Stress is the name of the game.....

I love living on my own. I don't feel so crowded. I can choose when I see people and when I stay in and sulk! I can choose what I want to eat and plan meals according to what I've bought. I can go to bed when I want, be as loud as I want without thinking there's people in bed. Do the jobs that need doing as I want to do them and stress without other's becomming involved. Basically I'm a nightmare to live with and will no doubt die an old spinster surrounded by no one- what can I say, I like my space. HOWEVER after the last week I've had I am well and truly ready for the return of the family! Martyn's been in Lourdes, Rob in Barlick and Wales and Mum, Dad and Simon in Menorca. I however have been at the Owls! Last week I worked 12 shifts. It was hard work, but more than do-able. What didn't help matters was that the toilet started leaking, then all the water in the house stopped working. The car stopped working and wouldn't let me into it. My purse was inside the car and there was no food in the house. The house phones stopped working (I'd only just got my new mobile set up just in time a couple of days earlier). The Cable cut out on the tv. Most of the flowers are dead because of the heat wave despite the fact I've been watering them regularly. The wedding I'd set up for at work on Saturday went horrifically, not helped by the fact I'd just nearly killed me and Martyn with reckless driving in a blazing row home before I went in and the cake they brought after I'd left collapsed and crashed before they left the church. I can barely walk as I have two large blisters on my feet from my work shoes. On my right hand my eczema has swollen right up from work, and is red and sore. I have taken two chunks out of my knuckle on my right hand and one on the side of my left hand. I have also sliced my thumb and grazed my thumb and two fingers on my right hand. Basically you name is and it's gone wrong this week. I've been up every night stressing and upset over various things until 2/3am every night and so am absolutely drained. I cannot wait for them to return and take a bit of this pressure off me so that I can have the energy to deal with the rest of it!

Hot, hot hot!

Working every night in a busy restaurant with no air con one could be forgiven for moaning a couple of times that the heat is a little uncomfortable. I've just seen a programme though that's given me complete permission to complain! I wondered if it was just that I'd done two months of -20C earlier this year but no it's true, Britain is actually melting! Record temperatures as shown in the chart from August 10th 2003 show that once we reach 30C we can't cope. Well the last month we've been between 30 and 35 I would say every day. July is statistically our hottest month and this has been the hottest July since records began in 1659. But everythings being affected. Trees and plants are dying, our coasts are getting new sealife, and new insects are arriving. Whilst our current systems are falling apart. Birds and badgers for instance can't get any food. And with a hosepipe ban in most of the country (not in Wigan thankfully!) the nation is trying to find a way to cope with the heat and accept it's gonna keep like this now with milder winters and hotter summers. And on that note I must go and face another horrendously busy night at work with every other customer telling me it's too hot to work...I wish they'd go down to the kitchens for two minutes let alone four hours!

muse: is it possible to control emotions?

I have spent a large proportion of these last few days wondering how possible it is to control your feelings and emotions. It all started very innocently this week driving back from home when i sang the words, 'these feelings inside me, are so much more than I can take', rather than 'are almost more than I can take' at the time I just smiled and thought interesting freudian slip there Maria, and so typical! But it really got me thinking. I've always been driven by emotions. I remember all too well leaving home at least once a week from the age of about 7 in a temper tantrum. And although you could have asked me any day in the last ten and a half weeks when I left Finland and I could have told you exactly when it was as it's one of the first things I think of in the morning and one of the last things before I go to bed I have been making a concerted effort to get on with my life and to try and not forget, but put aside the things that make me so upset and wishing I was back there. One of the things my Wigan crowd have noticed over the last three years is how, compared to a lot of our other friends at uni, we don't do anything by halves. We either don't do it or we throw our whole selves into it and either get destroyed in the process or learn valuable life lessons that we could have avoided had we been a little bit more cautious. But is that way so built into me now that I can't control these emotions and should just accept that I'm always going to blow things up to more than they really are and hiding them away doesn't solve anything, or, am I actually getting better at it as I grow older and learning how to deal with these fiery moods?? All I can say is be glad I've got eleven shifts this week and haven't had too much time to dwell on such things! :-)

Birthday Bash at the Mee residence

This last weekend I drove down to Suffolk for James' 21st. Amidst this summer heat wave which has been going on for far too long now, I had a very hot 11hour round trip in the car. But it was well worth driving to Jimmy's in the middle of nowhere to see everyone again. Although Jimmy got very drunk (as the picture shows!) and these pictures are stolen from a mate because I'd currently lost my camera and couldn't take any the night was great and was a really good opportunity before just about everyone starts their proper jobs (mostly down in London) in September.














In a moment of madness Tom decided he'd shave his beard off part way through the night (after a moment of madness
growing it and dying it in the alps). But he didn't just shave it off, he left the handlebars there. Then in an even greater moment of madness he made a bet with his new housemate that he could pull a fresher with it come October. I wonder how quickly it takes him to realise you don't bet with a Bajkowski because we never lose! I'm just loking forward to my two drinks that I get out of it later on this year :)

Busy Bee....

Ok, I know I've been useless at updating this recently. To be perfectly honest I just haven't had the energy to do it. When I have been at home I've either been too tired or lazy to find my camera and update photos etc. I've had a busy couple of weeks though and with the ridiculous heatwave it's been very hard work! After Birmingham last Wednesday big bro arrived home from his trip on Friday morning, Saturday we had all the family round to see him, Monday parents and little bro (who's not that little!) went to Menorca. On Monday afternoon I took Wayne out for his birthday to the cinema, Tuesday went shopping and nursed a very bad hangover with Jen, Wednesday met up with some people from high school I haven't seen in ages and today I dropped Martyn off to go to Lourdes and throughout all that I've worked every night and a couple of days inbetween there. I so wanted to crawl on that coach this morning and be smuggled away for 8 days- it's just what I need!
However what I did get was a number of quotes out of the film me and Wayne went to see (Superman Returns). Ignore the red cape bits and there's some interesting theological things in it...and I thought I wouldn't get anything out of the film!

• gods are selfish beings who fly around in red capes and don't share their powers with the rest of the world
• The universe is a large place and even if you're the last you're not alone.
• I see you've already met the munchkin! (my personal favourite ;-))
• [humans] can be a great people, they only lack the light to show them the way
• The world doesn't need a saviour
• You wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour, but every day I hear people crying for one.
• You will see your life through my eyes and my life will be seen through yours. The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son.

Meanwhile a film I watched the other night after work of which I can't remember the name:

• Never trust anyone who listens to the sound of music and is over the age of ten!

And out of my current book 'How far can you go?' by David Lodge, about a group of Catholic students in the 50's nad 60's dealing with being a Catholic in society and breaking all the rules:

• 'English Catholics have the worst of both worlds. No wonder the're so repressed'
• At some point in the nineteen-sixties, Hell disapeared. No one could say for certain when this happened. First it was there, then it wasn't.

Birmingham

Last Wednesday (12th July) I took the day off work and went down with my mum to Birmingham. One of Simon's brass bands had got through the regional stages to the Music for Youth National Finals. The band, playing a short selection of Gabrielli pieces and dressed in renaissance gear, wowed the judges earning them a 'highly commended' certificate at the end. There were 2 outstandings, and four highly commendeds out of all the bands competing and so they really did do very well. If I could work out how to put video's on this thing I would do but I'm working in half an hour so that will have to wait till later! What I do love though is that I can have very little contact with someone for months and yet 18years of friendship will always make everything immediately relaxed, fun and we can pick up exactly where we left off. Was great to spenda few hours with David :-)


Just a glimpse of the wonderful world of Birmingham. One can't but help wondering how life would have been different if I had taken that place at the university three years ago and decided to ignore Durham completely after everything...Gorgeous city and with David we were able to see the main highlights of it including the great Symphony Hall which was just stunning! Hearing David talking about playing there with the CBSYO (with his Finnish conductor!!!!)I was reminded of how much I did used to love playing and how much I miss it.

Big News!!

I was watching the news today and the BBC have just had a huge meeting reviewing their last year. They were talking about stars getting paid too much or being too controversial (such as Jonathan Ross...in both accounts there!) and what they need to change to make it better for the nation. One thing they picked up on was the variety in News Reports, such as that Wales is hardly ever mentioned and yet makes up a large proportion of the United Kingdom. The country seems to be relatively ignored most of the time. So with this in mind of making the news relevant and important the very next article was on the loss to Eastenders at the announcement of Wendy Richardson's departure having played Pauline Fowler for over two decades. The BBC have said 'As far as Mr Hughes is concerned, though, anything less than a dramatic exit will be a disservice to both Pauline and the woman who plays her. "To do justice to the character, it would be best if she died," he tells the BBC News . website. Big news for Eastenders yes, but can anyone else see the irony in this reaching national news, particularly after the coverage before it...

More Quotes...

Just finished reading a book last week called 'The Heartbreaker' by Susan Howatch. Maybe it's because I didn't realise until I'd finished it that it was the third in a trilogy but there was something about the book that unsettled me. It's about a gay prostitue who's loving life and doing well in it until one of his clients dies and he ends up wrapped up in this church who are trying to save his soul basically. I think I was too skeptical about the church and the book was too in-your-face-evangelical for me. But it provided a few quotes for me to ponder over:

• 'I think this is one of those cases where we have to acknowledge the conventional rules and then summon the courage to step outside them. My father used to say that only by wholeheartedly embracing the monastic framework could a monk know when it was safe to step outside that framework in order to serve God in a situation where an orthodox response seemed inadequate'
• 'I know better than anyone else by this time that when you sup with the Devil you need more than just a long spoon to survive'
• 'The events of the trial reminded me of that famous saying attributed to Edmund Burke: "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".'
• 'Anything can become an idol, he says: a nation, a political party, a head of state- drink, drugs, food, football, rock music, pop stars-cars, boats, designer clothes- sex, exercise, loadsamoney- you name it. All these things may be good in themselvwes, but once they become and obsession you squander time and energy on illusions, your priorities get rearranged, your balanced lifestyle goes down the tubes and your true self gets stomped on. Or in other words, getting cut off from reality can make you physicaly, mentally and spiritually ill'.

In my opinion they forgot to include a religion amongst that list there but i'm just getting cynical in my old age. What I did find though was that in a hungover state earlier this week I decided to watch Bill Bailey's show 'Bewilderness' on DVD rather than read any more books on exorcisms, and my favourite quote of the week has to come from that

'I'm English, and therefore I crave disappointment'

How much more could you sum up a nation than like that?! :)

Chris' ordination

A little bit late I know...only a month and a half, but finally got round last night to checking out some things I needed to, and although over a month ago now I said I was too useless to get any pictures of Fr Christopher at his ordination, luckily the diocese weren't. More photos and the story from the day can be found on the diocesan website.

Give me my rose-tinted glasses back

I would say that I live in a nice part of the country. I love the north and where better to come from than Wigan, home of George Orwell, Sir Ian McKellen and the Verve. Where you grow up as a 'lad' or 'lass' but are usually addressed with 'y'alreet luv'. Wonderful. Yet since I've been home it's been a bit alien to me. The accent came back quickly enough but the way of life was a bit...rough for me. I've never really considered Wigan as a rough place. Liverpool- yes, Manchester- yes, even areas of Wigan such as Leigh, Hindley, Ince, Skelmersdale. But not Standish or the centre of Wigan itself. So you can imagine my despair this week that I've had things stolen from me on three occassions. Each completely separate situations and each one more frustrating and petty than the last. Maybe it's just coincidence and bad things come in threes (and all that jazz) or maybe I just grew up in the area in rose-tinted glasses and 10months away in a completely safe city has made me realise the pits in which I grew up in. But if that is the case what happens next? Do I just slip back into the roughian way of life and no longer notice or will I always be aware now and feel out of place in the place I should feel is home more than anywhere else in the world?? I'm hoping it was just a bad week that is ready to be forgotten...

Gaz's party and musings on life

On Saturday night I went to the Owls on my night off...I know I must be mad! But it was for a welcome home party/late 21st for Gareth who's been in California studying for the last academic year. Despite trying to get in touch with numerous people we were friends with at college only a selection of the hard core group managed to make it on the actual night- a sad reality that even friends from three years ago now are impossible to get together for one night. It was a good night and good to see the others again. But ever since my mind's been plagued with life for us all now. We were reminsicing about results night for A levels 3 years ago. An awesome night (even if I hadn't got into the uni I wanted and hadn't got the grades I needed)- and one none of us will ever forget, full of talk of the future and how exciting it was. And here we are 3 years later, 2 graduates and 2 finalists, all single and no jobs. The future looks a lot less promising to all of us. The two graduates can't get a job and the two of us as finalists have no clue what the next 12 months will bring but it doesn't look promising. We're all between 10 and 15 thousand pounds in debt and are overqualified for most jobs whilst not having enough experience for the rest of them because we've been in education rather than out getting the hands on experience. The stories the same one I've heard from about 85% of my friends who have finished this time. Most jobless or forced into MA's to put them another £6,000 in debt. My CV looks amazing, I have good grades, way too much extra-curricular material, and a years study abroad, and yet I'm wondering if it's actually going to get me any further on. Looking back if we'd stayed in Wigan in the mind set we had back then, at least 2 of us would now be married, we'd have steady jobs and we'd be fairly content (we imagine), instead we've all grown as people, moved away, we can't hold down relationships, we can't find a job and we're thousands of pounds in debt...makes you wonder if it's really worth it all. Despite this cloud hanging over all of us we're all in good health and hoping to meet up in August with a couple of others from the old group providing those of us with part-time jobs are fortunate to get a night off, so we can't complain too much but must look to the future...and hope!Hope, pray and hope some more (for those of us with a shred of faith left!)

me, David and Jenna

no party complete without YMCA- go for it boys