This is random advice aimed at no one in particular. If you think it is aimed directly at you, then a) you're wrong, and b) you're so vain you probably think this song is about you, too. On the other hand, if you think it sounds like I'm talking about you, then you should consider taking this advice on board. And, heck, let's face it - I probably am writing about you, I'm just cleverly disguising it as generic advice.
You have written yourself into a box. You have wrapped yourself up and locked yourself down with patterns that you have established for yourself and rules that no-one is holding you to except you - and your life is not going to get any better and you are not going to be any happier until you give yourself permission to change.
You have established a character and worked hard on confirming and re-affirming it, but you don't have to doom yourself to playing that character for the rest of your life. You've said things in the past - things about yourself and the way you see the world - but they weren't the words of God. They aren't written in stone, and you don't have to hold yourself to them.
You might have been mistaken - that's okay, you don't have to be right all the time. You might well have been right at the time, but now things can be different now. Truth has a use-by date, and life moves on (if you let it). Maybe the person you thought you were could be something you were trying out for a while, and now you can try something else.
Let yourself be wrong, mistaken, a work in progress - and don't think for a moment that it's a sign of weakness. The strongest people are the ones who let themselves be imperfect so they can improve.
Change. Grow. Move on. Dump entire parts of yourself and replace them with something new if you need to - whatever gets you out of that damn box.
You'd be surprised by how many things you've been holding onto as important parts of yourself are not really that important at all - and how much lighter you will be for letting yourself put them down and leave them behind.
It's time you stopped making yourself be the person you thought you were ten years ago, and let yourself work on the You Mk II.
Trust me on this, I'm starting to work on the Me Mk III.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Negrini 350 fencing uniform review
Well, I thought I was being clever by looking outside the box. Everyone in my club was wearing either Leon Paul or Uhlmann (or Absolute, but they were all in agreement that Absolute was fairly crappy), but I thought there must be other options.
Surely there were more "good" brands of fencing gear out there? The market can't be totally dominated by two manufacturers?
Let's be honest, though, I just like making things more challenging. Sure, I could follow the advice of other people who have been in the game for years and know what they're talking about, but why do what everyone else knows will work when you might be able to find something new that's just as good?
So I found an Italian brand - Negrini. Their website was pretty average, but they had some good reviews (no bad ones) on fencing.net and were priced between Uhlmann and Leon Paul, so they had to be in the same league. They also supplied the uniforms for the Italian national team, so either they were half decent or the Italians were just keeping their money in their own country. Plus, I liked the look of their cut - particularly the mask, which pleased me more than the design of Uhlmann's or Leon Paul's.
So, I ordered a 1600N mask and and 800N plastron and a 350N uniform.
The German in the club thought I was nuts - she suspected the Italians wouldn't have the same eye for quality and detail as the Germans*. I thought I'd be pretty safe, though, as I read a lot of bicycle magazines and I know the Italians have a good reputation for their high-end products...
And therein lies the problem: "high end."
I have no problems with the mask and plastron - both of which are well made and very comfortable. I think the mask is much more comfortable than the Uhlmann one I had been borrowing. The 350 uniform, on the other hand...
It's too thin. I know one of the reasons I went with Negrini was because other reviews said the clothing was light, but this is a bit too light. I'm sure it's suitably resistant to piercings, but it gives little buffer to protect against bruising. Even the Absolute jackets had heavier material. Additionally, the finishing leaves a bit to be desired. They didn't bother tidying up all the loose edges or cleaning up the pencil marks - as though they figured anything on the inside didn't really matter. Things just seem... cheaper than I'd hoped. The Uhlmann 350N uniforms seem better made with more attention to detail - and they don't cost as much.
I expect their 800N uniforms are perfectly nice, but if they aren't going to put the effort into their lower-end products, I'm not going to take a chance on their high-end gear. I don't think enough companies realise that their "entry level" products are their first and best advertisements. After wearing the Negrini 350N uniforms for a few months, I can't say I'm going to stick with them for my next purchases.
*Having recently been to both Germany and Italy, I can completely understand why she would think that.
UPDATE: 2015
Having said that, my club has since started buying really cheap fencing gear from a company in China (Wuxi), which is producing 800N uniforms that are thinner than my Negrini 350 uniform. Alarmingly so. As in "I can see your underwear" kind of thin. My Negrini clothes may have been thinner and less well finished than Uhlmann and Leon Paul, but they beat the pants off the Chinese stuff.
And they hold up really well. I've never had any trouble with them from a durability perspective. I have to admit that I've been rethinking revisiting Negrini. Whether I do or not remains to be seen.
Surely there were more "good" brands of fencing gear out there? The market can't be totally dominated by two manufacturers?
Let's be honest, though, I just like making things more challenging. Sure, I could follow the advice of other people who have been in the game for years and know what they're talking about, but why do what everyone else knows will work when you might be able to find something new that's just as good?
So I found an Italian brand - Negrini. Their website was pretty average, but they had some good reviews (no bad ones) on fencing.net and were priced between Uhlmann and Leon Paul, so they had to be in the same league. They also supplied the uniforms for the Italian national team, so either they were half decent or the Italians were just keeping their money in their own country. Plus, I liked the look of their cut - particularly the mask, which pleased me more than the design of Uhlmann's or Leon Paul's.
So, I ordered a 1600N mask and and 800N plastron and a 350N uniform.
The German in the club thought I was nuts - she suspected the Italians wouldn't have the same eye for quality and detail as the Germans*. I thought I'd be pretty safe, though, as I read a lot of bicycle magazines and I know the Italians have a good reputation for their high-end products...
And therein lies the problem: "high end."
I have no problems with the mask and plastron - both of which are well made and very comfortable. I think the mask is much more comfortable than the Uhlmann one I had been borrowing. The 350 uniform, on the other hand...
It's too thin. I know one of the reasons I went with Negrini was because other reviews said the clothing was light, but this is a bit too light. I'm sure it's suitably resistant to piercings, but it gives little buffer to protect against bruising. Even the Absolute jackets had heavier material. Additionally, the finishing leaves a bit to be desired. They didn't bother tidying up all the loose edges or cleaning up the pencil marks - as though they figured anything on the inside didn't really matter. Things just seem... cheaper than I'd hoped. The Uhlmann 350N uniforms seem better made with more attention to detail - and they don't cost as much.
I expect their 800N uniforms are perfectly nice, but if they aren't going to put the effort into their lower-end products, I'm not going to take a chance on their high-end gear. I don't think enough companies realise that their "entry level" products are their first and best advertisements. After wearing the Negrini 350N uniforms for a few months, I can't say I'm going to stick with them for my next purchases.
*Having recently been to both Germany and Italy, I can completely understand why she would think that.
UPDATE: 2015
Having said that, my club has since started buying really cheap fencing gear from a company in China (Wuxi), which is producing 800N uniforms that are thinner than my Negrini 350 uniform. Alarmingly so. As in "I can see your underwear" kind of thin. My Negrini clothes may have been thinner and less well finished than Uhlmann and Leon Paul, but they beat the pants off the Chinese stuff.
And they hold up really well. I've never had any trouble with them from a durability perspective. I have to admit that I've been rethinking revisiting Negrini. Whether I do or not remains to be seen.
Dentists
I've managed to go most of my life without major dental work.
When I was in primary school I fell over and snapped off my front tooth, which was repaired once the swelling went down (I managed to completely bust open my whole mouth. About twenty years later, I would fall over in almost the exact same spot and completely bust open my forehead - what can I say? I have talent.) I've had to have the repair work repaired a few times over the years, but that was about it...
...until now.
Now, suddenly, I've had a tooth practically explode (turns out I didn't have something stuck between my teeth - it was a tooth disintegrating and getting jammed into my gums) and my dentist has identified other teeth that could do with filling. I made it to 32 without having a single filling, but I'll have three of them before I hit 33.
Dentists surgeries are not comfortable places to be, and dentists do things to your mouth that seem rather unnatural, really. All those devices doing abrasive things to your gum lines... It just feels like something that shouldn't really happen. I have to fight the urge to ask "are you sure you should be doing this?" Mind you, seeing as there are several things in my mouth at the time, I would have difficulty saying it anyway.
I wonder about dentists. I wonder if the people assisting them (assistants? technicians? nurses?) are career spit-suctioners or if they go on to become dentists themselves (or avoid doing anything with teeth for the rest of their lives). I wonder if dentists do the dental work on their own staff, or if that would be weird. I wonder if dentists can kiss without mentally noting the condition of the other person's oral health. I wonder what dentists think about when they go to the dentist - and how they pick which dentist to go to. I wonder if they do all the things they know they should do to take care of their teeth.
Mostly, though, I wonder if I can avoid getting any more dental work for a few years...
When I was in primary school I fell over and snapped off my front tooth, which was repaired once the swelling went down (I managed to completely bust open my whole mouth. About twenty years later, I would fall over in almost the exact same spot and completely bust open my forehead - what can I say? I have talent.) I've had to have the repair work repaired a few times over the years, but that was about it...
...until now.
Now, suddenly, I've had a tooth practically explode (turns out I didn't have something stuck between my teeth - it was a tooth disintegrating and getting jammed into my gums) and my dentist has identified other teeth that could do with filling. I made it to 32 without having a single filling, but I'll have three of them before I hit 33.
Dentists surgeries are not comfortable places to be, and dentists do things to your mouth that seem rather unnatural, really. All those devices doing abrasive things to your gum lines... It just feels like something that shouldn't really happen. I have to fight the urge to ask "are you sure you should be doing this?" Mind you, seeing as there are several things in my mouth at the time, I would have difficulty saying it anyway.
I wonder about dentists. I wonder if the people assisting them (assistants? technicians? nurses?) are career spit-suctioners or if they go on to become dentists themselves (or avoid doing anything with teeth for the rest of their lives). I wonder if dentists do the dental work on their own staff, or if that would be weird. I wonder if dentists can kiss without mentally noting the condition of the other person's oral health. I wonder what dentists think about when they go to the dentist - and how they pick which dentist to go to. I wonder if they do all the things they know they should do to take care of their teeth.
Mostly, though, I wonder if I can avoid getting any more dental work for a few years...
Monday, October 1, 2012
Gut wrenching
I have an exam tomorrow morning, and my gall bladder is playing up. Or maybe it's my functional dyspepsia. I don't know. I have two diagnoses and I can't work out which symptoms belong to which one. I suspect there's a certain amount of cross-over.
Meanwhile, whatever it is has been playing up since last Wednesday, so I'm kind of hoping it isn't my gall bladder or it might be an indication that I should be getting it removed. I'm not a big fan of having internal organs removed if such things can be avoided.
The discomfort seems to be in the wrong place, anyway, so I'm assuming it's the dyspepsia - although attacks for both usually clear up after a couple of days, so it's a bit distracting either way.
The most annoying thing about both is the fact that I'm really bad at working out what triggers an attack. It's the whole cumulative thing that's throwing me out. Any given item of food could be perfectly fine or the thing that's going to give me hours of grief - it depends on what else I've eaten lately.
Take sausages, for example. I can eat a sausage from a street vendor one day and have absolutely no problems. I can even eat two such sausages in a week without issues. Then, one day, I will eat a sausage from a street vendor and it will trigger an attack - not because there was something particularly bad about that sausage, but because something I'd eaten the day before (or, in some cases, two days earlier) had primed my innards for an issue, and the sausage was just the catalyst.
Maybe my gut is giving me signals that I've been "primed", but I'm not very good at recognising them, or maybe it really is a case of Russian Roulette with what I stick in my mouth. I seem to go from "I feel fine" to "dang, my stomach is rather upset" without any middle ground.
Obviously, I should be adjusting my diet to exclude things like sausages, and maybe if I started eating like a 70s hippy I'd be able to avoid the primers and catalysts altogether. It's just surprisingly hard to pull that off when you a) eat with other people and don't want to inconvenience them, b) get food from cafes and c) travel.
Stupid faulty internal bits. Why can't I just eat stupid things that are no good for me like normal people?
Meanwhile, whatever it is has been playing up since last Wednesday, so I'm kind of hoping it isn't my gall bladder or it might be an indication that I should be getting it removed. I'm not a big fan of having internal organs removed if such things can be avoided.
The discomfort seems to be in the wrong place, anyway, so I'm assuming it's the dyspepsia - although attacks for both usually clear up after a couple of days, so it's a bit distracting either way.
The most annoying thing about both is the fact that I'm really bad at working out what triggers an attack. It's the whole cumulative thing that's throwing me out. Any given item of food could be perfectly fine or the thing that's going to give me hours of grief - it depends on what else I've eaten lately.
Take sausages, for example. I can eat a sausage from a street vendor one day and have absolutely no problems. I can even eat two such sausages in a week without issues. Then, one day, I will eat a sausage from a street vendor and it will trigger an attack - not because there was something particularly bad about that sausage, but because something I'd eaten the day before (or, in some cases, two days earlier) had primed my innards for an issue, and the sausage was just the catalyst.
Maybe my gut is giving me signals that I've been "primed", but I'm not very good at recognising them, or maybe it really is a case of Russian Roulette with what I stick in my mouth. I seem to go from "I feel fine" to "dang, my stomach is rather upset" without any middle ground.
Obviously, I should be adjusting my diet to exclude things like sausages, and maybe if I started eating like a 70s hippy I'd be able to avoid the primers and catalysts altogether. It's just surprisingly hard to pull that off when you a) eat with other people and don't want to inconvenience them, b) get food from cafes and c) travel.
Stupid faulty internal bits. Why can't I just eat stupid things that are no good for me like normal people?
Decorating
This photo is one in a series I like to call "Decorating house-hold objects with various things":
Friday, September 28, 2012
He's a fine chair
I love pointing out that German's think chairs are masculine while the Italians think they are feminine.
I don't know why, but I am fascinated by the fact that these two languages which are, essentially, right next to each other would have different views on the "gender" of that thing you sit on.
Yes, I still think having a "gender" for an inanimate object is daft, and I think every language that does so is somehow inferior to the languages that don't (English, Estonian, Esperanto...) but I'm also interested to know why they chose that gender for that object.
I know several studies have been done of several tribal languages with grammatical genders that have determined the they actually see these inanimate objects as having masculine or feminine characteristics. For example, there's one (I think in the Papua region) in which everything large is "he" and everything small is "she".
I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that all languages with grammatical genders are making "value judgments" about those objects that they call masculine or feminine.
What is it that the Germans see in a chair that makes them think "that's a fine, manly chair"? What is it the Italians would see in the same chair that would make them think "she's far to feminine to be manly"?
What is the point of difference between these two cultures that makes them interpret the same object as endowed with different gender traits?
I don't know why, but I am fascinated by the fact that these two languages which are, essentially, right next to each other would have different views on the "gender" of that thing you sit on.
Yes, I still think having a "gender" for an inanimate object is daft, and I think every language that does so is somehow inferior to the languages that don't (English, Estonian, Esperanto...) but I'm also interested to know why they chose that gender for that object.
I know several studies have been done of several tribal languages with grammatical genders that have determined the they actually see these inanimate objects as having masculine or feminine characteristics. For example, there's one (I think in the Papua region) in which everything large is "he" and everything small is "she".
I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that all languages with grammatical genders are making "value judgments" about those objects that they call masculine or feminine.
What is it that the Germans see in a chair that makes them think "that's a fine, manly chair"? What is it the Italians would see in the same chair that would make them think "she's far to feminine to be manly"?
What is the point of difference between these two cultures that makes them interpret the same object as endowed with different gender traits?
Monday, September 24, 2012
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