My So-Called Life
the random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek
My So-Called Lifethe random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek |
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| About Lizzie: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Lizzie is a fully qualified history teacher having finished her course at Canterbury Christ Church University. She's also a geek who was secretary of the University of Kent Computing Society during her three year BA at the University of Kent. She is very much in love with her shiny Husband, though she is sad that he doesn't glow bloo :( More about her on her website: http://carina.org.uk |
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| Feb. 5th, 2008 @ 11:31 am Darwin award candidates (if only they had died) and a shiny new camera | |||
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I was having a bad day a few days ago when ben cheered me up by pointing out to me this story in the local free rag, which clearly shows some students at CCCU who, if they had died in the fire, would have been candidates for the Darwin Awards. ( The article ) For those who CBA to read the article themselves, basically there was a fire in an empty house next door to where the students lived. The students, Dan Fowler and Elliot Preston, originally did the clever thing and evacuated their own house - "There was a loud bang at the door. It was someone telling us to get out because the house next door was on fire." Elliot took his laptop and alerted his housemate and they got out. So far, so clever. But then: "We got outside but then I sent Dan back in to get the XBox. Unfortunately we broke Pro-Evolution Soccer in the process, which was not cool." It would have been even less cool if the fire had spread and they'd died in the process, although then they would have removed themselves from the gene pool, which after doing something so monumentally stupid may not have been a bad thing. In other news, these are the final pictures to be taken with my old camera, a Fuji Finepix A210, which has done stirling service for over four years - it was purchased for me as a joint present from everyone when I turned 20. The other day I purchased a Panasonic Lumix fz8, which was on manager's special for about £80 less than RRP because it was lacking a manual and a charger ;) The real shininess of the Lumix is the Leica lens. Before ben upgraded to a proper D-SLR he had a Panasonic Lumix fz30 and said that the lens was what really made the camera. I suspect that will be the case with this one too. The new charger arrived this morning, so in the next few days I will go out and take some test shots with it to show everyone :) Then I can tell you just how shiny (or not) the fz8 turns out to be :) |
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| Feb. 12th, 2006 @ 11:47 pm woe :'( | |||
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Mostly feeling:
A baby giraffe born six days ago and its mother have died in a fire at Paignton Zoo in Devon. sadNow Playing: NCIS This makes me feel very very sad :( |
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| Nov. 23rd, 2005 @ 01:43 pm Well, I saw that coming... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
A sketch in BBC One comedy Little Britain which showed a woman urinating uncontrollably in a shop has been criticised by an incontinence charity. tiredNow Playing: computer hum Saw that coming as soon as I knew which new characters would be appearing. Not surprised at all ;) Hvae to say I agree much more with the charity than with the BBC who state that "the sketch was not offensive as it was not grounded in reality." Hmm. |
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| Nov. 11th, 2005 @ 08:48 am *gurgle* | |||
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Mostly feeling:
*giggle* awakeNow Playing: aragorn's noise I bet they're hideous ;) |
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| Oct. 29th, 2005 @ 02:24 pm Of Guantanamo Bay and Soy Sauce... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
UN invited to inspect Guantanamo. This story is interesting and frustrating at the same time. clumsyNow Playing: Star Trek: TNG The main points occur in the first three paragraphs: The Pentagon has invited UN officials to visit the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, more than three years after first receiving the request. Finally they allow the UN in. Why did it take them three years? Three human right monitors will be allowed to observe the facilities and question military officials but will not have access to detainees. Riiight. So they can come in and speak to the people who are almost guarenteed not to say anything bad about it... The Pentagon said the invitation showed it had "nothing to hide". If they have nothing to hide then why did they wait three years and why are they not allowing the inspectors to access the detainees? Grr. Stupid America :/ ----- In other news, I've had a very lazy half term and have barely done any work...but that's a story for another LJ ;) I had a clumsy evening the other day where I managed to drop several things and weld some cheese sauce to the bottom of a pan. This all culminated in my dropping a large full bottle of Soy Sauce onto our kitchen carpet from a high cupboard, where it shattered. Soy Sauce went everywhere and the carpet now looks like something the good people at CSI would investigate. ( see? :| ) For those of you who don't know our kitchen that stain takes up a sizeable proportion of it... Bethan coming today to stay with us till Friday :) |
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| Jun. 1st, 2005 @ 02:59 pm An Update :o | |||
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Many things to write about :) happyNow Playing: Sister Hazel: Killing Me Too Firstly, Ben and I have moved into the flat (yay!) and will be finally getting White Goods (fridge freezer and washer dryer) on Monday \o/ - you don't realise how fantastic the invention of the fridge was until you are stuck in the middle of summer (well almost the middle of summer :P) without one ;) I'd put the fridge right up there with Central Heating. Housewarming soon (promise!) and address and phone number in privated entry to follow this ;)) Secondly, I have been contacted by the National Blood Service Bone Marrow Register because, apparently, I am a preliminary match with someone. This was quite a surprise to me ;) I'm going along to St Georges Hospital, Tooting on the 13th of June to have another blood test. If everything checks out there then I will be donating some of my bone marrow to someone who needs it. Just thinking about it makes me go all squishy! ( The letter ) Thirdly, the unveiling of the "Deep Throat" who revealed the involvement of Nixon in Watergate has taken place. This is also something that has made me kinda fuzzy inside. This is always something I remember mum being interested in, and I think I see why. I see it as a defining moment in American politics. It's good to see the person taking the credit he deserves. Finally... ( A Meme! ) |
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| Apr. 23rd, 2005 @ 08:02 pm Awww :( | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Sir John Mills died today :( sadHe was my favourite actor :(( Sucks. |
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| Apr. 19th, 2005 @ 10:58 am A reason why the correct portrayal of history is vitally important | |||
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p nervousSuddenly history teaching seems to be much more important... |
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| Mar. 21st, 2005 @ 06:49 am The case of Terri Schiavo [Post May Offend] | |||
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Mostly feeling:
I have been prompted to post this morning by the case of Terri Schiavo, (and here and here) a woman in the US who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990. Her husband who is her legal guardian wants her to be allowed to die with dignity and has been fighting since 1998 for her feeding tube to be removed. He has been successful on three occasions (including this last one) and twice the decision has been overturned by those on the opposite side, Mrs Schiavo's parents and siblings because they: thoughtfulNow Playing: Dawn Chorus My take on it is that if there is anything left of this woman, she is trapped, unable to do anything inside this shell of a body. I don't think being trapped like that is in anyway a meaningful existance and I think she should be allowed to die. It is a difficult decision for people to make and the law courts have constantly approved Mr Schiavo's wishes. I do not think that Congress (overwhelmingly republican) should have got involved and certainly should not be passing laws to prevent it. It is government meddling gone mad, and the wrong people are being caught in the middle. Now we have intervention in this case what is to stop them from doing the same in other cases? Or even make abortion illegal again.* I hope if anything like that happens to me the people who love me will allow me to die with dignity and not stay like that for fifteen years. It isn't a life. It may bring comfort to the family because in a bodily sense the person they love is not dead, but in my opinion they are worse than dead. I have been told before that Greif is a selfish emotion, and I agree with it. It is an emotion for the living and not for the dead, one that doesn't take into account how much the dead person would have suffered if they had lived, just how much the living person wishes they hadn't died. I think the case of Mrs Schiavo is grief taken to its most extreme level of selfishness by the parents and siblings. In not wanting her to be dead they are denying her right to dignity, and trying to justify it by telling themselves and the world it is because they know she can have a meaningful existance. I think that is just unfair to her. *Abortion is something I don't think I could ever do, but I defend the right of women to it. |
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| Mar. 9th, 2005 @ 09:18 am Islet transplants | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Islet transplants are being shown to be successful in Curing Diabetes type I. I don't feel anything I can say on the subject will have as much impact as what my mother posted on her blog about it this morning so I am pointing you all there to get some sort of idea what this means to us as a family. hopefulI will also reiterate what she says at the end: "The Islet cells that were transplanted into this gentleman were cadaveric ones, they had come from a dead body. That raises again the number of bits of you that are of use to someone else when your life has come to an end. On my driving licence it says that doctors are free to take whatever they want of me to improve someone else's life...when I am done with them, and I'd just like to ask those of you out there to think about whether, if you aren't already you could become a potential donor." |
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| Feb. 15th, 2005 @ 10:32 pm Chavs Take Note | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Yay Asda! workingNow Playing: Barenaked Ladies: War On Drugs You continue to be pervayors of fine taste throughout the United Kingdom. |
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| Feb. 9th, 2005 @ 10:25 am On a slightly less ranty note... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
These pictures have been put together by an artist called Caroline Cardus. The exhibition is of road signs on a disability theme and is very interesting. As an able bodied person it certainly makes me think. mellowNow Playing: Travis: Pipe Dreams |
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| Feb. 9th, 2005 @ 09:51 am I am sickened | |||
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Mostly feeling:
This morning  sickenedNow Playing: Travis: She's So Strange ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} benc pointed me at an article he had read via his RSS feeds that had appeared in the Observer. This article is the account of a British man who was detained in Guantanamo Bay for 33 Months and it is truly horrifying. I don't usually quote from the bible and those who know me best will know that I'm in a very confusing place right now wrt religion, but I feel John 8:7 sums up perfectly what the attitude of the Coalition should be in all this. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Everyone knows that no person or country can be perfect but that they should try as hard as they can to be beyond recrimination. In their "War Upon Terror" the "coalition" is doing things that makes them as bad as, if not worse than the people who committed the September 11th atrocities. Do they really think that by performing torture and denying people their basic human rights they are going to gain support? All they are doing is turning more and more people against them as a country and Bush's regieme.If this is the price of freeing the world from terrorism I want no part of it. |
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| Feb. 1st, 2005 @ 11:09 am Ivan Noble | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Every so often there is someone who touches your life just though their writing. You don't know them but their bravery and determination communicated to your through their writing touches and moves you in ways that you could not even imagine and has a huge impact on your life and way of thinking. distressedNow Playing: Queen: Is This The World We Created One such person for me was Ivan Noble. Ivan was a write for the BBC website when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002. He kept a remarkable tumor diary and did his best to de-mystify and educate people about cancer. I have read it from the beginning and would urge anyone who reads this entry to do the same, because it shows what a remarkable man he was. He is a person I very much respected. His diary was updated for the last time last week (I wrote about it here) and on Monday he died. Considering I never knew and will never know him I am bizarrely upset. I wanted him to win his fight. I wanted him to be there to see his children grow up, I wanted them to know him properly, I wanted his wife never to know the sorrow of widowhood and being left with two young children. Now I'm crying and I can't even explain why properly. He was an amazing man and I hope that if I should ever be diagnosed with a such an illness (and I really hope I never am) that I can face it with even half of the bravery he showed. My thoughts are with his family and friends at this time. |
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| Jan. 28th, 2005 @ 11:30 am No Shit Sherlock | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Apparently the new variable fees may boost student debt irritatedNow Playing: The Verve: The Drugs Don't Work Wow. Wish I'd thought of that... *rolls eyes* |
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| Jan. 27th, 2005 @ 09:58 pm LOL! :D | |||
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roflmao :D amused |
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| Jan. 27th, 2005 @ 03:54 pm :( | |||
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Mostly feeling:
For those of you who have been reading, or have ever read Ivan Noble's Tumor Diary sad:( |
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| Jan. 27th, 2005 @ 09:58 am There's always one... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Did we learn the lessons of Auschwitz? blankNow Playing: Can't Help Lovin' That Man O' Mine Most people are having a fairly reasoned debate or contribution. Then from Nathaniel, Houston, Texas, USA we get: "Have we learnt the lessons of Auschwitz? Depends on who "we" are. America had to twice go across the Atlantic to stop smaller genocides taking place in Europe after WW 2 (Bosnia and Kosovo). America also stepped in to stop Saddam Hussein, a dictator who gassed people and sent them to mass graves. So I would say America has most definitely learned from Auschwitz. Now as for whether or not "we" the Europeans have learned the lessons of Auschwitz, that's another story. Europeans sat idly by as Milosevic's thugs massacred Bosnians and Kosovars. Europeans drew absurd colonial boundaries in the third world, and then lifted nary a finger when the tribes they stuck together within these boundaries began to massacre one another. So if the question is have "we" learnt the lessons of Auschwitz, one needs to consider who is meant by "we" before answering." Do "we" think he voted for Bush then? |
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| Jan. 23rd, 2005 @ 12:05 pm And once again the BBC News Site drives me to an LJ entry | |||
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Mostly feeling:
The article in question this time is about how the allies should have done more to bomb Auschwitz. contemplativeNow Playing: JCSS: I Don't Know How To Love Him Basically the BBC are going over (again) whether the Allies could and should have bombed the death camp at Auschwitz during World War Two. THere is no doubt that the allies knew the purpose of the camp, there are numerous historical documents that testify to that fact. THe bit that annoys me is that it is History. It is in the past and the actions that were taken then could not be changed. Everyone has 20:20 vision in hindsight and it's very easy for a journalist writing now to say "this is what we should have done". Perhaps we should have, but the fact remains that we didn't. I'm also a little concerned that noone raises the possibility could have killed a majority of the prisoners interned there, as (though I am not by any means an expert) I am not aware of there being any sort of Air Raid Shelters for the population of the camp. This isn't really very focussed. The main gist is (I think ;)) that I am annoyed of actions being taken 50, 100, 200 years in the past being re-examined in light of what we know now and the values we hold dear now. The world of the past was as confused as the present is to us now. Noone can know all of the facts at the time, they can just do the best job possible on the facts they have and it's not fair for them to be condemned in the future when we have all the facts, not only about the circumstances surrounding an event, but also the effects that a particular action had. Hrm. Sorry ;) Brain dump :P |
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| Dec. 12th, 2004 @ 09:03 pm For Anyone Who Has Ever Read A Chalet School Book... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
It's all over for Jack Maynard then ;) bouncyNow Playing: Barenaked Ladies: Adlib Wedding was brilliant. Claire looked so beautiful, and Ben Tanner so handsome....neither of them could have looked happier I'm sure. More links will be added later, but mine are here. Somewhat belatedly, the hen night pics are here. :) |
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| Oct. 22nd, 2004 @ 02:50 pm LOL | |||
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Mostly feeling:
*giggle* amused |
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| Mar. 31st, 2004 @ 11:16 pm The top up fees debate again | |||
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Mostly feeling:
In this online debate into the top-up fees bill (3rd reading passed the commons today with majority of less than 30) I found a particular gem: sleepy"people who pay will also not waste their time dropping in and out of various courses when it suits" Clearly the person writing doesn't have a clue what goes on on a typical university campus... |
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| Mar. 29th, 2004 @ 06:40 am It's tfe :P | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Yet, while reading the BBC news online this morning and given that The Passion of the Christ is very hot topic atm, I found this very interesting. nervousNow Playing: ben boiling the kettle |
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| Mar. 21st, 2004 @ 12:06 pm Mothering Sunday | |||
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Mostly feeling:
Well she went though with it. TBH, I'm not surprised she found it unpleasant, but I can understand the desperation because occasionally I feel that desperate. bouncyNow Playing: Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms Well, it's Mothering Sunday and Phil and I made our usual effort - we got up early and made mamma breakfast in bed and then gave her the presents we'd brought her. These included a new blankie, a new plate and bowl, mug and two jugs, a rock that I'd made (maybe I'll put up a piccie of it later :)), and some candles. She seemed pleased anyway. Phil spent £120 on a chair for his computer yesterday. I put it together for him. Lasagne for tea nice even if it was a bit overcooked.. Home good cos I can be lazy and have long hot baths with plenty of hot water and mamma is there and so it Phil. Home nice, even when I do have arguments with mamma. :) Back to canterbury later... |
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| Mar. 17th, 2004 @ 11:05 am No update for a while then... | |||
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Mostly feeling:
This amused me :) cheerfulNow Playing: Andrew Lloyd Webber - Jacob's Sons'Joseph's Coat |
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| Mar. 8th, 2004 @ 11:56 am ooooo-kay then | |||
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Mostly feeling:
He is the leader who valiantly works, daily, to lead us to restored and renewed peace. shockedNow Playing: Oasis - Champagne Supernova So who do you lot think it is? ( answer ) |
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