Pictures are going up on flickr. Give me time to get them back into posts; I'm working through the old posts. After those are done, new pictures will go up. Meantime, if you want you can click on the sidebar widget to see them on the flickr site.
A Home in the Forest
This is an article written by Jasmine Saville, aka one quarter of the Wales Hobbit House family!
Different Topic:
Bustin' out Baby's Nat talks about the Australian government's Maternity Services Review. Her analysis is spot on.
Nat, hallelujah to everything you just said. I like what comes out when you get riled. ;)
Ilithyia Inspired's Sarah on the Australian Maternity Services Review.
Sarah always has great things to say on this topic...I guess that's why she's a doula. Anyway, she very concisely hits the nail on the head. I'm sure she'll keep updating as the issue progresses so if you're interested keep checking back.
So, today I was going to (finally) start getting pictures up on flickr. And then flickr had a panic attack and removed my access to my account. Account still exists: I can't get in it. Sigh.
Anyway, emailed flickr to sort it out, hopefully they respond because I want that username and URL.
I'm being cautiously optimistic and hoping they respond within a few business days, but as you may know, flickr is owned by yahoo and these big web-based corporations are notoriously bad at customer service. I realize that this begs the question, why do you keep using them then? Answer: I'm stubborn. Anyway, cross your fingers for me.
Perhaps I should just take this as a sign that the universe does not want pictures on this blog.
Update: HAHA! I fixed it! Take that yahoo, I totally outsmarted you just now. Anyway, I'm off to visit a friend, but, now that I can get into my account, pics forthcoming, woo!
Update the Second: The flickr people wrote back! Already! This is me being shocked. Anyway, I already fixed it so it doesn't matter but I'm impressed.
Dear TV Licensing Dudes,
Do you realize who you're sending threatening letters to? I mean do you? I'll make it easy on you and just tell you, okay. You're sending these letters to someone who routinely says things like, "income taxes should be higher," and, "communism would be fucking awesome if only it wasn't based on, oh, I dunno, the inherent goodness of people," and, "publicly owned information that is privately disseminated is not only a conflict of interest, it's just plain asinine."
ALRIGHT, TV DUDES, DO YOU GET IT?! I SUPPORT PUBLICLY FUNDED INFORMATION NETWORKS. I think the BBC is rad, I think Canada's CBC is rad (in theory), I would happily pay your TV license fee, in fact, I'd pay it early, if only I had a TV.
GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS, WE DO NOT OWN A TELEVISION! OKAY!!!!! Yes, it is in fact a possibility, as inconceivable as it appears to seem to you, that someone has absolutely no interesting in watching a stupid box of moving pictures. I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH MY LIFE, LIKE, I DUNNO, HAVE REAL RELATIONSHIPS. IN REALITY. WITH REAL PEOPLE. WHO EXIST. IN REAL LIFE.
Excuse me for a minute:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There, I feel better now.
Look, dudes, why don't you go piss off someone who is actually lying, because I'm about to go all Carrie on your asses in about five seconds.
And I might just be back to post more on this later, don't think I'm done with you yet.
Love,
Amber (who hates you)
So, should you ever find yourself in the UK and you're obsessed with shopping like me--which is really kind of antithetical to my whole "less is more" attitude, but no bother--then you must go to all of these places.
Do it and just try not to spend everything in your bank account. I dare you. When I go I leave the credit card at home because I can't trust myself, it's all really that good.
Jewelry & Accessories:
Accessorize
Clothing:
Monsoon (if you're a little web-savvy you'll notice Monsoon and Accessorize are owned by the same company)
Crew
River Island
Next
House of Fraser
New Look
Shoes:
Barratts
You're welcome.
Further to the link I posted yesterday, check out what Melinda, of One Green Generation, has to say on "Redefining Normal".
Here are a few excerpts from Redefining Normal:
"We have learned since we were wee tots that we are supposed to want more, want better, want now now now. And usually, we can have what we want… so we do...The power of the here and now, of the signage, the advertising, the glitz, and the frenzy, says we should do it now Now NOW! We should buy, we should spend, we should get that house spic and span with harsh chemicals that kill all those germs, we should send our wools to the cleaners and put our delicates on the low laundry cycle and then iron to rid ourselves of wrinkles, we should use this product for dandruff, and that product for gum disease, the children need these toys so they aren’t singled out as different, the lawn must remain lush and green because that’s the American dream, we must have the latest technology or we are missing out on life, must buy this, must do that, must go now Now NOW!!"
"Will lots of little spending here and there eat away at your savings, or increase what you have on your credit card, so that you are always in debt? This is not about guilt, it’s about staying true to who you are and who you want to become."
"Why are we as a society led into a pattern of doing things that harm ourselves, other people, our financial well-being, and the planet as a whole? I don’t know. It probably has a lot to do with corporations wanting to make a profit, and inundating us with advertising that makes us want their products. It also probably has to do with a history of impoverished, malnourished people who wanted more in order to survive, and then we just got onto that train and didn’t stop when we were satiated. And it probably has to do with an economic and political system that revolves around us buying things in order to keep the economy afloat - just because it has been that way for a long time, but not because it can’t change...When we make decisions about buying, selling, and overall living, we must take into account the quadruple bottom line:
* People (social impact),
* Planet (environmental impact),
* Profit (financial impact), and
* Personal (self impact).
Don’t buy things that will hurt you. Don’t buy things that will hurt others. Don’t buy things that will hurt the planet. And don’t buy things that will set you back financially unless it helps you, others, or the planet."
And is one from Redefining Normal, Part 2:
"Why do we stop asking why? Because it’s easier to accept the status quo? Because we want to be accepted, and to be accepted we must be considered “normal”?
But where has normal got us?
We’re in danger of irreversibly destroying our planet due to climate change. We’re not coming up with many solutions for a predicament in the not too distant future when we run out of cheap oil and natural gas. We’ve killed off innumerable species. We’ve obliterated forests, we’ve poisoned our food supplies, we’ve even managed to destroy a whole lot of our own cultures and peoples.
So maybe we should redefine normal. Don’t you think? Maybe we should start asking why, and come up with some better answers!"
Read them now. She says good things. Smart girl, that Melinda.
We got back today, big update coming, but right now I get to do laundry and clean the house because it is a huge mess.
Buuuuut, I just wanted to pass along this great blog that I found last week.
One Green Generation is full of awesome reading, so check it out.
Most of the people we're around on a daily basis (both at home and here) have been through some kind of post-secondary education, be it university, college, night school, what have you.
Most of the people in our families though, have not, and while they are happy that we went to university (as in, they're glad we did what we wanted to do and we enjoyed ourselves), many of them have asked why we did it.
Paying to work instead of being paid to work is a foreign concept to those who haven't been through this type of "formal education". I can't think of any other circumstances where this happens routinely and overtly, at least in our particular culture. If you can, leave me a comment.
I've had a few people go so far as to either imply or say flat out that I wasted my money, my time, and my youth (graduated at 22, a regular old woman) in a classroom when I could have been experiencing the "real world". To which my immediate thought is, "What, exactly, is the real world?" but that's beside the point.
I didn't go to school for the job I'd get after--have you seen what recent BAs make? I didn't care about that. I did it because I love it; the end result was irrelevant to me. A degree and a job is no reason to pursue formalized, institutional post-secondary education, in my personal opinion.
As to not experiencing the world, well, take a look at my post about the number of planes I've been on the in the last three years and you'll see that that's not true.
Anyway, this post was prompted by something I read on a message board recently. Someone asked members if they agreed or disagreed with the following three statements (which are typical stereotypes of formal education). These are my answers. What do you think?
Statement Number One: Higher (post-secondary) education teaches people to think critically.
My Answer: I believe post-secondary education has the capacity to help you to further the critical thinking skills you already have if you are willing and wanting to do so, but it's not the only way to go about it. I know university did this for me in a lot of ways (my degree is in critical theory), but it isn't the ideal way for everyone or the best way for everyone. I don't think it should be your only outlet for critical thinking either. It's one path.
Statement Number Two: Higher education broadens people's worldviews.
My Answer: Same as above, really. Going deeper though, I think it would be very difficult to not have your critical thinking skills improve in post-secondary education, but it wouldn't be all that difficult to actually narrow your worldview if you wanted to. Academia is a bubble. It's a very isolated and isolating environment that is filled with theoretical concepts that can be difficult to apply outside of itself. It can foster an almost elitist, to use the buzz word, attitude in people who are looking for validation for those kinds of feelings or ideas. It shelters as much as it enlightens and you have to be aware of that.
Statement Number Three: A degree proves that you finish what you start.
My Answer: I think the whole idea that one should always, without question, finish what they start is absolutely absurd on a variety of levels. I don't even know if I can adequately explain why I feel that way because, to me, that concept is so illogical that I can't even come up with an argument other than it makes absolutely no sense. As my second year modernity/post-modernity prof said, the myth of forward progress is just that.
In the broad sense, I greatly value education, but I could take or leave school. I choose institutional schooling in some cases because I'm aware of what I'm getting into and there are many aspects of it I enjoy. I guess you could say I respect education (including self-education), but I don't respect the mechanism by which it's recognized socially.
I had a huge crisis of conscience leading up to, during, and immediately after my undergraduate convocation. The spectacle of it left a very bad taste in my mouth, as I knew it would. I spent a long time actively hating school, but I've swung a little bit more into the middle now. I'm comfortable with my Bachelor of Arts label. I'm comfortable with the fact that I do want to do a Master's in the future. Why? I guess because I know why I'm doing it. The "what have I done?" feeling I had a year ago has been replaced with a very self-assured calm. I believe one hundred percent that my university experience has helped me to achieve that calm. Would I have gotten there without it, absolutely, but I value the impact it had. I'm confident the choice to graduate was the right one for me.
If you read this, please do leave a comment and let me know what your answers are. Did you do post-seconday school? Did you graduate? Why or why not? How do you feel about institutionalized education? Is there ever a time it's not appropriate, why? Everyone's thoughts are welcome.
Today is my birthday; I turned 23 years old. This is the first of hopefully many birthdays on the road. Happy birthday to me!
1) We're going to Dublin on Saturday! So excited, I'm going to drink Guinness in a real Irish pub while listening to real Irish music. (The fact that I hate beer is irrelevant.)
AND THEN(!!!!!!!!!)
2) In mid-March we're flying to Rome! And then we're going to take the train from Rome to Venice! And go on a gondola! And then take the train from Venice to Nice (South of France)! And spend three days walking around Medieval cities! And then we're going to take the train from Nice to Paris! And stay in a hotel! And then Brian is flying home to Montreal (sad). And then I'm taking the high-speed train from Paris to London! And then I'm coming back to boring old Woking.
3) And five weeks after all that I'm going to Eastern Europe for a month! Bucharest and Budapest and Prague and Transylvania here I come.
I'll start by saying I'm really not "anti" very much. What I am is pro informed consent. If you, through research, decide that eating nothing but McDonald's is what you want to do, please my guest. If you decide you want to get every vaccine in the book (chicken pox... I mean really?) go for it. If you decide you want to give every vaccine in the book to your kids on the typical schedule, well I have a bit of a harder time saying go for it, but I recognize that parents have to do what they feel is best in making choices for their children while they are young, and I recognize that it is a huge responsibility. So with some more prodding to research all sides of the issue I say, okay, go for it. (The contents of some of these things and the schedule at which they're given really freaks me out for a variety of reasons that I'd be happy to elaborate on if anyone wants to know.) I don't eat meat, but I'm not morally against it in and of itself. I am morally against factory farming and all that entails, but that's a whole other kettle of fish, as it were. If you want to eat meat I encourage you to research where your meat comes from, the types of lives the animals are living, and the way they are being handled and processed in the slaughter houses. If you do that and you decide that Con Agra is awesome then okay, I have no issues. There are a few things I am unequivocally against, but those are few and far between and I'm not preachy about those either, because really, what's the point? I make these choices myself too. I make the choice to use antiperspirant even though I am 100% aware that it is so, so bad. I have my reasons. It's not good for me, but it's the choice I make right now. It's an informed choice.
I take issue with people not making informed choices. It is very, very hard for me to process and accept. I don't care if you agree with me, but make your choices based on your own knowledge, not someone else's.
I don't believe in reactionary living. I'm not vegetarian because I don't like that you eat meat. I'm not wary of formal education for kids because you send your littles to public school. I don't avoid pharmaceutical medication because you take Tylenol everyday. I don't care that "my parents did xyz and I turned out fine." My choices aren't a reflection on your choices or your parents' choices, they are a reflection on me. I say this because I hear this a lot and well, I've had enough. If you know me in real life, don't say that to me unless you want an ear-full. Don't say that on my blog if you don't want your comment deleted. Consider yourself warned. The thing is, I'm so tired of hearing it and, unless I decide to throw all social convention to the wind, I can't always say that to who ever happens to be annoying me in the moment, so I'm writing in here instead. The shrink says it's not good to keep these things bottled up; makes me crazy, after all.
Lets all play nice and be friends.
So, with that in mind, there has been some news going around the blogosphere for the last week. It involves two recent studies that prove, once and for all, that almost half the time, foods containing high-fructose corn syrup also contain mercury. In my non-scientific, non-expert opinion I'd probably say that's a conservative estimate too. I've seen too much of the of this stuff over the last few years, in school and otherwise, to believe it's not.
"Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies."
Personally, I can't say I'm at all shocked by this, but there it is, nonetheless.
Now it's funny, I didn't except people to get this worked up. Granted most of the blogs I read are written by socially stunted freakshows like me, but even the mainstream media has picked this up and ran with it (gotta love a good scandal!). Let me guess though, you're sitting there shocked and appalled saying, "Well, why wouldn't people be worked up. People should be worked up." And I'd say, yeah, you're right. They should be. But lots of vaccines also contain mercury (thermisol) and you don't see the media going nuts over that. Instead they bring on expert after expert to spout the tried and true party line, "no study has ever proven that there are negative side-effects from having a toxic heavy metal mercury in vaccines." Okay, fine, but show me the (impartial) study that has proven there isn't? We'll do it until we prove it wrong, but we won't adequately try to prove it wrong. I dunno, I'm not a scientist, but I've spend enough time in academia to know that kind of reasoning doesn't fly. And oh, wait, who is funding these studies? Big Pharma, you say? Well we should all just blindly believe that unbiased source, sounds like a great plan.
Anyway, that was a tangent and a half, and this isn't even a post about medicine. My point, however, is that I find it really interesting that this HFCS thing has the most mainstream of the mainstream vowing to eat a cleaner diet...as they take their newborn to the doctor to get injected with cocktail after cocktail of known toxins. Does that make sense? Maybe I'm just dumb.
We've known for quite a while that HFCS (among other things commonly found in the typical Western diet) is just plain bad news. It's not good for you on so many levels; in fact, I'd call it toxic in and of itself. As in, without the mercury.
Brian and I try to eat well. To me, that means two things: 1) eat real food (the item itself or its components grew in nature, the item hasn't been preserved and bleached til the cows come home) and 2) eat clean food. We do not have the perfect diet--far from it, but we are very, very food conscious. We try to eat fresh, we try to eat local, and we try to eat seasonal. If we're eating nothing but strawberries in the UK in February, they certainly aren't being grown here, for example. Sustainability is important to us. We also try to cook from scratch a lot, and I just so happen to love cooking and am half-way decent at it, so that isn't hard.
We do not eat meat, rarely eat eggs (and when we do they're organic, free-range), we eat no diary except cheese (which we need to cut back on, we're eating way too much of it). We do not eat candy. I try to eat organic, fairtrade if possible, dark chocolate if I'm going to eat chocolate. We do not drink coffee. We drink herbal tea. I drink "regular" tea black, he drinks it with a tiny bit of cow's milk if he's not at home/soy milk isn't available and unbleached, untreated sugar. We eat very few baked goods other than bread, and if we bake ourselves we use organic, unbleached wholewheat flour and other organic, untreated ingredients (sugar, etc). We do not salt our food. We try to eat as few soy-based "fake meat" type products as possible, but there are a couple we really love. We very, very, very rarely drink juice, and when we do it's not artificially sweetened, coloured, or from concentrate. We very, very, very rarely drink pop or alcohol. Brian eats natural nut butters and natural maple syrup instead of the grocery store variety. Me, well I love me some Kraft and Aunt Jemima, reminds me of when I was a kid, but I do not it eat very often at all--couple times a year. We drink a lot of water. Obscene amounts of water.
We also do not own a freezer or a microwave and have not missed either in the least.
We don't find any of this limiting though. This is not a starvation diet. This is not a "you can't have this" diet. After transitioning to this way of eating and thinking about food over a few years we simply enjoy it. We don't miss the way we used to eat, not in the slightest. And no, eating this way isn't hard. We also don't stress if we eat nothing but pizza for a week. It isn't about berating ourselves, it's a lifestyle choice not a dogma. My very smart Uncle once told me something along the lines of that and he's right. Switch your thinking away from "I have to do xyz or I fail" and whatever you're trying to do will become infinitely easier.
The fact of the matter is that we eat entirely too much commercially prepared pizza, Chinese food, Mexican food, and Indian food. I need to meet some Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian grandmothers who can teach me how to cook. Anyone know any?
My point is, we try to eat well, but we are no where near perfect. At this point, the majority of our food also comes from grocery stores. This is also not okay with us for quite a few reasons, which I'll get into one day. There is always room for improvement.
Because of the fact that I know our diet isn't perfect, to be honest I could find ten things about it that I want to fix right now, I was expecting to find at least a few foods in our kitchen with HFCS in them. I was especially sure I'd find it in store-bought bread, ketchup, soy sauce, soy milk and soy-based meat "alternatives", and possibly in pre-packaged pasta and oatmeal.
I didn't find it in anything. Not even the ketchup, which is organic, but Heinz nonetheless. I'm not sure if we pick better food than I thought we did, or if HFCS just isn't used in the UK with the frequency that it is in North America. I'm happy about this though; maybe the fact that being vegetarian has turned me into a compulsive label-reader has paid off.
If you wouldn't hand-feed yourself or your kids the contents of an analog thermometer you may want to go through your kitchen and throw that nastiness out (and don't inject yourselves with it either).
If you want to read more on this I suggest this post by the Crunchy Domestic Goddess, herself. Thanks to Amy, for doing it once again.
Yep, one of those boring MeMes. I know I'm supposed to tag ten people now, but it's 4:30am and I have to get up in three hours (why am I awake?) so I'm not doing it. Maybe thing number one should be that I'm a slacker. But, then again, you already knew that.
Anyway, these are ten things about me that have not yet been revealed on this blog. Read and learn, people.
1. I value sustainability and semi self-sufficiency as much as I do travel and I hope our little family will get to that point in the next 5-10 years.
2. I have a massive, deep seated distrust for the medical establishment as an industry even though I've worked in it myself more than once and had great experiences.
3. I have eight piercings and am biding my time until I get more. I love them.
4. The bottom 5 or so inches of my hair is bright red right now.
5. Politically, I'm a flaming socialist.
6. I would be perfectly happy to stay home, grow my own food, homeschool my kids, take lots of pictures, and write and edit on the side mainly for fun, but also for profit if someone wants it. It has taken me years to be comfortable with the fact that I'm comfortable with that. I'm not motivated by career at all.
7. I adore photography.
8. I'm a big time loner and have very few people I would actually call friends. Have lots of great acquaintances though.
9. I am an extremely private person by nature; if I've volunteered anything that explains why I do things or how I tick it means I think you're special. I know that sounds odd coming from a blogger.
10. I wish I could play piano. I need to learn one day.
What are your ten things?
IT'S SNOWING! Yep, it's snowing in the South of England for the first time this winter. I'm having a snowball fight tomorrow. With anyone I happen to see. I've decided that their complacency is consent. (I know, I'm sorry!)
Brian made me a baby snowman. Cute.
If you didn't get that you're clearly not spending enough time with the LOLcats.
How do you like my new layout? It only took me 5 million hours to get right. There are still a few little bugs that need to be fixed, mainly the Flickr slideshow on the sidebar needs to be filled out. I just put three test images up for now, I'll get through the rest pretty soon. By and large it's done though, anyone have any constructive criticisms?
I can't imagine actually hand coding a blog (and having to make banners and do redesigns on a semi-regular basis); it is so much work. Although I suppose you get good at it with practice.
Before anyone asks, no, those pictures at the top aren't mine (haven't been to Spain yet), but they're licensed for use under Creative Commons. Woo.
Anyway, one of my new goals for this blog is to make it more all-inclusive. Meaning, not just a travel blog, but a my life blog. Right now, my life consists of travel, but in a few months I'll be back home and it would feel very odd for me to update a travel blog from home. That, and I often find myself not posting something because I don't want to go too far off topic. It never occurred to me that instead of not posting it made more sense to just widen the topic.
So anyway, who wants to know what's on my five year travel list? Answer, you all do! Great, I'm glad we agree.
In the next five years I will:
-Go to at least one country in all the continents I haven't been to yet (not including Antarctica, although that would be awesome so if anyone is heading down there...hook me up). I've been to North America, Australia, and Europe. So that leaves South America, Asia, and Africa.
-Go on the big, solo, mother of all North American road trips.
-Drive Route 66.
-Backpack Eastern Europe.
-See the Colosseum in Rome and the canals of Venice.
-Smoke a joint legally on a street corner in Amsterdam. Oh yes, I will.
-Spend an extended period of time in Montreal.
-See Vancouver and the Canadian West Coast.
-Go to the village in Newfoundland where my Grandmother was born and see if I can find anyone I'm related to who doesn't know I exist.
-Live beside the ocean in a warm climate for a winter.
-Go back to New Orleans.
-Go back to Australia and dive the Whitsundays.
-Surf in Hawaii (I'm absolutely petrified of surfing because of my old fear of sharks. I'm going to do it.)
-Go on at least one volunteer trip.
-Stay in an all-inclusive resort (nice juxtaposition there, eh?)
-Drive across Europe with Brian.
-Take a boat trip of some kind.
-Ride a horse on a beach.
One day, sometime in the future, I will spend a year on an around the world trip and I will live full time in an RV for at least six months. I can't wait to do these things; I'm glad I'm with someone as insane as me. ;)
