weeks in the Outer Hebrides in May 2008 - a fantastic trip!
4 - My youngest step-son has just started at a new Uni - he went to Uni last year but it didn't suit him - wrong course, wrong Uni. He's done some voluntary work and paid work this year and changed quite a lot. So far he's loving his course. My oldest step-son has been working for a homeless charity and had his own house with his partner. They've just moved back to her parent's house as they are going to travel interationally for 6 months next year. The house is now officially empty of "children" again, but they'll be staying over regularly.

All this means that I am STILL sometimes stressed, always busy, but overall content with my lot.

In Dec 2006 I said this.....

I am pleased to say:

I have done some paid work and some joint projects with the local self-advocacy project that I first worked with in my last job.
I have taken a lot of photos with T- being paid for some of it - and we had our first exhibition recently which was a fantastically positive experience.
I took a life drawing class last year at Uni, but it doesn't run anymore.
I sing with a women's natural voice choir and sometimes take the sessions as the deputy leader which has given me loads of confidence. I bought a new piano accordion recently which is beautiful,
but -
I still need to get good at that.
I don't walk enough.
froom is still on hold
and blogging has been ignored but here I am again!

bleeding....

every day for the last 2 months.
I had shockingly unbearable pain when I had a period in August. It was the worst ever. I've had bad and severe but nothing like that.
My doctor has put me on the pill to stop me having another period until I get to the consultant.
I've had an abdominal scan and internal vaginal scan (both ultrasound) in September which showed nothing serious. The vaginal scan was very uncomfortable towards the end. I have a small fibroid apparently.
I stopped taking the pill a few years ago, as I don't think it's good for me to be on it more than 12-13 years. I'm only taking it as a temporary measure, and my doctor is also clear about that.
It's giving me very painful breasts in the morning and this bleeding is very annoying. I get some mild background cramp some days too like period pain. Weird! When I was on it before (a different make) I had nothing like that. This one must be a lot less powerful hormonally.
A friend of my Mum's yesterday thought maybe I'll have a D&C.
Have to wait and see.....

didn't think I'd been gone that long!

I'm amazed to find that I haven't posted here since February!
I started my new job in Feb and have obviously been having such an interesting/ busy time since then that blogging didn't fit in anymore.
Should I carry on?
Well, I don't know, but I'm not ready to close it down yet.

4 important changes have taken place recently
1 - I feel comfortable with myself at work - I feel like I fit in - I'm a lecture at a University locally, based in the arts/ sociology department
2 - my partner T has Rheumatoid Arthritis and is having treatment that is not really working yet, so things are quite unpredicatable and it's hard to plan ahead. It also means that there are lots of challenges brought about by the oppression of disabled people that we face and I support T to get through as best I can.
3 - I work 3 days a week but have been doing extra days for other organisations to earn a bit more. When I am not working, T and I get out and about as much as we can in the campervan.
4 - My youngest step-son has just started at Uni, the older one having left home last year to do that, but it didn't suit him and now he is working and studying new subjects planning to go away to Uni next year. So, the house is now empty of "children".

All this means that I am sometimes stressed, always busy, but overall content with my lot. This doesn't mean I no longer care about "issues", but I have other things that take priority over blogging.

I am sure there will be times in the winter months ahead when this blog will be useful to me.
I will probably shifting the focus from women's oppression to disablism somewhat - but my feminism is always a thread that runs through everything I do.

I've started....

my new job at Staffordshire University.

I was shockingly overwhelmed on my first and 3rd days. I had a headache all day on Tuesday ( my first day) and choked back tears 3 or 4 times on Thursday afternoon/ evening after my 3rd day.

But I still think it was a good move.

Wednesday was the best - I felt at home there all morning and had lunch with my job share co-worker, who is great - funny, intelligent, kind - we should get on like a house on fire.

It was very peculiar doing 3 days and knowing I'd done my first week's work. It's also odd knowing I don't go back in until Tuesday. I hope I don't get used to it, so that it always feels like a treat.

I will be busy on Monday anyway as I have volunteered (but then had it agreed that I can do it as part of my new job) to organise an exhibition of the Mencap SNAP photographs.

3 days a week....

I'm going to be doing a job share - it's been agreed!
I am still waiting for my written job offer, but the 2nd choice candidate has agreed to take the job share..... I should be able to start in February. I never got a new contract from the NHS when I started this new job despite chasing them for it twice, so I'm still on one month's notice!

I'm not sure about research yet, but I do know the holiday entitlement is more than I get now and the pay is slightly more pro rata.

All in all it's a fantastic deal and opportunity - I intend to make the most of it.
Amongst my plans for what to do with my other 2 days a week are:

• get away a lot in the campervan that we have recently acquired...
• volunteer at the local self-advocacy project that I have been working with a lot
• act as broker for a young person and their family to take control of Self Directed Services
• take a lot of photos - hopefully getting paid for some of it - with Cultural Sisters and other local community arts organisations
• take up drawing again
• make lots of music and sing
• walk and swim
• re-launch froom
• support Pan the local group that I am a member of to develop and seek funding
• blog....

Think I might struggle to fit it all in but I'll give it a try!

working hours.....

how many is too many?

I have been offered a new job as a lecturer at the local Uni and I am taking part but I am in the process of negotiating hours.

I work 4 days at the moment. I do not want to go back to full-time -

• I got so worn out last year I have got used to needing a 3 day weekend to keep my batteries fully charged.
• T has a condition that means I am his carer some of the time and I like being around at home - it stops him getting too isolated.
• I want to do other things with my time than be employed in one job.
  I do some voluntary work and some paid self-employed work e.g. photography. I'd like to do more of both if poss. I'm keen to get froom going properly too.

So I have asked to do 4 days or a job share of 3 days. The Uni are looking into both. They have asked the 2nd choice candidate if she wants to do 2 days a week so that I can do 3. That would be ideal. If she can't sort that out with her current employer and doesn't feel confident she will get other work to make up her hours, then the Uni will have to think again. They don't think they can offer me 4 days as the funding for the job is for a full time post and they don't usually recruit to jobs that are only 1 day a week which I can understand. So it might mean I have to seriously consider working full -time at least in the short term until they can recruit another person to job share with me.

So I have been worrying about this. Can I cope with a full time job? I believe that I would be able to work from home sometimes and the hours would be flexible.....

I will not get too anxious about it until I know if the other candidate can job share........ should know by mid week.

another 4 things...

for the new year.
It's still just about January and I told myself I would do this one.....thanks to Make Tea Not War for it.

Four things I want to do before 2006 is over:
1. Go back to Morocco.
2. Have set up a successful feminist network in my area
3. Be able to say I play piano accordion and be happy to demonstrate, confident that people will be fairly impressed at my skill.
4. Know what work I want to do, where and for whom.

Four things I say a lot:
1. "I'm tired"
2. “bollocks”
3. "I love you"
4. "let’s do lunch"

Four things I don't trust:
1. politicians
2. religion
3. my body
4. my ability to relax

Four things I do trust:
1. my partner
2. my friends
3. music to move me
4. a good book to help me switch off

Four people from history I'd like to meet:
I am not good at talking to people I look up to when they are strangers, but…..
1. Carol Shields
2. George Gershwin
3. Virginia Woolf
4. Charles Darwin

Four best movies of 2005:
1. Kinsey
2. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
3. Corpse Bride
4. A Very Long Engagement

Four best books I've read in 2005:
1. Margaret Atwood – Cat’s Eye
2. Lionel Shriver – We Need to Talk About Kevin
3. Sarah Waters - Fingersmith
4. Shamim Sharif – The World Unseen

Four best gigs or albums of 2005:
1. Spiers and Boden at Northwich
2. Bellowhead at Bridgnorth Folk Festival
3. Spiers and Boden “Songs”
4. Eddi Reader at Middlewich Folk Festival

I'm following in Make Tea Not War's footsteps - I'm not tagging anyone but, by all means, consider yourself tagged if you feel you have nothing more important to do....let me know if you do and I'll link to you!

4 things you never knew you needed to know about meme…..

Thanks to Winter Woods for the tag, I am about to lose some of my mystery!!!

4 jobs I've had:
And I’ve had lots….
1. Avon “Lady” - When I was about 16 I did a bit of selling – I was such a girly young thing – I looked about 30 and was totally signed up to the need for make-up and perfume. I mostly sold it to my school friends.
2. Sales assistant at Morrison’s – T loves to hear about how my nylon uniform with nylon tights underneath that I had to wear even in scorching hot summer vacation, would percolate my bottom. I used to “hide” in the staff dining room behing my copy of “Great expectations” that I struggled to read for my degree course – but it was better than having to make polite conversation.
3. Team manager for my local Alcohol Advisory Service – a really varied job recruiting, training, supervising and managing volunteer and paid staff most of whom were counsellors.
4. Community development worker. My main role in my last job was to bring together local residents’ groups reps, local Councillors and local public service managers to identify and try to improve things in specific neighbourhoods in the city, such as litter problems, lack of health services or children’s play areas. The Council kept the team of 10 of us for nearly 3 years but as we started to really enable local people to get their voices heard and to change things they pulled the plug and I was made redundant.

4 movies I can watch over and over
as a rule I don’t much like watching films again, I don’t tend to read books more than once either....
1. Topsy Turvy – the story of the relationship issues surrounding the writing and performing of the Mikado – based on the lives of Gilbert and Sullivan – a Mike Leigh film – brilliant (and I love the music, it reminds me of being in the school production when I was about 11, so that’s a bonus).
2. Guys and Dolls – another musical – This is a classic – funny, lively and cheesy – it also reminds me of my youth when I performed some of the numbers with my local amateur operatic society.

The next two are a bit of cheat - I used to watch them a lot, but have not done for years.
3. Clockwise – a bit sad I know, but it makes me laugh every time - stars the wonderful John Cleese.
4. Educating Rita – this is quite dated now, but I used to watch it a lot and always cried. It was one of the first films I saw that I understood to be amount “women’s lib”, that and “The Colour Purple” which I also watched many times.

4 places I've lived:
1. Staffordshire Moorlands where I was born and bred in a boring large village near Stoke-on-Trent
2. Hanley – boring, run-down, city centre of Stoke on Trent
3. Liverpool, at St Katharine’s College – part of the University.
4. Newcastle-under-Lyme – a fairly boring market town in North Staffordshire (well in the suburbs of the town really)

4 TV shows I love to watch:
1. QI – hilarious and very informative
2. BBC/ Channel 4 documentaries like “Coast”, “Life in the Undergrowth”
3. Made for TV dramas - Stephen Poliakoff plays in particular – new series of his stuff coming up on Sunday nights starting next week
4. Music programmes – Jools Holland, BBC4 sessions.

4 places I've been on vacation:
1. Morocco
2. Amsterdam
3. Cornwall
4. Lake District

4 blogs I visit every day:
well most days....
1. Desperate Kingdoms
2. Valley of Lost Things
3. Travelling Punk
4. Chozma photoblog

4 of my favourite foods:
1. pasta with tomato based sauce
2. chocolate with a high cocoa content
3. fruit smoothie drinks
4. fresh soup – anything vege

4 places I'd rather be:
1. Morocco
2. Lake District
3. anywhere peaceful with lots of trees and water and great food
4. just not at work…..

4 albums I can't live without:
1. Spiers and Boden - Bellow
2. Spiers and Boden - Songs
3. Eddi Reader – Eddi Reader
4. Billy Joel – Cold Spring Harbor

4 vehicles I've owned:
1. a bike
2. a Datsun Cherry
3. a Nissan Sunny
4. a Nissan Micra

a conservative royal?

According to the online "What kind of princess are you? " quiz I am :


The Traditional Princess

You are generous, graceful, and practical with both
feet planted firmly on the ground. You tend to
be a little on the old-fashioned side. You
value home, hearth, and family life and love to
be of service to others.

Role Models: Snow White, Maid Marian

You are most likely to: Discover a hidden talent
for spinning straw into gold.

This suprises me a bit as I don't consider myself traditional. Having said that I hate the idea of being any sort of "Princess" - I have never pretended to be one - my childhood games were playing teacher or lover, or just acting/ singing/ dancing about. So bearing that in mind and considering the answers I gave - like my choice to dig the garden if the King and Queen left me alone for the day - I guess it's the best I could do to bring some realism to the role!!!

What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)
brought to you by Quizilla

go on then, have a guess.....

who's house is who's.... on Clare Sudbery's Through the Keyhole challenge.

There are 13 bloggers taking part including me.

Mike from Troubled Diva. He has TWO houses, and a Princess Diana Memorial Garden.

Gordon from Gordon McLean. He lives in Scotland, and is good at computers and stuff.

Pen from A Typical Pen. She's into flowers.

Ruth from Meanwhile Here In France. She's a musician who lives in the French countryside, with her painter husband.

Zinnia from Real E Fun, who directs funerals at a mystery location.

Rob from Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, who also lives in Scotland, and is a musician in his spare time.

Vitriolica from Unkempt Women, who lives, and indeed draws/paints, in Portugal with two small children and a professor.

Zoe from My Boyfriend is a Twat. She lives in Belgium. With newts. And a twat.

Clair from Merialc.com: Life in Reverse, who takes lots of great photos and does things backward.

Clare from Boob Pencil, who has a thing about breasts.

Lisa from Rullsenberg Rules, who gobbles up all aspects of culture and lives with a cloud.

Joe from Joe in and around Las Vegas, who lives in Las Vegas. Oh no, was that a secret? Sorry.

We have each provided some pictures and all you have to do is say which pics belong to which blogger. Please submit your answers in the comments box for the post on Clare's site.

I am trying and I haven't got much of clue!

through the bloghole

Clare Sudbery is doing a fun thing next Tuesday - she is going to publish lots of photos that bloggers have sent in of the inside of their homes and you have to guess who's house is who's.
I have sent her 2, so take a look next week. She came up with idea a couple of weeks ago and asked me to take part..... what a privilege!!!!!!

20 random facts about me...

thanks to tp for tagging me....

20 random facts about me

1. This is the first time I have been tagged and I am so excited. I was hoping someone would tag me soon.

2. I started to play the piano accordion earlier this year.

3. I love Yes Minister!

4. I have an obsession/ compulsion about the order in which mugs are stacked in the cupboard.

5. My favourite flower used to be the iris. Now I’m not sure. Maybe Japanese anemone. Maybe aquilegia (columbine). Maybe neither.

6. I was a HUGE fan of Michael Crawford as a teenager as part of my all consuming love of musical theatre. (blush)

7. I have two cats.

8. My first cat was named Oliver and I used to call him “you silly old scallywag pussycat”.

9. I have a dilemma about my hair. I have it being bleached and it costs £50 a time to have it bleached again. It’s a lot of money. It seems excessive to spend that on my looks.

10. I am an atheist.

11. I failed my O level maths twice and finally passed CSE when I was doing my A levels.

12. I love singing but I don’t think anyone will want to hear me sing.

13. I trained as a primary school teacher.

14. My favourite colour is purple.

15. I have 4 step siblings.

16. Two of them are named Judith.

17. I was brought up as a Methodist.

18. My other blog is atypicalpen

19. I hate knowing that the world is unfair and there is very little I can do about it. It's one of the main things that makes me depressed.

20. I am a quarter Welsh.

I now tag Winter Woods, BirdyChirp, Twisty Faster, Anna and Simon.

work life balance on way to being restored....

I am feeling the benefit of -
a) being off work again for a week
b) going to T'ai Chi once a week (been twice so far)
c) doing some Molly dancing (a style of Morris dancing) and accordion playing once a week (been three times now) with Black Dog Molly
d) eating dark chocolate covered ricecakes (what I am addicted to and had run out of and now have 2 wholesale boxes of )
e) having some long lie-ins
f) knowing that we are off to Cornwall soon...
g) knowing that my manager is ok about me putting in an application to go down to 4 days a week - she thinks we can make it happen and is willing to discuss how....

I think my ideal would be working a 3 day week with time to do more unpaid work getting froom up and running and helping support the development of Write-on. I could also use the time to perhaps do some sessional University teaching on regeneration/ community development/ social studies/ advice work/ counselling eventually, if I could get some hours.

I am a late bird, not an early one - and as a result am seen as lazy and a misfit. Why is the standard working day 9-5? Most people seem to prefer either 8-4 or maybe even 7-3, or a minority of us who prefer 10-6, 11-7 or even 12-8. I really need a job that is based around a working day that runs from 11am to 7pm - those are my natural peak hours.

But going down to 4 days will be a good start and should help me build up my energy levels and resilience.

My doctor told me that the dizziness I've been getting is probably not a balance/ inner ear problem. It could have been a virus thingy. It also could be a side effect of the St John's Wort. So, as I am no longer depressed I have stopped taking it and will wait and see how I feel.
I am not going to know if the dizziness was related to it if I am not dizzy again. But if I am dizzy again I will know it was not due to the medication. A bit of detective work will be needed to see what the cause is. I will probably assume it's fatigue/ stress.

The 4 day a week thing is an interesting one......
it feels like such a luxury. I am so lucky that I can afford it.

I also have struggled to get my head sorted about being a part-time worker - I had always imagined myself working full-time and climbing up the career ladder. I have now realised that I have a choice and life isn't all about career. I need to feel like I am influencing decisions that affect the bigger picture - the way services are delivered, the priorities that are set in public service, the tackling of the causes of inequalities and prevention/ reduction of them. I assumed this meant I had to be managing big budgets or lots of people or writing high level strategies.
I actually don't like do those things and have started to feel like my contribution to those things will not effect the sort of changes I want to see. I have come full circle back to the belief that is it grassroots social action that can make the biggest impact.

T and I were talking about this yesterday (again - it's a common topic in our home) and we are of the view that due to the lack of clear political principles all that government departments can do is "manage" - and that means create change to structures and systems and move people around a bit. The work that gets done is always the same. The effect on the people who are served by the services (local govt and nhs) is at best no change, at worst severe disruption to services during the upheaval and changes in personnel with reduction in trust.

For example - the cycle that the library service has gone through in the last 10 years is 5 changes of deparment each costing thousands in public money to re-brand, re-structure re-organise internally, with less to spend on changing the outfacing service.

The nhs has gone from a Family Health Service Authority monitoring the work of independent GPs, to a Health Authority, then with fund holding powers passed to GPs as individuals and groups. After that GPs formed Primary Care Groups, and then became Trusts if they were big enough. Those Trusts were told they were too small and some had to merge and the Health Authorities role shrank and so they also merged to cover larger regions. Now there is a another round of mergers and GPs will have to engage in practice based commissioning of care and services from next September. What goes around comes around.

The amount of time and money that is spent on this could be spent on managing stasis instead of managing change - and that would allow organisations to put efforts into building long-term meaningful relationships with their communities and "customers". But then the election campaigns would have nothing to put in their manifestos about changes to public services..... or is that just too cynical????

Also - back to the part-time working thing...... I have doubts about justifying it when again I am lucky enough to have a job that is not putting life and limb at risk every day. Nor is it illegal - unlike the work that some people are forced to do - having read this Guardian article about women trafficked into the sex trade, I almost cannot imagine a worse way to be made to earn money. Women and girls as young as 10 are encouraged to come to Western Europe to make money and once here are raped until they become submissive and then forced to work as prostitutes and pay their "debt" - the "cost" of bringing them to the country - back to their "owner".

As Bianca Jagger writes -
"On one level, the UK government recognises the problem. A few years ago, Home Office research estimated that 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 1998 in order to be forcibly prostituted. The expert consensus is that the scale has significantly increased since then. There are now certainly thousands of women and girls trapped in a horror-filled existence. Desperately poor women and girls are typically stripped of their passports and other documents by their new "employers", and taken to secure flats and beaten and raped by their "owners" to "break them in". After that, it's a soul-destroying treadmill of dehumanising servitude, providing sex for 20 to 30 men a day, according to the Metropolitan police.

Scared and abused... many lacking a good command of the language, and told by their traffickers that what they are doing is illegal and could lead to imprisonment, they are truly caught in a web. Even if they escape the imprisonment of their owners, the route home is often barred anyway, as traffickers will threaten to expose them to shame there or even threaten their lives or the lives of their families. Britain needs to stop treating women forced into prostitution as criminals. They are automatically criminalised.
In May, a new European treaty established fresh guidelines for this. The European Convention Against Trafficking, the world's first international law specifically for protecting trafficked people's rights, puts victims first. Organisations such as Amnesty International are backing the convention and calling on the UK to sign up to it, but the government is stalling. Why, when Home Office minister Paul Goggins has said that the government "fully supports" the aims of the convention? Could it be that the government is afraid of criticism from anti-immigration lobbyists that the convention extends rights to women and girls who could fabricate a story of sexual slavery to gain access to the country? You could be forgiven for thinking that protecting some of the world's most terrorised and vulnerable people ought to cancel out these peripheral concerns."

free association 4

1. Crave:: dark choc rice cakes
   
2. Whole package:: dark choc rice cakes
   
3. Roommates:: smell
   
4. 5:30:: Newsround
   
5. Lesbian:: love
   
6. Poignant:: robin song
   
7. Hurtful:: words
   
8. You and I:: together
   
9. Grateful:: hug
   
10. Giggle:: friends
    
    
    

a hairshirt

It's a bit worrying.... perhaps I should take note..... even though it's meant to be lighthearted.....and it's exaggerated......

apparently I am a -

Hairshirt

Excuse us, could you just put down that hammer for a minute and listen. You’re so busy getting things done you rarely take any time out just to relax. In fact, you’ve probably forgotten how to relax. That’s because you’re so anxious to prove that it’s possible to lead a good and moral life without religion that you have built a strict and forbidding creed all of your own.

You keep a compost heap, cycle to the bottle bank, invest in ethical schemes only and the list of countries you won’t buy from is longer than the washing line for your baby’s towelling nappies. You admire uncompromising self–sacrificers like Aung San Suu Kyi and Che Guevara, and would have liked the chance to be incarcerated for your principles like Diderot or Nelson Mandela.

You would never cheat on your partner, drink and drive, accept bribes or touch drugs. You never waste money though you give lots to charity. Living a good life? You’re a model to us all. But it wouldn’t hurt you to try a little happiness once in a while. Loosen up.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

memes

I like memes

free association seems pointless

and so does this one - Oneword

but I like them both....


...find more memes here

free association 3

1. Less filling:: pie
   
2. Glue:: sticky
   
3. Surprise me:: flowers
   
4. Model:: anorexia
   
5. Fee:: waive
   
6. Microphone:: testing
   
7. Choices:: voices
   
8. To the bone:: cut
   
9. Run!:: home
   
10. Appeal:: TV
    

cultural creative

is apparently what I am - according to the quiz asking "What is your world view?"
I actually did not understand some of the statements I had to respond to... but here is my score anyway.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 88% Postmodernist 88% Materialist 63% Existentialist 50% Idealist 38% Modernist 31% Romanticist 31% Fundamentalist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

I answered yes too all the questions on the US website Cultural Creatives questionnaire.

That worried me as I don't like to think I completely conform to something I've never heard of before! I serached for a UK link and found Ethical Matters description......and when I found it - I read this -

"right now you are quite likely sighing 'oh, no not another bloody stereotype' this may be because cultural creatives hate to be put in to boxes. While wanting to refrain from doing this there are some fascinating facts that we feel duty bound to tell you about."

We disagree with some of what Mr. Ray is saying as we find people with the interests proported to be of cultural creatives are often politically active - this political with the small p - concerned with their community, with environmental destruction, with globalisation - what cultural creatives are not are new age hippies. Although they cannot be discerned from any particular demographic group - Cultural Creatives come from all walks of life from accountants to acupuncturists, supermarket buyers to computer consultants and lawyers and doctors to midwives and gardeners - the overriding factor is that they tend to be involved in, or care intensely, about environmentalism, globalisation, peace, social justice, holistic health, civil rights and new spirituality. Many cultural creatives have dabbled in or are committed to self-development and growth; many would like nothing else but to leave the rat race to lead a more sustainable life. While they may not be lucky enough to do this they want to make difference in what they do right now.

Cultural Creatives are:
Interested in Ecological Sustainability Concerned with global ecology
Concerned with Women's Issues
Interested in or use alternative health care
Have a social conscience Are interested in a spiritual dimension
Are often information junkies - prefer print and radio to television
Ethical and careful consumers making value based purchases.

Obviously these are sweeping generalisations, however what distinguishes us nice Cultural Creative types are the following values and tendencies. Cultural Creatives want to invest ethically, they work hard to make their lives less dependent on unsustainable and unethical systems - to simplify their lives. They are often unhappy with the party political systems seeing flaws in both the left and the right while being politically active. Surprisingly, given their informed worldview they are often optimistic about the future while distrustful of the media. They often have finances and spending under control and are not concerned about overspending, disdaining advertising and can be fanatical recyclers. They tend to eat organic foods and use alternative medicine. Ultimately Cultural Creatives want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life for themselves, their dear ones and the world and at the same time work on self knowledge and increasing wisdom. "

So that's me labelled well and truly.....

I like the sound of it anyway so that's a good start!

I wonder how I got the 25% fundamentalist score - scary!!

little compulsions

Following on from the wonderful little.red.boat telling us all about her cute weird behaviour and worrying about people thinking she is scary - here are my little compulsions....

toilet rolls must be hung so the loose end is at the front - I sometimes change other people's round...

MUGS - interested that so many other people worry about mugs and glasses and plates and bowls and cutlery too - as soon as I open the cupboard door and discover someone else has put the clean crocks away WRONG I have to sort them out so they are RIGHT (i.e. put away my way).

Dishwasher or sink - wherever the dirty things are they have to be stacked properly - in the dishwasher this is about fitting the maximum number of items in. And yes they have to be washed in the right order if washed by hand - cleanest things (i.e. glasses) first, dirtiest things (i.e. pans) last.

I always leave my desk at work very neat and tidy at the end of the day/ if I go out. This means things in neat piles according to what day is needs to be done on - filed in trays, nothing on the main desk apart from PC, keyboard, mouse mat, drinks mat, phone message book, phone, pen tidy, notepaper and stapler.

I had my own room at home - a condition of moving in together - but it is now a shared room - but still when I go in there things have to be just so.....

CDs/DVDs must be in the case they came with!!! Preferably in genre order all those by the same artist together. CDs were filed in genre and then alpabetically within genre but most are now just A-Z as the genres are blurry. Folk is still all in it's own little corner - British A-Z and US A-Z.

Books - A-Z of course if fiction. Or by genre....

Chairs must be tucked under the dining table when not in use.

Table mats must be stacked - in the right order - when not in use.

Coathangers must all face the same way when the clothes are hung up. Spare coathangers should sorted into separate bags according to category (and metal hangers- the horrible bendy wiry smelly ones should be in hell where they belong!).

Window key has to be in the front right hand corner of the windowsill so I know where it is when I want it.

I have to have a dessert spoon to eat my yoghurt/ pudding with. T has to have a teaspoon...weird.

Keys are kept in the drawer not on the side - how many times do I have to tell you!

and finally for now - I am always very disturbed by having unpaired socks - I have been known to search the house over and over to find the missing sock and some socks are still missing and I miss them a lot and will celebrate should they ever return........

Just to note - as a child my mother used to say I had St Vita's dance as I used to have to take an even number of steps if I walked anywhere which led to me doing a little extra step on the spot a lot. Don't do that anymore.

I am certain that we all have things we do. We just pretend we don't.

free association 3

I find this more difficult each time. The TV is on and that is a distraction, but here it is anyway...

1. Girlfriends:: love
   
2. Here to stay:: earth
   
3. Call me:: shortly
   
4. Frustrated:: sex
   
5. Public school:: yuppie
   
6. Glitch:: computer
   
7. Cheese:: chives
   
8. Director:: theatre
   
9. Pivotal:: image
   
10. Exclusive:: design