Synchronized Swimming

So out of 8 events and over 600 pounds worth of ticket applications, it turns out that I have only got 2 tickets to see the synchronized swimming at the 2012 Olympics. An event that, I might add, has not even sold out and will be available to buy tickets for starting tomorrow. So aside from me picking what is clearly an unpopular event, I really didn't get much. Don't get me wrong- I'm excited to go to an event, and I was always keen on synchronized swimming. It's sort of like cirque du soleil- how can that be bad? On the other hand, it's an event that didn't sell out. So while I got tickets because I clearly picked an unpopular event, I was also sort of guaranteed these tickets. Anything else I applied for that was actually competitive, I didn't get.

Well fine. Whatever. I'll be excited about my one event. I think it's being held at the aquatic center which means it will be at the main Olympic park which is close to my house and that means I'll have an excuse to go experience it. I've never been to an Olympics before, so it's impossible not to be excited about it, even if I wish I could have seen more and think that there was clearly something very wrong with the ticketing process.

I know people who got all the tickets they applied for, and I know people who got no tickets they applied for. I heard some statistic that if you didn't account for the price banding, based on how many people applied and how many tickets were available, everyone should have gotten 3 tickets. So it seems really poor that some people got all the tickets and something like over a million people got no tickets. I can't believe that this was the best possible system or that there wasn't an alternative that would have been more fair.

We'll see what happens over the course of the next year. My guess is these will be the only tickets I have and the only event I go to see. But you never know who has tickets and might be offering one to friends, etc etc. I think I can be happy because I'm going to get to see something- even if it's something no one else seems to have wanted to see. If I hadn't gotten any tickets at all, I think I would have been pretty pissed off.

The Current Schedule

Today I must pack my bags and head up to Cambridge for the week. This is the new schedule. Like Mr. Miyagi I am week-on, week-off. This is better than the old schedule which was half-week, half-week. With that schedule I felt perpetually lost and it really took it's toll. Instead of feeling as though I were half in London and half in Cambridge I felt as though I were neither in London nor in Cambridge. This new schedule is much better.

And yet it's always awful to leave my home. I like my home. I like London. I like my life here. It's true, there is another life with other people waiting for me just north of here. A life I also enjoy and yet it does not feel as complete as the one here. Probably because of my house and my things. I am on a visitor there, but my base is here.

And I hate leaving it. Every time I have to contemplate packing my panniers and getting on the train I just feel the weight of it dragging my feet down. I haven't done enough this week. I didn't do enough laundry. I didn't run enough errands. I still have food that will go off in the fridge but I can't easily take with me. It's all excuses, I know. This schedule is so much better than before.

Still, today is a travel day and the ennui is already setting in even though I'm supposed to go up early in order to go to a barbecue at my supervisor's house along with a number of other friends up there. It should be good fun, and once I am there I will be happy, it's just all the more running around and not feeling settled. And leaving my life here behind, for the week.

Over the next couple of months it gets a bit messy. I'm house sitting for my supervisor for a week which is the wrong week, ie, a London week. So that throws things out. My cousin is coming to visit during a Cambridge week and so I will need to be in London so that throws things out. Then I'm going camping for a week in August for my birthday during a London week, so that throws things out as well. By September it should settle back into something normal perhaps. Although I'm considering trying to take on some supervisions for the next academic year. I need to discuss this with my supervisor because I don't think she'll agree to it at the moment although it's what I really need to do for my longer term goals. It's just that I've fallen so far behind this year already, I know she'll balk at my taking on extra work.

And if I were to do so, I would also be committing myself to going up to Cambridge once a week during my London weeks just to see students. I could do this, and the extra money from the teaching would certainly cover the extra ticket, but it's all time and extra. I don't know. I need to speak with her about this. I need to get going on my own work so that it seems less of an issue. I don't know if there's any time to balance these things out. I think probably not.

Well, I have two years to go, so I suppose there is always the year after. But I would prefer to start sooner. That is, assuming they even accept me to do it which is not at all a guarantee. I would love to be able to get my schedule under control and be more manageable but it seems like it's just not going to happen. At least the current schedule is ostensibly better than the old schedule. For now.

Universal Answers on a Postcard

So I've been seeing this guy... lets call him... Mr.English for now. Our first date was before I went to the States, and then we had a month apart. He's based in Cambridge, I'm really based in London. We slept together on the 4th date. We've so far had 6.

I'm not gonna write you a love song

We get along pretty well. We don't seem to run out of conversation. This is what attracted me to him as an idea, even before we met. We exchanged long and stimulating email. So many guys don't. I found that in person, our ability to continue to talk about nothing in particular seemed to hold true. A good sign.

'cause you asked for it

But there are other signs that are less good. And I don't know what to think. I don't know at all what to think. Most of the time I try not to think about it at all because I don't think I have the answer yet. What I'm trying to do is give myself some time. Time with him in the hopes that what is unclear will become clear.

'cause you need one, you see

So in his favor I have... conversation and interest. He seems to take me in stride and is not intimidated. He can be funny. He's generous. He doesn't seem damaged and instead seems to be someone who wants to be in, and is ready for, a proper relationship.

I'm not gonna write you a love song

Not in his favor I have... the fact that he lives in a suburb of Cambridge and thinks this is a good thing. That he is broody (not that I ever needed this instruction, but I can see why men find this unattractive in women). He may not share my kink interests, and while he is fun in bed and by far not the worst, he is also not the best for me in this regard. And finally, while we talk endlessly about nothing, our ability to talk about important things seems somewhat lacking, although it is ONLY date 6 and that is perhaps expecting too much, particularly from someone who is English.

'cause you tell me it's

Does this point to him being not the one? But what is the one. For the first time in my life I am met with someone who is not my ideal and yet I could envision being with. Is that settling? By even considering it settling am I answering my own question? Settling seems easy in abstraction but is perhaps more complex in reality.

Make or break in this

I was talking to SA about this. Most of my friends are interested in my new past time, though no one has met him. Everyone senses my own discomfort and unease with the situation, although with somewhat different responses to it. I expressed how I felt to SA who said that he wanted the full deal. The person who inspired and met him at every level. That nothing less would do. I feel that way myself in that, I want that so desperately.

If you're on your way

But there are no guarantees. If you hold out for this- for the love song. For the one. For the sun and the moon and the stars. You might get it, because some people do. Or you might get nothing at all. Is that a worth while gamble when there are other options that might just do? That might offer something different? That might offer anything at all?

I'm not gonna write you to stay

I don't have certainty in this. I have my own history to deal with. I know that new people frighten me, that I tend to push things away before I trust them. I don't know if I'm leaning towards negativity because it's different and I'm not there yet, or if there is truth in it. I know that Mr.English is good enough for me that he has managed to pass some of my barriers, and yet others are still firmly in place. But is that because they are right, or is it just because of me?

If all you have is leaving I'm gonna need a better

Am I clutching at straws? Wishing for things that aren't real? Hoping for dreams that are childish and won't come? Am I making false comparisons between a new person I barely know and others who I know better but are unavailable to me? Am I too difficult? Too demanding? Too naive? Too stubborn? Too foolish? Too wary?

Reason to write you a love song today

I'm going to continue to give this one some time. I am afraid that I might know the answer, but equally afraid that I am wrong. I want the love song. I want the pretty picture. I want the story book. But I'm tired and getting old and I see that in some ways I am running out of time. I can see that something good might be okay even if it means giving up a chance for something amazing. And I can see how that very thought might kill me slowly over time. Don't know don't know don't know. Gonna give it some time.

Can't Catch Up

I know, it's been a while again. A lot has happened. I didn't keep up with things here. Now many of my moments in history are just gone. I had my third date, but more on that later. I went to the States and saw the family. I came back, I've been impossibly busy with work for my industrial partner and doing nothing to progress my own work. I had to get a new washing machine. I got only one pair of Olympic tickets when I bid on 8 different events. But then some people got nothing, so better than nothing I guess.

S was here for over a week which was tiring but great. SA and T are off on world travels and may not be back to England for some time. SP got an offer for a PhD studentship so she will be starting that up in the fall and then we will both be doing PhD's although sadly not at the same university. Still, it will be good to have a contact at another university in a similar area. No contact from M, not that I mind. Although the thought of her does fill me with ire when I bother to consider it. Everyone else seems to be doing alright.

I printed my blog book for 2006. I am awaiting it now. I am even more excited than when I got the first one because I know just how good it will be. And I spent some more time being funky with the cover so I'm looking forward to how that turns out.

I set up my Etsy shop and have sold my first item which I am shipping off to Australia tomorrow. I was very excited about it, and in some ways still am, but I need to sell a few more items before there is any sort of profit in this endeavor. Still, it's just nice to sell something regardless. Every little helps cover what my expense has been. I think if I were to sell just a couple more I would have covered all my costs, and I've already sold three without Etsy, so really, that probably does cover everything to be honest.

My mom has been in Italy for three weeks now. I am curious to hear how her trip has been. One of the women she was on vacation with put some post on Facebook about how she was on holiday and then sent her greetings from herself, and the third woman on the trip- but not my mother. I thought that was rude, so I left a snarky comment asking if she'd lost my mother. I wonder if the trip was okay or if they had issues.

I've submitted a paper to a conference and have also submitted an abstract to a conference. I should have heard back from the second one by now, which is maybe slightly worrying. I hope I get in to the first one. It's in Italy so that would mean a trip to Bologna in September which would be cool.

My cousin D is coming to stay with me in August for a few days. He'll be here for my birthday which is nice. He's in between high school and college this summer. He's coming to the UK for some sort of program that he's involved in and then adding a few days to see me. I think this should be good fun.

So on my return from the States I had a second date with the third guy. We've now had six dates. I'm conflicted about him. I'm giving it some time in the hopes that the worries I have resolve themselves one way or the other. In the meantime I'm enjoying a bit of fun and hanky panky. I might write more on this later, although, given my current writing habit, who knows.

I still miss the writing. The other blog is taking up some of that. It requires a bit of a commitment and X and SA have both been off and on shit about the commitment it takes leaving me to be the one holding down the fort. The blog is going well, but it's hard to come up with one article a week. It's a lot of effort. Which is why the others have struggled. I know. But if we don't keep the writing up, we don't keep the readership up. It's a viscous cycle that way. I guess ideally we'd add one more writer to the group and then everyone could write a single article every other week.

I'm going to try and write here more again. Although I know I always say that. I hate doing catch up posts when I feel there is so much to record, but no time to delve into anything.