Short Arse

Lately it’s been quite apparent that I’ve not been feeling too great. I’ve not had the effort / energy to do anything that I wanted to do (including keeping this blog updated) and even started feeling crap about things that have never bothered me before. For example…my height.

                From the bi-line of my blog, ‘the world from a 5ft1 point of view’…you can see how short I am. I had my last growth spurt when I was in primary school, so around 11 or 12. I’ve not grown since. Kind of grew at one point, I was once 5 foot 2. And then I shrunk. Both times I’ve been measured by a doctor and I lost an inch between visits. Even the doctor was confused on this.

                Being so small makes things a little…I wouldn’t say difficult…but more of an inconvenience. At work, most of my colleagues are a good foot taller than me, so this means I can’t reach the coffee cups, or the milk if they put it in the top fridge, or to look in the meeting room books… I’ve gone around the whole office and accommodated it to my height. I’ve moved the printer screen down ; I’ve moved the mugs to somewhere I can reach ; I’ve put the extra tea bags in the bottom cupboard instead of on top of the fridge. I’m probably driving all the tall people insane. I even have my own special chair. True story…I had to have a new chair ordered for me because my legs are too short and it would have affected my posture…with a foot stool…cause I can’t reach the floor. TINY LEGS!

                After having a giggle about how absurd it is that I have a special chair for my tiny legs, I have started to look in the mirror and resent how short my legs are. That I can’t go to the shop and buy a pair of pants of leggings without having to get them altered before I wear them…or in the same way…my arms are short to the point that ‘3/4 length sleeves’ are still too long for my arms. In a fashion way, it really is a pain in the backside. But also with weight and body shape. I know full well that if I was a half a foot taller…I’d be a few dress sizes less. That my body fat would be distributed differently and I would appear slimmer. It really has put a downer on me being happy with my body, and I don’t actually know how or what brought this on.

                So I thought that it’s about time I snapped out of it. so for a start, I thought….why not find short role models. And to my surprise there’s quite a few. Just for those people who are interested too…I’ll put some names out there:

Scarlett Johansson – this is one of the most beautiful women, in my opinion, that there is. And she is just under 5’3.

Christina Aguilera is at a height of 5’2

And some of the beautiful women that are the same height as me include the likes of Hayden Panettiere, Hilary Duff, Eva Longoria, Jessica Simpson and the Olsen Twins.

                I don’t know why, but looking at these women and knowing they’re the same height as I am (or around the same height) started to make me a feel a little bit better about how short I am. Possibly because there is some of the most beautiful, talented bunch of ladies that are named to be the under 5’5. Is this part of the whole ‘media and body image’ issue again? Am I subconsciously wanting to be taller just because that’s what I see on tv? I don’t know. I did get turned down for a modeling job not long ago for being too short – even though it was an ad for short women… (too short for a short ad….how does that work?) they told me I needed to be at least five foot five to be considered. Well then. That might have been the start of this irrational body hate towards myself. All I know is that it’s silly and I need to start embracing my short legs.  

Monday Morning Mind

Does anyone else feel like it’s just one of those mornings? Y’know, one of those where no matter what you do, nothing seems to go the way you want? It seems like it’s not just me having one – I see all over my newsfeed (Facebook) that people have forgotten their passes to college, or have tripped up, or missed the bus. I can even look over my desk and see my manager jumping back and forth from his desk and the meeting room as he’s forgotten something each time he’s stepped away – fifth time lucky?

                Anyway, back to an actual blog post. I don’t plan on going on about how crappy a Monday morning is, as I’m sure you all feel my pain in that department. On the other hand, I have no topic in mind so this is going to be the most unstructured piece of writing that I’ve put out to date. That’s a Monday morning mind for you! We’ll see where my fingers take me.

                Warm Bodies. After a night out on Saturday evening which ended up with a busted up knee from whacking it off of a table, I decided I needed an easy Sunday with as little movement as possible. So I whipped out the ice-cream and decided to watch a film under the covers with a hot water bottle (and with that, why is the weather on such a crappy decline here in the UK?!). I saw the adverts for Warm Bodies on TV and really wanted to go to the Cinema to see it, but completely missed my chance which was a bummer – but saw recently that it’s out on dvd, fab! So I got that on, got comfy and was content for the next 98 minutes.

                I have to say I really enjoyed it. One of my top three favourite films is Zombieland, so had a feeling I’d be disappointed by this one in comparison. I was happily surprised, though, as I was gripped to the screen. I thought it was incredibly well written, had a great casting and was just an all-round great watch. I’m thinking about watching it again when I get home in fact, it’s just a great film to watch in your pj’s and to wind down to. I don’t want to give much away seen as it’s still relatively new and there will be people out there who haven’t seen it yet and still want to. But I do recommend it to anyone who fancies watching something new. With the zombie aspect of it, it’s great for the guys, and the love story kind of storyline makes it great for us girls - not even mentioning the attractive as heck lead roll, Nicholas Hoult, which will always make it a good enough reason to watch (I’m kidding! it’s good enough to watch in its own merits, not because of the attractive actors :D ). Though once you watch it, do you see the Shakespearian references(if you get my drift). I didn’t realise it was first a book, so I’m going to do the unspeakable thing of reading the book after watching the film – I wish I would have found the book first.

                I’ve got your number. A few posts back, I mentioned that I was reading a book called ‘I’ve got your number’. I’ve finished it now, taking me three days in total while I fit reading around work and stuff. It’s easy enough to follow, which is good. So it was an easy read for when I just wanted to blank off the world and it didn’t take too much concentration to follow what was going on (probably helped by the snippets of extra info at the bottom of the page that I mentioned before). I enjoyed it. It was quirky, relatable and quite funny in parts. The plot is a bit farfetched is some instances, but why would you want to read a book that was easily live-able, that would be dull.

 All I wish is that I had a Sam Roxton (male character) to smile his ‘breath taking smile’ at me every now and again. He seems like a good, down to earth character in the book that would be the type that you would get along with a respect a great deal. And the lead role, Poppy, was incredibly relatable to me. Being put in positions in life where you just want people to like you, and you don’t want to upset people so are constantly putting everyone else before yourself – through this aspect, I felt like I could see myself in her role. She’s seen as ‘spine-less’ by Sam at one point for not sticking up for herself…I think it was over soup. She didn’t want to send cold soup back the kitchen as she didn’t want to complain – exactly how I am! When you’re reading the last part of the book at 3AM, you feel empowered to stick up for yourself and start putting yourself first (you’ll understand if you read the book) but I don’t know whether that’s just my mind while needing sleep or if it’s because I get myself far too emotionally attached to my reading material.

Who knows.



On a little bit of a different note:
if you have read Warm Bodies...is it good and would you recomend it?
Do you have any books in mind you think are an amazing read?
Recomend me something to read!

Sexism

So lately I’ve been getting worked up and pissed off over a minority men. Not in any kind of relationship perspective, per say, but on the views towards women/men and the stubbornness of said views and mind sets.

                Believing in true equality in every form – race, age, gender, ability, and so on – means that those few people that have it stuck in their head that one is better than the rest infuriate me beyond belief. One thing in particular that is bothering me right now is sexism. It’s something that I’ve become a lot more aware of since starting working life. When you’re in school, the guys with perverse perspectives like ‘you belong in the kitchen’ are seen more on the joke-ey side or are just jerks that you soon forget about. But when you’re in the working environment…things like that are a big issue. No matter what industry, company or workplace you’re at…it’s still an issue.

                Out of interest, I Googled ‘successful women’. What I expected to come back from that was a list of successful business women from all over the world. Is that what I found? No. I found list upon list with titles such as ‘how to be successful as a woman’, ‘how to make an impact while being a woman’…then there was one article thrown in there that states why (most) successful women are childless. I don’t know if this was just me being in a foul mood beforehand, but I was somewhat appalled.

‘how to be successful AS A WOMAN’

The last part of the title is what got me. I could understand ‘how to be successful IN BUSINESS’ or ‘how to be successful AS A PERSON’…but the fact that women somehow need completely different rules to be successful than any other person…that just doesn’t bode all that well in my mind. So from curiosity, I opened a few just to see what the ‘oh so different than men’s’ tactics were. I was horrified to find that appearance was a common theme in a few of the links. I saw tips on how you should do your make-up – how much or how little; the way you should dress;  how you need to ‘stay in shape and do some exercise’.  I would have thought it was common sense that you dress appropriate for your role, regardless of gender, but having ‘how to do you make-up’ being high on the list of ‘how to be successful’ is ridiculous. And ‘keep in shape’, why the hell should I? I’ll keep in shape to stay healthy and for my own benefit, of course, but that’s because I want to and it’s a life style choice - not because I want to be successful. You’re telling me that every male CEO in the world had to work out at the gym and get ‘in shape’ to reach that level of success? I doubt it. I’m probably reading into this way too much, but it just felt like a low blow that I need to be attractive to get somewhere in life.

I feel like there’s a lack in visibility of successful female role models to look up to. There’s a few reasons for this. One…there is a little less successful females than there is males (according to servays and statistcs online anyway). And second, when there is success for a female, it’s not exactly the biggest story in the news. I don’t think that the media shout about women in business as much as they could. I hear a lot about ‘hey look, *insert celeb name here* has had a boob job’ or ‘oh my god, look at *insert  another celeb here*’s hair!’… but rarely do I hear of the ‘ordinary’ women (when I say ordinary, I mean in business and who aren’t generally classed as A list Celebs who get followed by the media on a daily basis) who have made a huge impact in the world.

So after being so negative through this whole post, I’m going to be a little more upbeat (or attempt to at least). I want to point out some of the women I look up to. First of is the president and CEO of Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer.  She’s a 38 year old woman who’s at the top of her game, with a baby (how that for ‘successful women are childless’). She was on America’s annual list of ’50 most powerful women’ five years in a row from 2008 to 2012, which is pretty darn good going.  From her ‘small town childhood’…to her job in a local grocery store…she’s made her way up to be the CEO of one of the most recognisable and iconic businesses going. BOOM!

One of the most inspirational people, in my eyes, to watch and listen to would be Eve Ensler. I LOVE her. Eve Ensler is a prominent activist addressing issues of violence against women and girls and is one of my favorite women to listen to. She’s spoken at many TED events and always manages to make me think. On her website, she’s describes as ‘Tony Award winning playwright, performer, and activist’ so it’s safe to say she’s an incredibly talented lady.

This was really a huge ramble from when I was frustrated about something, so I do apologies that it’s a bit of a rant. As I say, everything that I’ve said is my own opinion – so please don’t be kicking off if you disagree with anything I’ve said. I will happily listen to your opposing views in a polite manor, mind you,  as long as you don’t out right say my opinion is wrong (an opinion is just that, an opinion. It can be neither wrong or right as it isn’t factual). But yea, I’ll go now.

What's In My Bag?

I’ve heard this question a thousand times: WHAT DO GIRLS EVEN CARRY IN THEIR BAGS!? It’s safe to say that the majority of us ladies carry around a humongous bag filled with a bunch of crap that we most likely will not even need, but can’t seem to leave behind. So for the many guys that ask the question and are genuinely curious of what females have in our bags…I thought this might be handy seen as, y’know…I’m female and all.

                This is more of the ‘what’s in my purse’ YouTube tag that I keep seeing around, but as a written version. This is just a random days’ worth of junk, and I’ll probably fill my bag with different things tomorrow but, hey ho – here we go:

                1. First off is my trusty tub of Vaseline. I bought this little flip lid tub for 50p when I was buying hair dye because I CONSTANTLY dye my face as well as my hair. Putting Vaseline around your hair line is the best tip I can give you when you’re dying your hair, it stops dye from being able to set on your skin and is easy enough to wipe away once you’re done. It’s such a handy thing to have, and I will transfer this item to whatever bag or coat I’m taking out, because you never know when you might need it. I happen to lose a lot of my piercings for one reason or another, so need to pop another bar in the piercing and Vaseline makes this process a whole lot easier and quicker.

2. Following from that, I have a little plastic bag filled with differed bars (for piercings), just in case. I generally buy all my jewellery for my ears at ProBody in Bradford town centre. I have five piercings in my right ear at the mo, and they do a great deal when you’re buying a ton of stuff at one time. Now that I’ve stopped dying my hair, I’ve moved onto piercings, and I have weird urges just to go get pierced when I’m walking past my local tattoo and piercing studio. Though I’m not all that keen on facial piercings these days, I still think they look pretty cool on a select few people though I won’t be adding any to myself any time soon. I went through a phase when I wanted a Monroe piercing, and my eye-brow doing, and my anti-brow and…oh dear me – my grandma would KILL me.  

3. A book. And the book I have this week is ‘I’ve got your number’ by Sophie Kinsella. This was a complete impulse buy when I was at Tesco picking up some lunch (I’m dangerous with money, I just spend spend spend). To say I barely even read the blurb before chucking it in the trolley, I’m actually really enjoying it. I really do get my teeth stuck into a book and my emotions change to correspond with what the character’s going through – a bit of an unhealthy obsession really. But I love to read, especially on public transport (I’ve been wanting to write some book reviews in fact, not sure yet, what d’you think?). This book does something that I’ve not really seen all that often. There will be little numbers next to a specific sentence in the book which will be referenced to a little explanation at the bottom of the page. It’s like a little background info on something that may be out of context which I find really useful and rather hilarious.

4. I have the generic girly things like make-up wipes – B.Quick 4-in-1 cleansing wipes. These wipes are fab and do wonders for my skin, highly recommend them. These are for those little emergencies…like if it rains and you become a panda and other things along those lines (ladies, you feel my pain. I know you do). Alongside them, I have my everyday make-up bag which I carry with me in case I suddenly see a mirror and realise how shocking I look.

5. Weirdly, I have my little War Hammer figurine. I was taking it somewhere with me the other day to continue painting it and just never got round to taking him out of my bag. I call him Jim. Yea, I’ll put in a picture of Jim. He’s only got base colours on at the moment so looks a little crappy, though he’ll look super when I get round to putting the detailing in and things like that. It’s something I got into when I was younger with my brother buying them when he was 15 (I think) and I thought it would be good to give it a try. I find that painting them is very therapeutic. I don’t play though. I don’t have the time to look through the rule book, or even go to matches…too busy with work. But I do enjoy painting them. So I’ll make them look pretty and pass them on to my other half to play with. Not what you expected, right?

6. I have the boring stuff that just needs to be in there. My security pass for work (I have to put it in my bag the night before so I don’t forget it). My keys so I’m not sat on my doorstep like a homeless person until someone gets home. My weekly pill box – the main reasons for that are 1.i forget if I have or haven’t taken my meds that day so it’s a good visual reminder, 2. It’s a lot easier having one little pill box that carries everything, than having 4 or 5 different boxes that take up far too much space – logical thinking for the win J.

7. My crappy little iPod. If you know me, you’ll know I absolutely hate Apple products. They’re good, yea, but always seem to malfunction or break as soon as I touch or go near them. I didn’t even have my little nano for month before I broke it. And I don’t even know how! The on/off button just won’t click down so I can’t use it anymore. I possibly know what you’re thinking: ‘if it doesn’t work, why’s it in your bag?’. Answer, I have no idea. I should probably get it fixed or leave it at home or something. Oh. Along with that though, I have headphones. Why do I need headphones if my iPod doesn’t work? You can see my logic only lasts for short periods of time. Even though I wrapped them very neatly, it will take me a month to untangle them if I ever wanted to use them. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.

And that’s pretty much it other than a few receipts from Tesco’s or Nando’s… or for other chicken related items. This blog post is a bit different to my usual and I’m not sure if I like it yet. Very…chatty? Either way my next post will be coming to you shortly…tatty-bye!

Race For Life 2013

So yesterday was the big day! Race day! And I was not prepared at all. A few months ago I started the gym and running on a regular basis with the idea that I was ‘in training’. Following me track record when it comes to sticking to a routine, that unsurprisingly didn’t last long and I slowly but surely managed to find my way back at home every night without so much as a five minute jog.  So after many weeks of not training, I found myself waking up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning with the daunting task of running 5k in a few hours. Having one of the worst night’s sleep, it’s safe to say I wasn’t in tip top running condition. But up I got and off I went.

                The idea was to spray may hair pink (it seems as though my whacky hair dying phase has reached a halt while it tries to get over the damage I put it through) but looking out of my bedroom window didn’t look promising. After England’s first few hints of summer, the day I was to venture out into the real world looked like it was going to chuck it down. I didn’t’ really  want to risk having pink hair spray run all over me, so decided against it. So I put on my sports bra, pinned on my running number and set off to pick up my grandma en route to Lister Park.

                Parking was horrendous at the event – driving round for a good 15 minutes before finding a lucky car sized gap on a side street a five minute walk away. Wondering over you could already hear the thump of music that was being blasted out by The Pulse of West Yorkshire, alongside the cheers that cried out every now and again when something was mentioned on stage. Walking into the park, you could just see an ocean of pink. It was lovely to see the amount of support their was for such a worthwhile charity.

                Looking around, the sea of messages people had on their backs was somewhat upsetting. Some reading ‘I run for: my 17 year old sister, RIP’, ‘I run for: granddad, 21/6/2010’…one that really got me was a little girl that couldn’t be any older than the age of seven had one that read ‘I run for daddy, miss you! 10/10/2012’. It’s heart breaking to think about that little girl growing up without her father. But among the sad was the hopeful; ‘I run for me and my twin sister – both cancer survivors!’. We all were there for the same reason and it was a beautiful site to see all ages, all ethnicities and all abilities coming together for the same cause. All in all, there was 2060 woman that ran with me that day.

                I began the run by jogging…and it soon became apparent that I was far more out of shape than I first thought! I had to stop jogging and start walking by the time I hit the first 1k sign to catch my breath. My legs were killing! My shins felt like they were going to rip out of my skin, and it was only the first kilometre. Oh gosh. I spent the next kilometre walking, and the one after that was more of a power walk. It then hit me ‘man, there’s people three times my age over taking me’ which really does make you think ‘I must be one unhealthy little twit’…so that gave me the motivation to pick up speed. I pulled my leg, mind you. That hurt…the back of my right knee. Anyhow, I carried on going.

                 While I hit the lake, I overheard the conversation between mother and daughter that really did make me giggle. The young girl turned to her mother and asked ‘mummy, where are the aliens?’. The fact she was talking about aliens instantly got my attention and I was curious to what she must be talking about.

‘oh, you mean the marshals honey’

‘yea, Martians are aliens…but from Mars aren’t they?’

Bless her. Her mother had to explain the difference between aliens from mars and men in high-vis jackets who kept an eye on you throughout the race. One of the highlights of my day that was.

                I finally reached the finish line at 54minutes24seconds. Crappy, right? Just means I have something to beat next year.

                 I learnt a few things this year though

      1.       If you’re going to run 5k, train for it.

      2.       Lister Park is far more hilly than what I thought – prepare for lots of uphill running

      3.       Don’t forget that you entered last minute- start fundraising well in advance!

      4.       Arrive incredibly early to find a parking space

                                                             5.       Remember that people in high visibility jackets are not aliens from mars!