2015

So now it’s 2015, the year of the future. I expect a fax to pop out of some­where unex­pec­ted any minute now. I had a very sedate and teetotal Christ­mas and New Year due to injur­ing my shoulder and then coming down with a bad case of the flu that lingered on forever. I wanted to get a few creat­ive projects finished over the Christ­mas break, but that put a span­ner in the works. Already this year I have star­ted a new job, been to Paris for a few days and turned 30.

The Paris trip was essen­tially free. I had a vouch­er from Eurostar for a free tick­et as an apology for a severely delayed train last East­er, and I had to use it soon before it expired. Getting people to do much at the start of Janu­ary is never very likely, so I found a very cheap hotel and took myself over alone for a low-budget trip paid for with some birth­day money. I managed to go the very next day after the Charlie Hebdo shoot­ing, which was a very strange time to be in Paris, but I’ll write about it more when I post the pictures. I’ve also star­ted writ­ing a zine about the trip. I wandered a lot and took a lot of film pictures. Two films are currently hung up to dry from my book­case, and there’s more to devel­op too. On my actu­al birth­day on the 12th I star­ted the new job and met up with friends for dinner in a Mexic­an restaur­ant.

I’ve actu­ally already completed some of my new year’s resol­u­tions. Not bad going for mid Janu­ary. My new year’s resol­u­tions tend towards the “remem­ber to do things you enjoy” side rather than the punit­ive “stop doing that” side. Here they are:

1) Get a better paid job- done– aids a lot with redu­cing stress when you have enough money to cover all the essen­tials + some treats and are not having to constantly add things up in your head, or do things a long-winded way because you can’t afford the conveni­ent way

2) Go abroad not for work and not to visit relat­ives– done

3) Take more photo­graphs- I’ve really got out of the habit of photo­graphy outside Instagram, which is a pity. I took 5 rolls of film in Paris though, which is a good start

4) Do lots of sewing- my weight fluc­tu­ated a lot in 2014 for vari­ous health reas­ons, so I held off doing any sewing. I’ve got a lot of fabric stashed under the bed and some good patterns

5) Gener­ally do as many creat­ive things as possible

6) Read at least 2 books a week, and remem­ber to write a review post of them more regu­larly– I do the Goodreads chal­lenge every year. Last year my target was 52, which I easily achieved, so this year it’s 104. I also want to read more in French and German. I can, I just don’t essen­tially out of lazi­ness.

7) Motiv­ate myself to cook from scratch more often– It’s really hard to be bothered when you don’t have a prop­er fully equipped kitchen or prop­er func­tion­al oven, and you have to share it with 10 people. My recipe books are languish­ing on the shelves. Perhaps more one for after moving.

8) Move house- doing a prop­erty guard­i­an­ship is very cheap, and my room is big, but it’s not a prop­er flat, and I’ve been here a year now, and I want a prop­er place with better trans­port links.

9) Actu­ally put a new zine out- It’s been too long

10) Watch more films- I really enjoy going to the cinema and I went about twice last year. I hardly ever watch dvds recently too, I’m not sure why.

Over Christ­mas I watched We Are the Best with my friend Vicky, and loved it. It’s about three 13 year old girls in Stock­holm in the early 80s form­ing a punk band. Tilsam­mans by the same direct­or is one of my favour­ite films anyway, so I thought I would like it. If you haven’t seen it, it’s on Netflix now. Someone has also help­fully made this youtube playl­ist of some of the Swedish songs on the soundtrack.