A few days ago I bumped into a guy whom I hadn't seen in... eleven years, if my memory serves me right. We went on a blind date back in 1998 -- that was my only blind date ever, and it wasn't very successful lol. So it was just totally crazy to meet this guy after all these years. He recognised me instantly... I recognised him after chatting to him for almost an hour. Lol he must have thought I was pretending not to know him, but honestly, it took me quite a while to realise who he was! Eleven years is a looooong period.
Anyway he hasn't changed much -- he was an obnoxious git back then, and he still is. So I definitely don't regret NOT hooking up with him, haha! *high fives herself* 

Since I'm ashamed of the fact that my LJ is so empty, I thought I should copy here a few of my old MySpace blogs. (For the record I don't frequent MySpace either -- yeah I know I'm hopeless.) Anyway I posted this last year, a few days after my birthday. This should give you some insight into my everyday life and how "exciting" it is. Btw my birthday this year (2009) was equally frantic as the one described below, only a bit better. :)

So yeah...


HOW I CELEBRATED MY FOCKIN' BIRTHDAY
Current mood: exhausted
Category: Blogging

DATE: 31 January 2008

12AM: Landed at Manchester International, after a looong delay in Prague, Czech Republic. Now imagine yourself being stuck at an airport in a foreign country, for 7 hours, with a hyperactive 2-year-old who can run ten miles without stopping...
Got harassed by some bitch working at passport control because she thought that my son looked too big and mature for a 2-year-old. *urgh* OK, so the kid really is big, he does dwarf even the kids twice his age, but what can I do - I am tall, my hubby is tall, one can not expect our offspring to be a pygmy... Anyway, the said bitch confiscated our passports to "doublecheck" and disappeared for 45 minutes! Now imagine your self being stuck at passport control... you know the rest...

1AM: Finally went through, only to realise that, while we'd been kept waiting, our suitcases had been removed from the track. So I had to go looking for them with the security guy, carrying along a screaming kid (who btw weights some 4 stone... told ya he's big!) Found the bloody suitcases eventually...

2AM: Arrived home, had to unpack, give the kid a bath, and explain the whole mess to my worried hubby.

3AM: Went to bed.

7AM: Woke up, had to get ready for my exam. Read my mail, only to realise that I was scheduled to present my paper at Contemporary Music and Spirituality Conference on Friday, instead of Saturday - although a couple of weeks ago I'd begged the conference organiser to put me on Saturday, and he agreed. Apparently he forgot about that, and moreover, didn't bother to inform me sooner.
Had to explain to my visibly annoyed hubby that I would have to travel to London on Friday instead of Saturday, and that he would have to take the kid to his nursery on Friday and spend a whole two days with him alone. Note: my hubby does enjoy his parental duties, provided that I'm around as well, since he neither has patience nor is physically fit enough to cope with the little one!

8AM: Pulled the little one out of his bed, got him dressed and took him to the nursery. The kid absolutely hates both his nursery and waking up early, so he put up a decent fight, I had to chase him across Hulme Park, and wrestle him while we waited for our bus (I don't drive, don't even have a license, and public transportation in Manchester sucks)...

9AM: Arrived to my school, thinking of ways how to sort out the whole London/Friday mess. The thing is, I teach on Fridays (harmony and counterpoint, first year students), and Friday class happened to be the first one in the spring semester, with the kids eager to see the results of their mock exam. Besides, since I'm a mere GTA, I can't reschedule classes without notifying my course conveyor. Fortunately he happens to be my mate, so I said to myself: OK, sit down, wait for R. and explain the whole thing, he'll help.
Wrote a letter to the London guy, the conference organiser, to complain about the change. He answered that he had not promised that I would be presenting my paper on Saturday (although I have his e-mail in which he confirmed Saturday!), and that it was my fault that I hadn't checked the exact date earlier.

10AM: Went down to the Office to pick up the mock exam papers and start marking them. Fortunately they weren't as bad as I'd expected, and one was absolutely superb! Completely forgot about my own forthcoming exam.

11AM: R. arrived, so I told him what the problem was. He remembered that the upcoming week would be the reading week, i.e. no classes, so he advised me to notify the kids that they'd have their exam results on Monday instead of Friday.
Sent a circular mail to the students, to ask if Monday was convenient, and marked some more exam papers while waiting for their responses.

12AM: Wrote another mail to the London guy to let him know that I would be going down South on Friday indeed.
Realised that my exam's at 2PM, and that I was far from ready for it... The thing is, I am a full-time PhD student, so every six months I have a panel, where my progress (or the lack of it) is being reviewed and examined by my supervisor and two other professors. For every panel I have to submit a decent chunk of writing, plus updates on my activities, training, published papers, etc. Since I'd been away, I didn't get a chance to talk to my supervisor about the work I'd done, but he mentioned in an e-mail that he was quite unhappy with my submission - but didn't want to explain why, said we'd talk about that in person.

1PM: Met up with my supervisor. Told him I was too tired to be anxious about the panel. Didn't even bother to ask him why my submission made him unhappy, instead we talked about my London paper.

2PM: Had my panel. Wasn't so bad after all. Turned out that the other two professors were quite pleased with my work, so my supervisor (who is my great friend btw) had to retreat. He even offered to take me out for dinner, to make up for the fact that he got me upset. (Me, upset? Never!) Some other day, I said...

3PM: Added some finishing touches to my London paper and PowerPoint presentation. Printed the whole thing out and made a backup.

4PM: Picked my kid up from the nursery. Learned that he hadn't eaten anything there. That's his way of expressing disapproval - he refuses to eat!

5PM: Arrived home, fed the little fusspot, had a snack myself. Asked my visibly annoyed hubby to go out and play with him until I finish marking the exam papers.

8PM: Finished marking. Bought the train tickets online; the cheaper ones had already been sold out, so I had to opt for a Saver Return, fockin' 70 quid...

9PM: Packed my stuff for tomorrow. Played with my son while my hubby continued to express his discontent with me "having to go to conferences all the time".

10PM: Put the little one to bed. Had a quick shower. Reflected on my day. Went online to collect my birthday cards. Fortunately not everyone forgot that it was my ruddy birthday after all.

12AM: Set the alarm clock to 5AM. Went to bed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, IVANA!!!

Gosh I've really been neglecting my LJ recently... been too busy irl. Alas, 24 hours a day is defo not enough for all my (in alphabetical order): activities, assignments, chores, commitments, duties, hobbies, interests, involvements, projects, etc. Aged 13-22 I used to keep a diary every single fockin' day (no LJ back then, just plain ol' paper and pen), so at least I've got those years of my life pretty well documented, in case I ever decide to publish memoirs. As for the years 23'n'onwards, I guess I'll have to improvise a bit. ;)

The other day me and my fellow ICM regulars were discussing the horror flicks and why they aren't scary anymore, and so on so forth. But only a couple of days later I accidentally discovered something really scary: a funky little website filled with true-life stories that scared the shite out of me. Without further ado, here's the link: Awful_Plastic_Surgery The name says it all. Gosh, the stories, the pictures, the ridiculousness of it all... amazing, really. Got me thinking about all sorts of (ontological!) questions... How far are people ready to go in order to get bigger tits/smaller hips/fuller lips/trendier cheekbones/whatever? Is it worth the money/pain/risk? What's the point in looking the same as everyone else? People come in all shapes and sizes, that's the way it's meant to be, so why turn into each others' clones?
I didn't get any answers, I'm afraid. But, for me, the moral of the story has to be: if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

I'm trying to help my husband lose some weight. But OMG it's hard work! Most couples we know, it's always the wife who complains about her weight all the time; but with us, it's precisely the opposite. I'm a clean-living, healthy-eating, regularly-exercising bitch, who's been a slender size 10 (US size 6) for the past 18 years (except for the time when I was pregnant/breastfeeding). My hubby, on the other hand, has never been exactly skinny, but five years ago when we got married he was just right - lean and mean, tough and rough. But since then he's morphed into Homer Simpson - both physically and mentally. He must have gained at least 3 stone in the past couple of years. Dunno how much exactly, because he won't get measured in front of me. Anyway, that excessive weight has really started to affect his health lately (and he's only in his mid-30s), so I'm trying to help him shed some pounds, but he sabotages my efforts all the time. Here are some everyday scenes from our household:

SCENE 1: He is stretched on a sofa in front of the telly, admiring his ever-growing belly, and says:
"My stomach is really big today, I must have drunk too much water."
With a deep sigh, I say: "Honey, if my statistics is correct, you had six eggs for breakfast, four burgers for lunch and two large Meat Feast pizzas for dinner, plus some snacks in between."
"So what," says he, "that's not much. Hand me a lager, will ya?"

SCENE 2: It's been less than an hour since we've finished our lunch: chicken soup with veggies and noodles, salmon and green peas, and vanilla ice-cream for desert. I turn my back for a second and there he is, making two large ham/cheddar/mayo sandwiches. I'm, like, WTF?! He looks at me with the most innocent expression on his face, and says "I've just realised I'm a bit hungry!"

SCENE 3: After lots of begging and nagging, I've persuaded him to go out and play some football with our son (it is usually me who kicks the ball with the little one, while my hubby prefers to watch us, saying that I look so good running around like mad and trying to score some goals!) They go out, play for about half an hour, and then go back - the little one screaming "I want to play more!", the big one looking as if he's just run a marathon. Needless to say, he's completely useless for the rest of the day, barely managing to pull himself into a sitting position in order to have a sandwich, before returning back to his fave horizontal position.

He does mention quite often that he's unhappy with his looks, and that he should lose some weight, but when it comes to actually doing something about it... nothing happens. His job is a sedentary one; he's too lazy (oooops! I mean "too busy!") to go to gym; and he enjoys precisely the kind of food that is absolutely bad for him: fry-ups, lots of bread and sweets, dairy products, sandwiches, fizzy drinks, coffee with sugar/cream/milk, beer & vine - not to mention that he's addicted to ice-cream and very fond of late night snacks! Actually, now that I've reconsidered his eating habits, he actually looks quite good - if I was eating half as much, I'd probably weight twenty stone by now! Still, I feel it's time for him to change his ways before he turns into an obese monster. What should I do? Any tips?

How would I introduce myself in five sentences:
Physical appearance:   too tall to go unnoticed
Literary aspirations:     too busy to blog
Sexual orientation:       too tired to have sex
How I see myself:         too silly to be taken seriously
How others see me:     too nerdy to be cool