On not being girly enough

I’m rubbish at being a girl sometimes. I can’t do anything more than a ponytail, I don’t experiment with makeup and different brushes and that. I never grew up with that as a priority. I try and get the bathroom spotless and end up crying in a heap as a failure to all womankind. Housework aside, this post is about appearance, and how my lack of awareness and fear of trying means I play it safe, every time.

This the best I can do, when I have to, it was a friends wedding last September, a cruise and buffet on the Thames. Curled with the wavers. I also wore this a variation of this for another friends 30th birthday in Cambridge, a random night out with the girls in Birmingham, dinner when my Mom met my Danielote’s parents… It covers a lot of options.

Long story short, I have a black tie dinner next Saturday, and I really don’t think I can rock this look in a 5-star London hotel.  So I got myself on YouTube, searched high and low for easy hairstyles – because let’s face it, even the simplest of styles is going to be more impressive than curling with the wavers. There are so many videos out there that show you how to do things in other people’s hair, then I found a great little channel, Luxy Hair :

Two sisters from Azerbaijan that moved to Canada, give really easy instructions for really easy styles, in such a beautiful accent.

I’m going for one of their easy ones, I spent about three hours this afternoon watching and playing with my hair, I did have to go out to the local Boots to buy supplies, but all in all, I’m going to go for one of their looks, the simple Easy Everyday Updo. Three hours of practice and I’ve nearly got it! That confirms it though, I am rubbish at being a girl sometimes. Put me at the football though and I feel too girly, maybe it’s a good balance. Or maybe I’m just me, my appearance is not my number one top priority, but I do like new clothes, I will keep going at my hair until I’m happy, and if my make up’s a bit off then I’ll take it off and start again.

Maybe it’s simplicity. I keep things simple, classic that I know looks acceptable and run with it. Cleaning the bathroom is not simple – I’m waiting on a Groupon for a cleaner.

 

An Alternative NFL

My handovers are done, I have two days left – that they aren’t paying me for! So, let the faffing commence! I started this afternoon on UrbanDictionary.com ::

So that’s who you are Joe Flacco! Firstly, why do sports stars insist on endorsing junk food? I don’t think it’s so prevalent in the UK though. Eat this pizza and you too could win the Super Bowl? No. Secondly, I guess uni-brow is american for mono-brow, I’ll save having a look at that bad boy for a later post. What grabs me here, is sleeping with all these women being bad for his image, I guess America is not yet familiar with The Sun Newspaper!

Mark Sanchez I don’t even know whether you are still playing or what, but this entry made me laugh! That completion percentage either means he throws like a little girl, or he can’t even see the ball to catch it, it’s not cricket guys, the ball is big… Although, saying that, I tried at New Years in Mexico to throw an american football and seriously couldn’t do it! More practice is definitely needed! And how on earth do you catch it? I guess it’s a cultural thing though, for me it’s more natural to throw it side-ways with two hands!

Brilliant, clearly my blog is getting though to people. Unfortunately in the UK we don’t get the same adverts, and it’s usually on BBC, so no adverts at all – but crappy presenters. So we watched it on Sky, maybe next year we can find a stream on the internet too. Like we did for the Olympics when we had two computers and one telly watching UK and Mexico in three different sports!

The book I can’t put down

Not a lot of people read books for study and fall in love with them. Like, I’m reading it because I have to. But this one really spoke to me. La Plaça del Diamant by Mercé Rodoreda. Ok, I’ve read it cover to cover twice, but that’s saying something, I had to read it the first time as part of my Catalan course at uni, but the second time was also for study – but by choice.

The novel follows a woman at three stages in her life, reflecting events in Spain at the time. Before the war, Natlàlia is young and naïve, marrying Quimet because – well why not! They have children and  struggle, but life remains quite calm until the Doves arrive in the house. Quimet buys one or two, which after he goes to war turns into a flock that takes over Colometa’s life. She sinks into a depression so low that she takes steps to end it all, until a grocer is nice to her. I can’t remember how she gets rid of the doves, but as the war ends, Quimet having died in battle, life gets brighter. She marries the grocer, and calls herself Senyora Natàlia again. She finds herself despite all that struggle.

An amazing summary and review of it lies here at Kinna Reads, please have a look : http://kinnareads.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/the-time-of-the-doves-merce-rodoreda/

We went to Barcelona for my 30^th Birthday, I wanted to go to La Plaça del Diamant – this is how much I love this book!

 

Last Day At Work = T-7 days

occupational preoccupations.

Not that I’m excited, you know… But these last two weeks have been full of running around trying to wrap things up neatly ready for leaving and entering the big wide world of Export. Hold on, I’m already in Export! I’m on the manufacturing side, all I care about here is that containers leave factories on time and arrive with the customer on time. This will be new, the other side – I’ll be the middleman.

I have one week left, which I plan to tidy up my desk, my cupboards and my computer. I’ll also finish off any projects I need to sort out any issues that can be sorted out.

But why? Will they appreciate it? The girl taking over from me will, but will management? Will they look back and say “Yeah, Katherine did a good job of making sure she starts on a level playing field”? Of course not. It’s a peculiar company, maybe one day I’ll write about that, my lips must remain sealed at the moment – at least for 7 working days!

Trains and Afghanistan

Summer 2003 : I got on the train and it was fine, I knew I had about three hours to Ely, so I read my book, I think it was one of Philip Pullman’s trilogy – before the films were even a glint in the producers eye! I was looking forward to the 50 minutes I had at Ely before my next train too, I loved to sit and read in those days. There was an Arab-looking man sitting opposite me, carried on reading.

About 10 minutes before Ely he started to ask me about a phone card he had, whether you have to dial another number to activate it. I had a look and said “Yes, this one should do it”. We get off and he follows, asking me for the next train to somewhere, I’m not sure where, but it was the same as mine. The Station Master hears, and asks me to look after him, I guess he’s a regular on that route. We sit down and he tells me he’s an asylum seeker, and shows me his papers. He’s going to work at Felixtowe in a warehouse, but goes to Peterborough for the markets.

He’s got a family in Afghanistan, a wife and two daughters, “one five o’clock, one eight o’clock”.

He doesn’t earn much money, but everything he has he sends to his family. He tells me that they are scared and want to come but he can’t do it until he’s settled here. We get on the train and he sits with me, we don’t talk because I am reading, I leave the train and say good bye. I wonder what happened, whether he managed to do it, I hope he’s happy with his family here.

It’s nothing spectacular, it didn’t save lives, but this lovely man stays with me forever.

Patriots in Support of Boston Marathon Victims

Broncos 2013 Schedule

Here we say fixtures, in the US they say schedule (they also say it like skedual, not shedul). Anyway, here is the blog that alerted me to the new schedule, released on Thursday* : Broncos 2013 Schedule.

These look like Eastern Time, ie., New York, -4 hours from here. So the 1pm games are at 5pm, the 4pm ones are at 8pm for us, those 8:30pm games are definitely past my bedtime for a Sunday. Doesn’t look like Sky have put together their listings yet, so not sure how many of these games we can actually watch – so we might be internetting it a bit. Oh, on NFL.com, I think you can pay to follow your team, but only watch live, so still doesn’t help us much.

The standout fixture is obviously the first one, against those bastard Ravens. Daniel’s opinion :: “In theory Katherincita it looks like an easy  schedule.”

* Guide Leaders training, Car problems, Bank problems, and currently suffering a small hangover.