Introspection

I’m having a funny few days. Yesterday I was in the foulest of moods, mainly I think because of the vile weather. Today I’m just very pensive. I’ve spent time organising files that are ages old, and I hope when I’m next home I can find the CDs that contain my other writings from before 2007. I certainly remember writing a lot during my final year as I came to terms with my relationship with Tom ending, and working out where it left me.

I’ve also spent time today doing a diagram of ‘my life’ trying to work out how things were different prior to all the business with dad. Something that has really stuck out is how my periods of introspection are important in grounding me. These are the times I write. They are also the times when, even if everything is utterly shit, I remember my situation fondly. They are the times when I feel able to be at home in my surroundings. You can only truly wallow in your own grief if you feel safe and secure. When I was home at Christmas in my final year, and after graduation and dad had gone I had a number of sleepless nights. But it’s these I remember well. I remember going downstairs to make myself hot chocolate and scotch pancakes, and maybe a whiskey. Then bringing them up to my room and curling up in my bed with Boudi, the fan heater on, and reading or writing – with Boudi pestering me for pancake!

So much has happened in my life. At some points it has felt like a soap opera; especially the few years over my college education, with the witchcraft and dad’s affair. I somehow want to reclaim my life from before all of the drama, but encompassing the experience I have gained since then. I look at my life when I was 12/13 and it was stable – very stable – but then I had no idea of all the stuff under the surface. My life was also very boring. Friday nights consisted of choir practice, and then, when I moved on from that, Robots Wars, Frasier and Friends. I only started ‘going out’ when I was 15, before that I had no life to speak of. Now I go out several times every week. In addition to going out ‘on the weekend’ I go out on Tuesdays for badminton and the library, Wednesdays to home group, and Thursdays to do something with Jon – in addition to any ad hoc invitations to dinner or events, and work! And providing food for myself every day of the week. To be honest, it’s not surprising I feel my mental capacity is lower – there’s so much more for me to worry about now!

Cohabitation

Blog posts seem to be like buses. I go without one for ages then loads of inspiration hits at once. Maybe it's tied to stress levels, or the lack of them.

Anyway. Tomorrow Jon and I will have been together for 10 months. Somehow, there's still no sex. Proud doesn't eeeeven begin to cover it. However, things have shifted oddly recently as we both get increasingly frustrated to have our own places, but with him working for a charity, and me doing a PhD it ain't gonna happen just yet. I turn 27 in two days' time and am currently living with a family from church in a small room that looks messy if I put my backpack on the floor when I get in.

I feel I need to review my reasons for abstinence. At first it was because I didn't want to give it to someone I didn't know that well, and certainly not before I knew I loved them. Well, I feel I know Jon pretty well now, and I certainly love him. That's not the issue any more, which is why I feel I need to think this through again. To be honest there's a large part of me that thinks that, having waited this long, we may as well wait until such a time when it's worth those moths of difficulty. For me, that means realising the fantasy of waiting until my wedding night. Doing things properly.

I really can't believe I've become so old fashioned. Maybe I just need to be unconventional, no matter what the convention is. I think a large part of this is simply stubbornness though - as I said, we've waited this long, it seems hard to put all that to waste! In a conversation with my brother (who I believe is pro-waiting) he thought I was mad to not want to live with someone before marriage, but the idea of living with someone and not having sex is just mental. How the hell would you do that?! I'd rather save it all for one massive exciting lump-payment myself. The marriage-sex-cohabitation cash prize :-p

I can say a lot for abstaining though. It's hard, don't get me wrong. Having never had a relationship with no sex before, there really is a gaping hole where sex normally goes. But the thing is that the gap gets filled with conversation and actually getting to know your partner. If you can get through tough times without resorting to physicality I think it makes you much stronger. I'm not saying the gap isn't still there, but I know that the relationship around it is much more firmly grounded. When we do get around to it, it will be done in love, not the product of pent up hormones and insecurity (and as a woman I am very aware of the trap of 'securing' a man's affections through sex).

So, in conclusion - abstinence: difficult, but rewarding if you're looking for a solid, long-term, loving relationship!

Results day!

Today I get the result of my MSc. I yesterday made the mistake of asking our departmental secretary yesterday where I stood and discovered that I had not obtained the somewhat mediocre result required from my research project to carry me to a distinction overall, and so am predicted a merit.

This took me aback, as I honestly thought that with all the skills I've developed over the course of this year, I would be able to obtain more than a crummy 66% for my project (DISCLAIMER: at the beginning of the year I would not have considered that this mark was anything but acceptable - certainly not crummy - but having spent the past 12 months getting 75% for my work, 66 seems a blow). I have not achieved in the top echelon since my GCSEs 10 years ago – no A's at A-level, not even close to a first for my BSc. I feel I've had a glimpse at the top, but am just not good enough to be there.

The 66% is made all the harder for two reasons: firstly, I've done two research projects already for my BSc, the first in my year in industry, during which I cut my teeth, learned a ton and got a reasonable 62% for. Applying all this acquired knowledge I then managed a whopping 64% for my final year project. Whoop. Two more percent. And now two more. The second reason this is hard is that I'm now subscribed to do a PhD. Thank goodness I won't need scientific writing skills for that! I just don't understand why I'm not improving that much, and given the massive learning curve I've been on this year, and the mediocre grade I've managed from it – I'm not sure I ever will.

The one thing that makes a merit easier to accept is that my course mates are outraged on my behalf, and don't seem to like the idea of me 'only' getting a merit. This got me thinking – which is the more important? Granted academic success is important for my chosen path (in academia...) but ultimately this year I decided, against the background of a number of family issues, that life was more important. If I graduate with a merit and an average of 68.9% I can at least take with me the fact that I have had a life this year. I have made a number of friends, earned the respect of my colleagues and seemingly impressed my supervisors sufficiently that they are both impressed with my research (outside of my actual writeup), and apparently deemed me smart enough to do a PhD.

At the end of the day, I know that what's the most important is that I've led a good life this year, and been respectful and helpful to other people. At the end of the day, percentage points will not, on their own, make me happy. And what good is it to gain the world, but forfeit your soul...

Ah, but I still want that 0.6%!!

Getting published

Wow, a post about science - about bloody time!

I made a discovery the other day about getting published in journals which made me realise the extent of my naivete on the subject... You see, I knew that journals had to charge for access to their content in order to actually make some money, but I hadn't realised that although you give them your work for free, they actually charge for the privilege of doing so! Outrage!

So essentially they get given work for free, charge you for it, peer review it for free, then charge you for it again! Wow... they have us over a barrel here!

PhD Comics has something to say about it too... (click here)

Cheesetail and the rat race

I feel compelled to write something now, bed-bound as I am at the moment with the lurgy. I've been reading Redwall by Brian Jacques to make me feel better - one of my favourite books when I was ickle. Set in an abbey of mice it's both utterly a children's tale, but equally one of great wisdom. As a child I was drawn to the peaceful, communal way of life. Everyone having their role in the greater scheme of things, with the Abbot to oversee proceedings – a wise patriarch who could see the good and potential in everyone. I loved the foods they ate, the routine, the love that existed – and the presence of travellers who told stories and brought new knowledge. As an adult that world still appeals to me – one in which the pace of life is slow, where everyone has their part to contribute and no-one is rebuked unnecessarily for their actions. A place of safety – very similar to Hobbiton in a different tale.

On the other side to this is the evil horde – creatures who exist solely for plunder, glory and short-lived recognition. It is the same in a number of stories, and clear that when you serve out of fear rather than love, loyalty is non existent and a climate of 'every man for himself' prevails. In stories it's evident that this is preposterous – you know that the leader will filch on their promises in a pinch, that the treasures that are truly worth having will be snatched away at the last moment in a cunning move of deception. Everyone is disposable to the leader, though meanwhile the rabble try to impress the uncaring tyrant in the hopes of gaining favour, rank and spoils. This seems so preposterous when cast against the true good of Redwall Abbey, but in our day to day lives I am sure we so very easily fall into the ranks of the tyrant.

This realisation dawned on me through the storyof an able and intelligent weasel named Scragg (bear with me on this – it is a children's book!) who is press-ganged into the horde, who impresses the evil leader Cluny with his initiative and efficiency; Cluny mentally labels him for promotion. Another (less able) rat named Cheesetail (again, bear with me), envious of the positive attention this new upstart is receiving, and resentful of his potential promotion takes advantage of a situation whereby Scragg is injured, and secretly murders him. When news reaches Cluny he simply shrugs and says “if he's dead then that's that” and gets on with business.

It's a far-removed analogy, but it got me thinking – how often in life do we get pulled in to serving masters who do not care for us? We strive to look or act like people on the TV, but forget that they are trying to sell us a product. We try to achieve a certain idealistic lifestyle, but forget that being happy is actually more important than keeping up with the Joneses. We serve bosses who do not seem to care about us as people so that we will get paid, maybe get a promotion or some recognition for our abilities, but forget that they have to meet targets set by equally uncaring individuals themselves. It's a world where everyone is so hungry for praise that they'll do anything to get it, and stamping on people for short-term gain is often how it's achieved.

I remember my grandad once saying that getting your pay check should be sufficient thanks for the work you do. I also remember disagreeing with him, being an employee of the praise-hungry rat race myself at the time. My problem was that I had grown up somehow expecting that my abilities would be recognised in a Redwall-esque fashion, and that I would be given the scope to expand and develop from them. I had not factored into my life plans having bosses who were in their posts simply through sheer staying power, achieving managership by stepping into dead man's shoes after years of service - and who resented having an employee that had the potential to show them up, or get promoted above them. The Cheesetails of this world. I actually overheard a conversation about me after I'd applied for and been offered a managerial post after only 7 months with a company (I don't know if they thought I was deaf), which berated “graduates who expect to walk into a managerial post after 6 months here”. I can only reason that I would not have been offered the job had there been adequate scope for longer-serving staff to be trained and promoted into the roles. Thus was the attitude towards initiative, ambition and talent in said company. I shall say no more.

I keep thanking my lucky stars that I turned the job down and escaped the rat race at that juncture. Although I would probably now be able to afford my beloved house, I would have ended up buying it in a place that I could then not escape (assuming my enthusiasm would have been further beaten out of me...), and I would not be as happy as I am now. The rat-race is so tempting, and it's so easy to forget that even if you win – you are still a rat.

Thus I need to remember somehow to enter into jobs knowing that it is not the most important element of my life, so that I do not need the praise of my managers to give me my self worth. Also obviously to give my future employees the scope to develop their talents, and make use of them. I must never forget that at the age of 21 I knew a helluva lot more than I do now, and that graduates look at things differently to jaded souls like myself! I still have the potential to get sucked back into the monster, but just need to make sure I keep my head and remember what little 9 year old me wanted and valued in life.

Self Esteem #1

I swear, if one more person tells me I have low self esteem, I am going to thump them.

Maybe I do have low self esteem. But that’s not how I see it. I see low self esteem as a self-loathing, a hatred of what you are and how you look. That no-one will ever love you, and that nothing you ever do is ever worthwhile, or will ever result in being your being happy. I should know, I’ve been there.

But I quite like myself now. I’m proud of what I do. I see a future for me, and I see someone loving me. I accept that no-one I meet will ever be perfect, and I accept that I am not perfect myself. I can deal with what life throws at me most of the time.

My problem is twofold. Firstly, because I spent so many years hating myself, it’s my go-to place when I’m depressed, tired or low. You can spend all the time you like sorting out your thought patterns, but it’s a whole lot harder to stick to them when you haven’t any energy. Consequently, when I burst into tears because “I’m stressed out and I can’t cope“, people assume that what I’m really saying is that I CAN’T cope - and thus that I feel I’m hopeless, can’t achieve my goals etc. rather than making me a cup of tea, giving me a hug and just saying ‘there there’. That’s all I want, people! Stop making assumptions about my behaviour!

The second problem is this: I have ridiculously high standards, and expect everyone to live by them. They’ve been handed down the generations and I can’t seem to shed the damn things. Thus I spend a large portion of my life feeling I’m letting people down because I can’t do everything I want for them - and feeling sad that other people don’t do those things for me. Bizarrely, when someone does do something nice I then get so emotional and overwhelmed by the gesture that I burst into tears and can rarely remember many details of the event afterwards.

The reason this is such a problem is that in my mind this extends to God. No-one has ever cut me slack for not doing my best, so why should he? Why, when love has always been so heavily associated with success, would God love me if I failed him, or any one of his children?

I can accept that Jesus forgives far worse things than I've ever done, but I just can't quite believe that the same forgiveness extends to me. I just can't accept that I deserve to go to heaven. That God loves me.

I had something of a theological debate with Jon the other day (flaming row might be more appropriate), and in the course of it I actually said that I truly believe I'm a horrible person, who doesn't deserve to go to heaven. And you know what? I do think that. He looked at me like I’d gone stark raving bonkers, which in all truth might be a fair judgement. Where have I got this absurd idea from? Where in my life have I assimilated the conception that it’s one rule for all of humanity, and another for me?

Now I wasn’t raised a Catholic, but I did attend a C of E primary school - and my town’s Parish Church (the sort you attended each week not because you wanted to spend time with God per se, but because if you didn’t go, you would lose brownie points in the congregation) which may bring with it its own brand of childhood trauma. Could it be that my early experience with church was so far removed from any experience of being loved by God that I still find the idea of God wanting me as part of his family rather than part of a congregation all vying for alpha status, quite simply alien? I certainly think it plays a part.

TBC…

I just don't have the time!

From my UCB daily jigger...

Our days are like identical suitcases, but some people pack more into them
than others. That's because they know what to pack. Everybody gets
twenty-four hours, but not everybody gets the same return on them.

The truth is, you don't manage your time, you manage your life. Time cannot be
controlled; it marches on no matter what you do. Nobody, no matter how
shrewd, can save minutes from one day to spend in another. No scientist is
capable of creating new minutes. With all his wealth, Warren Buffett can't
buy additional hours for his day. People talk about trying to 'find time,'
but they need to quit looking; there isn't any extra lying around.

Twenty-four hours is the best any of us is going to get. Wise people
understand that time is their most precious commodity. As a result, they
know where their time goes. They continually analyse how they are using
their time and ask themselves, 'Am I getting the best use out of my time?'

In his book What To Do Between Birth and Death: The Art of Growing Up,
Charles Spezzano writes: 'You don't really pay for things with money, you
pay for them with time. We say, "In five years, I'll have enough money put
away for that vacation house we want. Then I'll slow down." That means the
house will cost you five years; one-twelfth of your adult life. Translate
the pound value of the house, car, or anything else into time, and then see
if it's still worth it.'

Port, earrings and ugliness

I was thinking this morning about an old adage that sounds so cliche now, but it so very true, and it has to do with my earrings. You see, I got them from Santa at Christmas (how old am I now...?) but they're originally made by the Tuareg (I think that's spelled right) who are a nomadic tribe in north Africa (makes mental note to Wiki this presently).

At first sight, they're lovely, silver and some sort of stone, but when you look at the fixings, they're all blackened and icky looking. I didn't want to wear them at first for fear of my ears going black, or reacting to something and swelling up. But I've been wearing them the past week, and no problems at all. Much better than some of my other earrings...

The other example was that of a bottle of port that a friends' mum was given. It was dusty and covered in crap, but they said "drink it, it's amazing!". Needless to say said recipient put it away for a while and tried to forget about it. But the friend persisted with asking them if they'd tried it yet, and after a while she did. And the word she used to describe it was nectar. She'd never tried anything like it, and certainly never expected it out of such a manky looking bottle.

The adage is of course "don't judge a book by its cover" - but thinking of it on a deeper level, I realised I need to remember that sometimes the very best things do come out of the least attractive places.

Sometimes you need to reach your very lowest point to turn things around. Sometimes you have to confront the really unattractive parts of yourself to access new places and build new roads. And sometimes what you think are the ugliest parts of yourself are exactly what makes you so sweet :o)

Sex and Marriage

Why not start out with something utterly controversial?

Sex before marriage is a topic that has caused me so much angst, because it goes totally against what I would consider normal behaviour. We’re human, right? We’re designed to reproduce! But then I’m a biologist so I would say something like that.

You see, the normal reasons given for abstaining centre around unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, and quite frankly those things don’t happen if you’re careful. But another reason that gets trotted out is the effect on self esteem and the resulting "hurt". Personally I feel that sex doesn’t cause low self esteem, it’s just often what people do when they have low self esteem - to make themselves feel better. So what about "hurt"?

Ok, yes, I have certainly been hurt as a result of relationships that contained sex. But would that have been different if there had been no sex? And what other things have hurt me? What are the things that make me uncomfortable when I find that a new boyfriend has had sexual experiences with previous girlfriends?

I’m in a fortunate position in some ways as my university boyfriend, at the ripe old age of 21 had yet to have even kissed a girl - let alone had a girlfriend, so the issue of sex didn’t come into it. And how did that work out? I ended up feeling that he couldn’t appreciate me as he had nothing to compare me to - how could he know then what he had in me? How lucky he was? For me, an inexperienced boyfriend is not going to save me from other problems.

Thinking back, the first boyfriend I really had sex with properly (although not my first encounter) was a virgin - and it was me who badgered him into sex. I however spent the entirety of our relationship feeling inferior to one of his ex girlfriends whom I knew from college - she was in the year above and I considered she was way cooler than me. That same icky feeling I get now was there - though it had nothing to do with sex, as they hadn't been there.

No - the icky feeling came from the same old questions that go around my head now: was she prettier than me? Was she sexier than me? What things did you like about her that I don’t have? Did you have a better time with her than with me? Did you feel differently about her than you do about me? Did you (and here’s the big one) love her more than me?

In my eyes, it’s love that hurts people - not sex. Yes, I have been hurt by infidelity, and by sordid icky stuff that has involved dabbling in things connected to sex (for example, my dad looking at porn, my boyfriend having instant-messenger sex with his ex girlfriend) but the thing that really hurt me there was the betrayal of my love. That someone I loved would lie to me, would take my love and effectively toss it to one side like a piece of junk mail without even looking at it. That my love to them was less important to them than their own interests. Granted these two examples might have been easier to deal with had sex not been connected, but any betrayal of love would still have hurt.

Take my mum making fun of me when I struggled to cope with my first period (and steadfastly denying it years later), or a close friend blowing my being unable to meet up with her one day into an argument that would end our friendship, or another friend simply ceasing to speak to me for no apparent reason - they all hurt, and those hurts cut that much deeper for the fact that the people concerned weren’t simply boyfriends I’d known for a few months. I loved them and they betrayed that love. That hurts.

So let’s look at my relationship now. I have known Jon for 2 months, we’ve been together for about a month and a half. We haven’t had sex. But we have talked about it a helluva lot. On our first date (for some obscure reason) the subject came up and I mentioned I didn’t want any more sex until I was married, and he, having consumed the best part of two bottles of wine by that point, launched into a tirade about why that’s rubbish. While not the best start to a relationship it did open up the subject early, and we’ve discussed it a lot and decided to wait. And I, in my mind, have thought about it a whole lot more.

To my mind there is nothing conclusive in the Bible that says that sex, in a loving, committed relationship, is wrong. And believe me I've read it every which way. Jesus says that every wife should have a husband, and vice versa (to me saying polygamy - acceptable at the time - is wrong), and Paul goes on about avoiding sexual immorality (pornaeia in Greek - a topic in itself), which, considering the port of Corinth at the time is unsurprising - most of the stuff he discusses I would consider wrong now! But the problem with morality is that it is relative, and changes through time and from person to person. In English society until not so long ago, we accepted that sex before marriage is a sin - but in some African countries a man needs to know his wife can bear him children before he will marry her. Which is right? Which is moral?

I remember the first time I heard the term “sex before marriage” - it was in a letter from a friend, who said he disagreed with it. I must have been about 11, and while fully aware of the mechanics of where babies came from (I had my Usborne books, after all) had utterly no experience of any kind of relationship. I knew I wanted to get married one day, and I knew that to have babies required s-e-x, but I don’t think that at that age I saw the two as mutually interdependent, and the idea struck me as odd for the very simple fact that it was a thing. It seemed to be a topic, when I just saw them as things that people would make their minds up about at some point - not be told by someone else. Surely there wasn’t a person who decided such important things and then told other people about them? How bizarre.

I think in my mind at that age I saw my likely relationship pattern thus: I would meet a nice boy, we would be friends and do our homework together. Maybe one day we would decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Then at some point, after having been together for a few years, he would propose. We would be engaged for about 4 years while we travelled the world, and then, eventually, at some point in the distant, grown-up future we would get married, buy a house and settle down.

As life would have it though, I got introduced to the idea of ‘self loathing’ about a year later - that I should not be happy with the person I was - and as this was considered ‘normal’ I did it. I’d never considered hating myself before then. I’d been unhappy, but I never hated myself.

So then I started growing up, and no nice boy materialised. All my friends at some point had boyfriends in some shape or another, some even got really very serious, but no boys were ever interested in me, which to me confirmed that my self loathing was accurate. I was bullied at school because I was clever, and had no friends because I was too socially inept - it seemed conclusive that together with the fact that boys weren’t interested that I was a complete failure as a human being. That in itself has scarred me far more than sex ever has.

So when I hit 16 and sex was the thing to do - I did it! And I was good at it! It made me feel powerful and desirable, and who doesn’t want that? Sadly the hurt here came not from being used, or feeling that I needed to give sex to be loved, but that the sex I had never came from a place of love so much as teenage frustration. What I really wanted was a steady relationship with a boyfriend I’d known for years, who one day would cover my bedroom in roses, swear he’d always love me, and steal our virginity away in a bed of awkward kisses and clumsy familiarity.

What reality gave me was a broken family, years of having my self esteem systematically crushed by bitchy girls at school, and not so much as a passing glance from a boy before I started hanging out in the park drinking cheap vodka. Actually that’s not true - I had two encounters with boys at the Christian youth group I attended, one of whom turned out to have a fiancée back home, and the other of whom went out with me for a week to get another (prettier, dumber) girl to like him. He even told me this, and I was ok with it. Hmmm.

Jon often says that we’re broken people in a broken world, and that is why these things happen - and he’s right. Maybe if my mum wasn’t so insecure herself she could have passed some confidence on to me; maybe if my dad had come from a happy home he wouldn’t have married so young and spent his life regretting it - and cheating on my mum to make up for it. Maybe - if you corrected all the things that our parents have done to make us feel inadequate, insecure or unloved - all the way back to Adam and Eve, we would be able to act in a fashion where we won’t hurt others by what we do - or feel the need to confirm our love for another person with sex, rather than simply believing them when they tell us. But we’re broken people in a broken world, and we hurt from what the world has done to us - so one rule of “no sex before marriage” simply doesn’t take into account the past we are bringing with us to a new relationship. The imperfect love that has damaged us.

Now Jesus, by all accounts, was a pretty nice guy. He loved the world so much that he came into it, broken sinners and all. A sinless man in a horribly corrupt world. But he did it, and while he was here he broke down what we’d today consider obvious barriers like talking to Jews and Gentiles, respecting children, preaching against the worshipping of idols and that we should love our neighbour as our self.

Jesus wants us to love ourselves, and that means respecting our feelings and looking after our bodies. We have so much information available at our fingertips now that making a choice on something like this seems unnecessarily complicated. But what I think God wants us to do is really think about our actions. Spend time working out with him the best way forward.

If we’re deciding to have sex with a new partner we need to think about what we’re doing - really doing, and why we’re doing it. If it’s going to feel wrong a minute, a week, or a month afterwards then we shouldn’t do it. If it’s not what we really want, we shouldn’t do it. If we’re going to feel uneasy or awkward talking to God afterwards, we shouldn’t do it.

God gave us brains and a set of books to guide us, but I think it’s our job to interpret it. It ain’t always easy to make the right choice, but then no-one ever said it would be. Just always remember that God loves you. So much that he gave his only son so that you could be saved. And that is a love that is not broken. That is a love that will not ever hurt.

And this is what I need to remember.