Stand legs apart, arms at your backs
If you dare speak stand and be shamed
Dragged out of the line hanging by an arm
Stood in the corner, outside
Writing lines, copying copying copying
Explain to everyone else
Shamed ashamed a shame
Somebody’s baby, somebody’s child
“Your Score: 41 – According to your score you are rated as SEVERELY DEPRESSED. You should consult a mental heathcare professional for possible treatment. If you are having suicidal ideations please seek treatment immediately.”
…well ok but tomorrow what will my score be? huh?
Depression is not being able to see the wood for the trees. Depression is a storm in a teacup. Something feeling much worse than it is, not being able to fix what’s wrong or even see what’s wrong because it all looks wrong. In the words of twin number 2 “Don’t want it!” “What don’t you want?” You can’t answer because you just don’t want it.
When you are depressed you can enjoy feeling hungry and also justify binging. You suddenly have no direction to choose something worthwhile to do and yet there seems to be an overwhelming amount to be done.
Life seems so long and empty and yet so wasted…and you seem powerless to do anything other than worry about all this and wait for the feeling to pass…if you are lucky and you know it will pass.
What I wonder is… and my doctor couldn’t answer this… ‘if I am depressed and that is me, but I can’t function very well as me when I am depressed… and if I take pills and so I’m not depressed any more and then I can function as me – am I more me or less me than when I’m depressed?’ Bless him he didn’t laugh at me he actually thought about it.
 I want Peppa Pig |
| Peppa Pig on the X box |
 Ok |
 Don’t want to watch XBox |
| Do you want to watch it on the Wii instead? |
| I don’t |
 Well you wanna play Grand Theft Auto? |
| No! |
| Peppa Pig! |
| On the XBox |
| Ok |
| There’s a fly on your telelision |
| Peppa Pig on the XBox now |
| Peppa Pig on the XBox Daddee |
| I don’t want Peppa Pig on the XBox |
| Shall I turn it up? |
| Yes |
| Peppa Pig! (singing) |
| - – - – - |
| I have never seen a pig climb a tree |
I have been tooing (how do you spell that?) and froing about writing this post but inevitably I will do what is true to my heart. I started it yesterday but only found the strength to complete it today. I booked CyberMummy before the new year, I didn’t even think about getting a sponsor, I just wanted to attend and get some direction with my blogging, find out what works and doesn’t and what direction I want to take it in. I blog for myself, my family and friends, and of course I love it when others read it and comment upon it either on the blog or more often on Facebook or via email. I’m not one of the mommy blogger ‘in crowd’ and neither do I want to be. I’ve been involved in many online communities and virtual worlds for years and this is just one area of interest, one that, since having my twins 2 years ago has become more and more important to me. I knew there was some cliquing going on but I never realised how much until CyberMummy. While I enjoyed the conference, and all but one of the workshops, one at the end of the day which left me speechless, and I jokingly tweeted endlessly about being a billy-no-mates (which led me to meet some more awesome billy-no-mates) it wasn’t what I expected and possibly not what I wanted.
Branding craziness…
Sponsorship is a great idea, as is reviewing and branding oneself, I am branded too, way beyond the realms of mommy blogging, but it seemed to me that there was little at Cybermummy for anyone who wasn’t that way inclined. Between workshops the Cybermummy Central room was all about branding and sponsors, it was too much. I loved all the freebies, I struggled home with them, my prizes for my children, but I didn’t expect them or need them, I won’t be writing any reviews about anything in those bags in the near future ( I have written reviews, unpaid ones for products I have used and commented upon, featured not on my blog but on their own web sites). There seemed to be more sponsored than non-sponsored bloggers about on Saturday.
The Sophie King thing…
I was at the workshop. I loved it and it inspired me. Others have the right to feel otherwise from their perspective but I was horrified at the attitude of some people in that workshop. Some people who I had never heard of before the event but now most certainly have, seemed quite affronted that Ms King had not heard of them. They seemed to expect her to know who they were and pay due respect. They didn’t want her advice or suggestions, they seemed to have it all ‘sorted’ – why, I wonder, were they there? They tweeted unkind and unprofessional comments while she was speaking. Some walked out although not as many as has been written. How can someone not have the courtesy to sit through a one hour seminar? I have sat through much longer, much more useless, and more offensive than that ever could have been as an educator of 19 years. The posts and comments, the tweeting and retweeting and retweeting and …. blah blah blah endlessly, not only got on my tits but left a thoroughly bad taste in my mouth. It brought to the front of my mind other negative aspects that I had perhaps been willing to overlook. Sophie King made some very valid points, I know my blogging is too diverse, and I know I cannot leave out certain aspects, so dividing my blog up is a super idea, one which I have already done to some extent – I have a foodie blog and a baby-led weaning blog, as well as a business blog. I also hadn’t thought as deeply about the naming of my blog as I should of. Some people there seemed to think she was ‘knocking’ their branding, well to be honest I think some of the branding mentioned was pretty shite, I can understand it has taken them time and they have built up quite a mommy blogger following, but if they want to break out beyond this small elitist world maybe they should think about it too.
I contacted Sophie King as soon as I returned and saw the horrendous hourly tweets of malicious blog posts that had been written – yes I (my God did I admit to that?), I told her what was going on because she needed to be able to defend herself, people were riding on her back, rising up the Google searches by slating her, sometimes personally, laughing at their growing ‘fame’.
Cliques and more…
‘Mommy blogging rockstars, ‘mommy blogging elite’ I’ve heard it all said and more in the last 3 days. It was a major networking and ladder-climbing event for some. These people are somewhat big fish in a very very small pond. My poor little friendless tweets were picked up by a few in equally good humour but largely ignored. Seriously I could have easily have spoken to no one from the moment I entered. There was a definite hierarchy, one I am not a part of because I don’t recognise its validity. There was one long standing twitter ‘friend’ that was there who I decided not to talk to because I saw the way that others were flitting around this person, like bees to a honeypot. It was tragic.
I met some awesome people throughout the day, not many because I kept myself to myself, but those I did meet were superb people – you know who you are.
Next year…
Well I wondered, do I separate myself from this weird Fetid Inner Core? Do I focus on those who actually matter to me? Do I throw Cybermummy to the wind and those cliques and elitists? Well I’m undecided…if I don’t and I attend next year I will possibly be shunned (well that will make a difference – not!) … or do I have faith that there are others that feel the same and think… the mommy blogging experience is a force to be reckoned with and rightly so, but it’s one that belongs to us all. I must shut up or put up. I guess time will tell, in the mean time I’ll be checking out potential sponsors.
Finally…
The photography workshop was great, I enjoyed the crowd-sourced keynote. I came home buzzing with it all, but it died away all due to the negative posts and tweets flying around, even if most were not so. I wish I didn’t feel this way.
I was about to complete this post today when I found someone else had beat me to it so feel it only right to mention it here as I read it before I finished. You go girl.
… that’s what I felt like today. I had to get a Taxi from Kings Cross to Victoria because I couldn’t actually carry the spoils of yesterday, then a taxi from the coach station home, and when I saw my two little onions I didn’t have the heart to hold back those treasures, especially as little orange head had called me on the phone (with daddee’s help) earlier in the day to tell me I was supposed to come home now, especially as same 2 year old had spent the previous night sleeping on the sofa with daddee because he missed mommy ‘too much’, especially as same little boy had held onto my jeans on Friday afternoon and said ‘you’re not allowed’ as he saw me packing to leave, and had blocked my exit with an empty laundry basket; especially as his twin brother little onion head had run to me and lay on my tummy clinging on like a limpet on my return today.
My husband opened the door and said ‘my God why did you buy all this stuff?’ Then on hearing it was all ‘free’ he had asked if I had spent the entire day sneakily yoinking everything I could get my hands on – little did he know – I had 3 dettol bags forced on me! …and as I went to leave after the party exclaimed “oh shit” as the pink cybermummy bag was thrust upon me. Little did he know how I had heaved and sweated my spoils back to the hostel (oh there’s a story to be told – watch this space), past some dodgy looking youths and actually slowed down and considered offering to pay them to carry my stash. Little does he know now (while he snoozes on the sofa after telling me – seriously telling me – that its very tiring looking after 2 year old twins) that my shoulders are still in pain from carrying my precious load – most of which I didn’t even bother exploring after the second or third bag of goodies I acquired. I started off asking for two of everything for the twins and I ended up running away from anyone with a collection of forever bags, or weakly giving in as they pushed them into my overcrowded hands.
So what did I get that was so precious – awesome I tell ya!
I probably missed something. The boys liked the syringes best and injected everyone promptly.
Thanks to Cybermummy and all the sponsors my home that didn’t look like the expected Beirut after a weekend of daddee and two year old twins, but very clean and tidy thank you very much, was an utter pigsty within 30 seconds of my arriving and those same two year olds emptying the whole lot onto the rug.
The twins have gone off to nana and grandpa’s for the next 2 days and the room is still a disaster and im sitting in the middle of it on the floor surrounded by the addition of dirty laundry and electronic detritus, trying to find various charging cables and camera cables.
I’ve lost a shoe and my hair straighteners are forever entwined with my laptop cable – which is fine cause I usually use both at the same time.
See y’all next year – I’ll be the one with the empty suitcase in tow.
…trained to be a teacher and spent the last 18 years teaching, rather than being a paleontologist & dancer.
Name:Elli Winter
Blog: Peanuts & Donuts (and some others)
Twitter ID: @Booperkit
Height: 5ft 3
Hair: Long Purplish (at the moment)
Eyes: Hazel
Likes: Cooking, writing, reading, out and about with my twins and mummy friends, Guitar Hero – Rock Band – Star – Dance Evolution etc…, Online Gaming, 2D and 3D design, photography, laminating, crochet, Blog creation and design, educating, making in general, eating in and out, playing, The Apprentice, my family, my awesome friends, Minnesota, Cornwall, Greece, variety, dancing, looking at my new rollerskates, my 1966 VW Variant.
Dislikes: Racism, sexism, general isms, intolerance, meat, knitting, age obsession, popular scientists, jeggings, backache, indigestion, my baby belly blubber.
The other night I got into a full on discussion about God and science with some very dear friends of mine. Don’t ever talk about politics or religion … unless it is with really cool people who are awesome, and then it’s ok.
Four people, all wannabe scientists, one ex-Christian, one semi-Wiccan, two geeks. Much beer and some very nice red wine.
It’s hard to summarise how it started – I only remember Richard Dawkins rearing his (for me) very ugly head. I can’t stand the bloke, I mean I don’t know him personally but I read some of ‘The God Dellusion’ (one of only three books of hundreds I have read that I couldn’t stomach enough to finish, another being The DaVinci Code which sent me to sleep every time I opened it, and For Whom The Bell Tolls – I won’t even go there “my little rabbit” God help me!), I listened to him on a couple of radio shows and read a few articles by and about him. I don’t like his stance on ‘science’ and I think he’s a pretty stupid man. It got me thinking a lot afterwards, mainly because I found myself in the aforementioned discussion defending the ‘religious’ angle while not being at all religious. I found myself refining my views and honing my thoughts and I decided to try and make some sense and order of it all…difficult for a spaghetti brain like myself.
In context I have this approximate stance… I don’t know everything, in fact I know very little, especially about the universe, where it came from and where it’s going, and even less about God. I know as much as most other people and possibly more about religion than many, but still I don’t know, because no one really does.
Scientific Faith
Science is supposed to be about the most likely theory at the moment, scientific fact is regularly disproven, as it should be as we glean more and more information to add to what we already ‘know’. However, many ‘scientists’ be they actual trained scientists or otherwise – for we can all be scientists, portray that likely theory as fact. Science is taught in school as fact. I have been on the receiving end of many ‘lectures’ about proven scientific fact from people both highly trained in the sciences and highly aquainted with New Scientist and the Discovery Channel (my husband – although he doesn’t lecture me any more, he discusses). When I say ‘science’ I should be more specific. Some science I am happy to accept as fact – that there is force, such as gravity, I can see it’s effects and test it for myself – I drop something and it falls, I do not have to fully understand it to accept it. I accept chemical reactions because I can test them myself, because I carry them out everytime I cook. I can not test all chemical reactions myself but I am happy to accept them in principle. Biology also holds no incredible mysteries for me, I am content to accept what I see, read and hear.
Then we come to the far echelons of scientific theory – a couple spring to mind – the Big Bang (a somewhat less popular theory than it was a few years ago but still accepted as likely by the general populace and taught in a ‘factual manner’ in school, portrayed on TV in popular science shows in a factual way, and in off the shelf science magazines), and the more recent Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and hilariously named Big Rip theories- which I like to refer to as the Big Fart.
Well here you see lies my problem with science – I cannot see, test or experience any of these things. In fact the scientists themselves know next to nothing about some of them. For me, and in fact for anyone whether they admit it or not, belief in these theories requires a giant leap of faith – faith that the scientists have got it right, that they are honest, that they haven’t missed the point, that they can still see the wood for the trees, that all this isn’t just to take our money and attention away from the proven, sometimes disturbing, facts of known world. In short – to believe in these things even one iota is a massive leap of faith not so different from the leap of faith that religion also demands, the faith in a God that many scientists so readily mock, a God that Richard Dawkins is to desperate to disprove.
Dark Matter, Dark Energy & Ethics
Scientists have named these things and yet don’t know what they are. They are spending hundreds of millions of pounds / dollars etc… trying to find out what they are. They have some underground contraption trying to collect WIMPS, the elements of Dark Matter – they are trying to catch these things but they don’t know what they are or what they look like. After waiting a year they caught none, after another year they caught two of something that might possibly be WIMPS but they don’t know. And the question is WHYYYYYYY!!!!????? Because the human race needs to know? Because it is in our nature to be curious? Well this was put to me as an suggestion. My thoughts on this are simple. MOST of the planet doesn’t give a crap, MOST of the planet is starving, illiterate and focussed on surviving or coping or managing as best they can. The priveleged few have the time, money and resources to spend vast amounts energy (energy that is in short supply I am told every day) looking for things that we don’t know much about and don’t know why we need to find them. These people are priveleged to be gainfully employed and researching in these fields of science, and well educated, fed, clothed and homed. I don’t blame them for doing what they do but question why such effort and energy is devoted to these pursuits and not to the pursuits of ending world hunger, war, energy crises, Aids, Cancer need I go on…? All these mighty brains, all this technology so misspent and misdirected. Everyday people going along with it without question – and what is the gain?
Value for Money?
In any lesson plan there must be learning outcomes. In all walks of life there are desirable outcomes and people expect something for their time and money… a brain expanded by a lesson well taught, a patient relieved of pain by a successful operation, an audience soothed by a beautiful piece of art. I fail to see the outcomes of all this research. So we prove Dark Matter (after working out what it is and how to catch it and whether we caught the right thing) and what? What does it mean to me? I read, I listen, and I watch. I think and I discuss and I still don’t know. The Big Bang theory – the need to know where we came from (I’ll come back to this) and the need to know where we are going…it’s all fair and good but why do we need to know? Why does anyone need to know, do they simply want to know? I don’t care, not because I don’t have an enquiring mind, I do, but because it’s a pointless activity, especially considering the God-Awful mess we have right here – be it the suffering of the 3rd world or the cuts and inflation we face, cuts meaning I that because I choose to be a stay at home mom, have a hard-working, well paid husband, I still can’t make ends meet without leaning on family and friends. And I have it good apparently. That’s the personal side for me, and just my own little bit of resentment, most of the world doesn’t have time to spend resenting, they don’t even know what’s going on.
Who chooses for me?
Let’s suppose, as was suggested to me by my husband that the reason they want to know about the Big Fart (the end of time when the universe expands so much it rips apart) is because they want to prevent it. Even if that was possible (hmmmmm) who has the right to decide. Things start and end and I am happy for that to be. It is the circle of life. We may very possibly destroy our planet ourselves way before then anyway – there are more immediate crises to prevent than a vaguely potential universal rip that is a very long way off from happening if it ever does. I’m not sure that’s why they are researching it anyway. I’m still trying to work that out. Let’s suppose someone unlocks a ‘cure’ for the aging gene tomorrow. Let’s suppose that save dying of serious illness of accident we can potentially live forever, let’s forget for a second the population explosion disaster that would surely follow, and the unknown psychological consequences of living forever… where is my choice when I decide I don’t want to live forever, where will my companions in old age be if I am in a minority, where will my place be in this eternally fit and young society. Where has my choice to grow old with dignity gone when I become a relic, an oddity, and burden?
Macrocosm & Microcosm
I believe that there is a microcosm for every macrocosm, simply put. The universe is full of patterns: waves of light, energy, sound and water; the branching patterns of leaves, trees and roots which so closely resemble the growth of civilisations as seen from above, and the branchings of the veins and nerves and skeletons of animals; the hexagonal patterns of a honeycomb and the Giant’s Causeway, the Gypsum crystals; the pouring of sand through fingers that makes a perfect pyramid; how the movement of electrons around a nucleus has striking similarities to the movement of suns around a super massive black hole.
“Many ancient people other than the Greeks (Incas, Aborigines, Vikings and Celts, amongst others), observed the golden ratio in many parts of the ordered universe both large and small. The Greeks were philosophically concerned with a rational explanation of everything and saw the repetition of the golden mean throughout the world and all levels of reality as a step towards this unifying theory. In short, it is the recognition that the same traits appear in entities of many different sizes, from one man to the entire human population.” Wikipedia
The patterns are there, no one knows why – some think they can explain it with science, some with intelligent design. The question is why do we perceive them?
Narrow-mindedness makes you Dumb
This morning I listened to the comedian Marcus Brigstocke, a self -proclaimed Atheist, yet one who ‘hedges his bets’ cause he’s ‘not quite sure’ state that he won’t call himself an agnostic because agnostics don’t think, they are airy fairy, can’t make their minds up blah blah blah. I think the ones that don’t think are those who call themselves Christians with no ideas of Christian principles, those born into religions who never question their beliefs, and the scientists and wannabe scientists who swallow all this ‘stuff’ – they ask ‘where did we come from?’ but they fail to ask ‘why are we asking this?’, the atheists who blindly say ‘it is not so’. They are stupid because they don’t know, no one knows. My stance as an agnostic is this. I believe in God but I don’t know what God is. I don’t know, I don’t know if I will ever know or if my tiny human mind could ever understand anyway. I am happy to admit I don’t know. Is it just me or are men more likely to stand firmly on one side or another, are women more happy to say ‘I just don’t know’?
The Big Bang and The Circle of Life
A sadly deceased colleague once laughed in my face when I said I believed in God, he did not stop to ask what kind of God. He told me the Big Bang was fact and that yes indeed something can come from nothing, that scientists have produced something from nothing. How can an intelligent person say that? If a scientist produces something from nothing there is still a scientist. It didn’t come from nothing, it came from the actions and energy of the scientist. I believe that the universe is probably made of a finite amount of atoms. These atoms rearrange. When I was conceived and grew in my mothers womb the egg and sperm were the blueprint. My body actually consisted of the food she ate, the air she breathed, she shared her blood with me, she became me. We know this, this is why pregnant mothers should be careful what they eat, drink and breathe. As a child grows they need to eat healthy food because that food becomes them – calcium for healthy bones, iron for a healthy brain etc… When I die i will be buried or burned, my body will somehow become part of the earth. I could be buried in a field (unlikely but I would like that) and my body will feed the soil and the grass. The cows will eat the grass and the grass will become them. Someone will eat the cow or drink the milk and I am in some way being consumed. That person may go on to produce a new life and part of me carries on. This is not religion, or Wiccan or science – it just is obvious, and perhaps all three and much more. It is the circle of life, a circle to which everything must bend – a building, an ant, a drop of water. It doesn’t begin or end it simply changes form. Nothing stays the same for ever – pyramids will crumble into the desert sands, towers will fall to rubble, ants will be crushed into the ground, the universe then, I believe will also change, and perhaps already is, according to science.
Science & The Search for God
By looking to before the beginning, the search for what was before the Big Bang, theories that our universe may have gone through an infinite number of cycles of birth and death (Bangs and Farts) scientists are looking for something which doesn’t seem to me, logically or sensibly, to have a beginning or an end, something which is so massive that it can never be fully understood.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Revelation 22:13
“A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense.”
1 Corinthians 2:14
“A true scientist should listen to the absurd argument in full before deciding that it is absurd”
Robin Winter, my husband, a true scientist.
Science, I believe, in it’s eternal quest to understand the universe, and those such as Mr Dawkins, will inevitably prove God to be. They will look for answers and the answers they will find will only tell them that nothing can be proven about where we came from and more importantly, why?
The absurd and the improbable may end up being the only possible answer. I know there is a God but I don’t know if you know who I think that is – you can’t tell me there is no God because you don’t know what I mean by God. You may tell me God does not exist and be telling me that the universe doesn’t exist, for actually the closest I can come to describing God and the only probable conclusion I have is that the universe is God. The scientist will spend millenia only to try to discover what the Buddhist already knows.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
“Beliefs: Multiple states of quantum particles is how we all are according to personal belief but there is always the opportunity for some other explanation….wouldn’t you agree?”
- ok in context that was me and Aimee totally taking the piss out of our husbands geeking out, and Aimee wanting to blog. It was funnier at the time, but it’s still cryptic, the discussions we have after a skinfull of beer, magical pizza, dance evolution and rock band… Nick totally said that!
I do.
Every day or two I pull out the sofa and have a peek beneath. My mom can verify this. I have posters, one in particular but both are prone to the odd posting extravaganza. Today was a pretty fruitful find:
…oh yes and a rather sorry looking sun hat.
Why do they do that?
