a new venture

I'm departing this blog and moving into new, more time efficient, territory.

Find me at: http://hayleyinengland.tumblr.com/

things I've been up to lately

• Work work work work work
• Making sure everyone at work realizes how crazy I am. They all do, it only took me a month to let everyone know who they were dealing with. Thus squashing my chances of being the alluring beau t that all the boys want to date.
• Catz Ball last weekend. Aka the end of Phase 1 of my 2011 transformation process. I actually transformed my life SO much in January. I, however, am not sure if Phase 2 will be as successful.
• I as a I'm forever disgusting laugh to myself I decided to try on this pair of jeans I bought wayyyy back in 2008 that have never fit me and low and behold they fit! I'm not sure if this is because the fabric somehow loosened in my drawer or if my irregular work induced eating hours have helped me shed some pounds, but heeeyyyyyyyy.
• I am beyond poor. And my student loans kick in ON MY BIRTHDAY. YEY. That's not really something I've been up to, but, it's an approaching reality.

Oxford last Sunday. Aka the first day of Phase 2 transform my life. I'm still working out my goals for this phase. But the end date is the tentative date of my 24th Birthday party. FUN!

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
— Walt Whitman

Today

So far:

• Woke Up
• Watched Maury with Ruth (we had a Crazay slumbah party last night, complete with Beas cupcakes and KFC. Classy)
• Ate Carmelli's bagels with coffee at Costa
• Read the Sunday Time
• Obsessively checked how mah markets are doing

Next:

• Stroll to my favorite church in the grey, windy weather, whilst listening to the new music podcasts I downloaded
• Grocery Shopping
• Read in bed
• Watch Tv on my laptop
• Skype sessions
• Make something delicious for dinner and have leftovers for lunch
• More TV and more reading

AKA an action packed lazy Sunday. Six days to go until phase 1 of transform my life in 2011 is complete. Then I need to decide my phase 2 goals. Oh life.

Another Productive Saturday...

Yet another example of an amazing youtube comment.

This was listed under the best Broadway cover ever:

"Oh. My. God. JUST-

Oh my god...

This is unbelievably amazing and arguably the best rendition of this song EVER.

I simply cannot deal with this.

AT.

ALL."

youtuuubbeee

Here's a youtube comment from the second best song EVER. Amazing

"ok, alot of my blk "brothers and sisters" are gonna hate me for this but i have to say that whitneys version didnt have the heartbreak that dollys had, i mean, ths woman who has loved this man since she was a teen knows that she could never marry him because shes the madam of a bordello and he wants to make a change through politics. whitneys version was just over the top and loud; dollys was subtly expressive and poignant."

HnHBlkM

Amazing. And I fully agree HnHBikm.

And yes, I've spent time reading youtube comments for this song...

oyy

Daily Mail story of the mornin'

Church girl cries RAPE and exposes the "kind of society we live in." I LOATHE stories like this. There's nothing in this story that shows what kind of society we live in. A girl couldn't handle the religion she was probably forced into and her growing sexuality, so she had sex (at youth group- near other kids- okay weird), got pregnant and out of shame said she was raped. I HATE when stories say that stuff like this is exemplitive of our society. As a (former) student of history, art history and english literature, shit like this has ALWAYS happened. I really don't think human nature has changed, media has just put it all out there.

Rant done. Love you forever Daily Mail xooxoxox.

I searched Temptation covers on youtube and this one was the most watched. My friend and I used to stalk them our Sophomore year... yey GW pride.

You go boy!

It's not summer yet, but, maybe I can convince my mind it is. Or at least Spring. Anyways, I woke up (at 555 ughhhh annoying) with this poem in my head and it's fabulous.


And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—

Unless . . . Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I've foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.

The Sentence by Anna Akhmatova

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, VIRGINIA WOOLF

via FYLQ

well this is surprising...

Taco Bell's ad response to being sued

Amazing.

How do I marry Jesse Eisenberg?

Also I tots work for the next facebook, so I wonder who will play me in the film version?

Wise Words

A friend sent me this quote. Solid life advice.

“be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. and the point is to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it - but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.”

— rainier maria rilke

I listen to this song so much that I think my housemates may think there's something seriously wrong with me. Oh wait, they're never here. And I know I've posted it here like 18 times, but it's the best song ever (well top 5).

TOO REAL. I like to alter the dialogue in my mind to fit my life. Awful.

Also, the new job has taken over my life.

Daily Mail story of the mornin'

In this story I fully sympathsize with Vanessa Feltz. She didn't really bully the girl. The girl is clearly not the brightest crayon in the box (1- her uni, 2- the course she studying, 3- she doesn't know who Yeats is) and shouldn't have had the placement. Feltz studied at Cambridge so clearly there was going to be some intellect gap. This shows why placements should be given based on merit not auctions by celebrities daughters. A normal student, who deserved the placement, would not have approached the Daily Mail for a story after being "bullied" into making cold calls, sooooo many jobs involve cold calls!

That being said, I barely know who Vanessa Feltz is...

Thank you Daily Mail for the Headline of my Nightmare's

Is the world's largest super-volcano set to erupt for the first time in 600,000 years, wiping out two-thirds of the U.S.?

The Perfect Morning Song

I could listen to this song on repeat everyday before 10am. I know I've posted it before, but it's just so beautiful! Such an ugly man, such a GORGEOUS voice.

Mas Emerson

I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say, I would go to church no more. Men go, thought I, where they are wont to go, else had no soul entered the temple in the afternoon. A snow storm was falling around us. The snow storm was real; the preacher merely spectral; and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him, into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had no one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, namely, to convert life into truth, he had not learned. Not one fact in all his experience, had he yet imported into his doctrine. - From the Divinity School Address.

I've been spending my day reading this, philosophically productive!

The Guardian on Katie and Alex's split

This is quite possibly the best news article I've read in years.

I'm a little late to this being in the UK and all, but it is AMAZING.

Not sure how long this link will last...

I've had nothing to do at work the last few days, so I've decided to be productive and read articles, inspirational quotes, and such. I read a lot of Emerson quotes and decided to give him another try. I was, like most American's, forced to read some Emerson article's in high school and could barely comprehend them.

I've been missing out. I find him unbelievably inspiring. This quote articulate's what my soul has been trying to say the past three weeks or so:

"I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.—But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

START HAPPY

I'm happy that my new job has now sent me both a contract and a starting day email. IT'S REALLY HAPPENING! MONDAY!

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
via FYLQ

This ad came up while I was loading the amazing Sassygayfriend Hamlet video. I'm not sure if it thinks gals who watch such videos are looking for elite boyfriends...

And yup... it's one of those Saturday nights.

January weather in England is the worst. I can't even describe how bleak it looks outside my window. The sky is a dull gray and the wind is whipping the trees. Apparently it's in the 50s today, but I don't believe it.

I'm meeting some friends at 1 but don't know what to do before then. I probably should get off my laptop and do something productive. I don't want to take a walk, but I could go to Starbucks and read the Guardian or similar. I also have no idea what I'm doing tonight, besides eating leftover risotto mmm.

Basically, I'm having friend withdrawl now that Sara's gone. And mah new job seems too far away to be exited about (a week from Monday!). And I keep worrying that something will go wrong and they'll retract their offer. Oh me.

A new thing in my life (ie my I'm going to transform my life in 2011 life) is to divide the future in manageable chunks. Right now I'm working on making productive changes to my life up to Febuary 12th, aka the day of the Catz Ball. And by productive changes, I mean a whole slew of fun things. I just really hope I can forget the past and be the best employee EVER at the new job. wahooo

For what it's worth, my Start Happy of the day is: Ha it's a good sign that I can't think of anything good. Okay here's something, I'm happy that I had last week with Sara and that in a week I'll be a giant leap forward in my professional life.

2005 flashback

I can't believe this guy is still around...

awful.

Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life.

What? says Alf.

Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred.

Apologies for yet another absence. I've had a friend visiting from Ammmmeeerrriiicaaa. It was a FANTASTIC WEEK. She's gone and now it's back to my fun filled solitary life.

START HAPPY DAY 2

I am happy that I somehow pulled off my 13 year old self's dream of going to England, "maybe studying abroad there," as I recall. I surpassed those dreams. So though there's lots my 13 year old self would be disappointed with, I think little Hayley would be happy that I somehow ended up living in England. I realized this on New Years Eve when I was the only American at a big party. I don't notice stuff like that anymore, but I guess it means my life would appear really cool to most. And it means I'm 23 and I've already done something with my life, I guess. Hopefully things keep happening!

This was just played on Radio 6, it's beautiful:

START HAPPY DAY 1

My New Years Guardian came with a poster that reads START HAPPY. So in honor of that, I'm going to write a reason I'm happy every morning (aka when I remember).

1: I'm glad I'm a girl who has a lot of friends, instead of a girl who has a lot of boyfriends and few girl friends. Boy friends are temporary, while I have friends I've known for years, and I'm sure I've gotten much more love from them than I ever would from relationships. Maybe. Unless I met my FH, but who does by the time they're 23? And then most marriages end in divorces. I digress, I'm happy to have such wonderful wonderful friends.

Hello Dream Husband and Child

My womb aches.

umm... this is amazing

And everyone dresses like that in GG.

Things I have gotten into lately

Wallander. The Swedish version. The BBC put two eps on iplayer (like Hulu just for the BBC) and I'm OBSESSED. I saw the Kenneth Branagh version on a plane once, and I've ordered more of his version through iplayer. It's just SO good (yea I'm three years late to this...). Though I question if the show is an accurate depiction of how dangerous Sweden actually is.

I digress. I knew Wallander was a show for me when in the first ep I saw all these characters kept saying: Do you know how much it hurts to love someone who will never love you? I found myself knodding furiously to myself, I do know! As do many people, obvs, but it's all about me, right? Well then the serial killer (who was suuupppperrrr messed up) said the exact same thing and I felt so glad that one of my New Years Resolutions is to not love/like any boyz who WILL NEVER LOVE ME. So I will never end up as a super deranged Swedish serial killer. Hallelujah.

This was the first book ending that ever wooowwwed me.

"Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.
Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
-Hemmingway (The Sun Also Rises)

I still imagine myself saying that to someone oneday, though I'm not as much a babe as Brett. "Isn't it pretty to think so." CLASSIC LINE

"Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all."
— Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited)

BLAHHH

Oh my heart. Combine this scene with the previous Bridget Jones's Diary scene and you pretty much have my ideal romantic moment. But, once again, things like this surely don't happen in real life. And if I received a letter like that it would probably be from a stalker not from a hunk like Wentworth.

Though I think Anne had it right when she said at the beginning of the scene:

"All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!"

Yey being a girl!

watch this scene and picture me sobbing bitterly, alone, on my floor, surrounded by piles of various items. I didn't actually sob bitterly, I just shook my fist in the air, bitterly. And I am surrounded by random piles.

I doubt things like this happen in real life. We live in a cruel, cruel, confusing world.

2011 WILL BE MY YEAR!

Now it is time for me to state my various hopes and dreams for the new year, well for this year. We'll see how well they go.

Well, actually, they've gone pretty well because I've already completed two, well begun the initial stages of completing two. I've also done a third, that could be considered a third.

1- Stop complaining to my friends about my job and do something about it! Find a job where I feel my mind and years of education are being used.
- I start a new job less than three weeks from today. I almost wrote three years, that would be awful. But yes, in less than three weeks I will be starting at a company that really really excited me, doing a role that I think has major potential to lead me places. Knock on wood!

2- Stop liking boyz who will never ever like me for a variety of reasons. I have some sort of teenage girl Edward Cullen problem where I romanticize men who generally have something majorly in the way of them liking me (they're gay, they're too handsome, etc etc). It's probably because they're safe and they'll never love me, so I don't have to deal with those emotions/ have fear of being rejected, because I know IT'LL NEVER WORK! But you know what world, I'm too much of a catch for this! 10 years of only liking people who will never like me (with several minor exceptions) is waaaayyy too crazy. This year I want to locate that lucky fellah who will like me just as much as I like him. Because I deserve it!
-I jolted myself onto the emotional journey to do this. Painful. Absurdly painful. But no pain, no gain!

3- Attempt to reconnect with old friends. Ie- I attempted contact with a former friend who I cut off because of years of issues and she never responded! But I did my part! That was a big step in my life, cutting her off, aka realizing that I deserve well-rounded friendships, not ones where I put in allll the effort.

4- Be more overall healthy, not eat 3 gigantic meals a day. Become the hot babe I have the potential to be haaaa.

5- No longer compare myself to other people. Hard.

6- Be better with money! Number one will help with that because for three months I'm taking a fairly significant pay drop, but it'll be worth it. I know it will! I have to learn to budget and not buy things to give me momentary feelings of satisfaction.

7- Aim to be more creative. I feel like since I moved back to England my life has been almost completely lacking in creativity. I need to start writing again, or join a book club or something.

Follow Amy Winehouse's to-do list. Particularly the second to last one:

I'll let you know how all the items go...

Goodbye 2010 Hello 2011

2009 was a pretty dull year, yes I finished uni and moved to England again, but it didn't contain a lot of stories for my future (distant future) babies. I could tell them about my shit job working at Michaels, but besides that, meh. 2010 on the other hand was filled with a plethora of change and heartbreak, the kind that probably set off the transformation process that will turn me into the woman I was born to be, or something.

Really though, emotional trauma seems to be the best tool for transformation. I became soo different my freshman year when the boy I LOOOOVVVVEEEDDDD/ was obsessed with/ never had a chance with for a PLETHORA of reasons (all general themes in the men I like- probably an issue...), decided he hated me (along with my roommate) and left me with no friends and an emotional wreck after telling me off at 3 am one wednesday. I feel like that was the kick that hardened me into a young adult.

Similarly, December was filled with hard things for me. In really all facets of life. But I think the pain I went through/ am still very much going through, will be good for me, will make 2011 into a wonderful year. Everything I did (all the trauma was brought on by me- but they were things I had to do), will help me shake off those old habits and loyalties that were ridiculous. This is all very cryptic I know. But meh. All I know if that after that trauma Freshman year I progressed into a much more confident (in a way...), unique, badass lady and it led directly into many amazing memories. I went from having shit friends who didn't like me into having a group of amazing girls who made my undergrad experience. I even had some romance after all that horribleness. And I think that momentum led me directly into my year at Oxford. But the shit began again a bit at Oxford and just ended last week. By shit I mean, unhealthy cycles of thinking/emotional states in my life. Wow this post is legit crazy.

So essentially, I'm hoping 2011 is very similar. I'm especially hopeful for this month because Jupiter is supposed to be in pisces for a while, which apparently is amazing. Yup.

My Night Tonight

Watching this via Love Film (British Netflix like provider). Such a crazy night! I've also drank too cups of herbal tea and watched a Father Ted documentary! No work tomorrow, so plenty of time to catch up on my blogging. Yey Bank Holidays.

best.poem.ever.

This poem has inspired me through so many meh-wah-blah parts of my life. Parts of my life with various circumstances. The backstory behind it is so tragic as well, it's essentially inspired by the suicide of Bishop's girlfriend after a shakey depression filled relationship. A lot sadder than anything my 23 years has thrown me. Anyways, enjoy:

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master; 

so many things seem filled with the intent 

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.  

Lose something every day. 

Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 

The art of losing isn't hard to master.  

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 

places, and names, and where it was you meant  

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.  

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or 

next-to-last, of three loved houses went. 

The art of losing isn't hard to master.  

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.   

--Even losing you (the joking voice, 

a gesture I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident

 the art of losing's not too hard to master 

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

ahhhhhh

Substitute high school/being 18 for young 20's and a new Y-P and this dialogue from Little Miss Sunshine comforts me greatly.

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all of this, high school, everything.

Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?

Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he, uh, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18--Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. "