On my run today, a woman walked into me. We were crossing on the path and she slowed as if to let me go first, and then she just stepped into me. Luckily I swerved before body slamming her to the floor.

And then I was chased by a dog.

Exercise is hard man.

It’s Friday the 13th, is it a bad day for you? Never has been for me, but let’s not tempt fate eh?

For anyone feeling a little blue about the day, here’s something cute to cheer you up. I may not give a crap about the Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton may not be on my list, but I found this semi-amusing. Plus, Ed is pretty cute here:

He should do less serious stuff, work with Ben Stiller again dude, that film was sweet.

Good

• I am back on track with running (no pun intended, promise), and it’s going ok, but I look like the poster girl for Reebok. My trainers are Reebok, my jogging bottoms, my t-shirts…I’m not totally sure how that happened.

• I spent money on CDs and in my Amazon searching discovered Counting Crows had a new album out that I hadn’t even heard of. Some fan I am. Also got the Across the Universe soundtrack, and The Wallflower’s Bringing Down the Horse. I have this somewhere on cassette, but thought it was time to update my collection and, you know, be able to upload it onto my mp3 player. One Headlight takes me back to the late 90s. Ah how I loved Jakob Dylan.

• I get to go to Milan in August for work. Hurrah!

• My love for David Tennant is starting to scare me, but he’s so pretty!

• It is Thursday, which means it’s almost Friday!

Bad

• I had a doozy of a migraine this week. I am blaming it on the fact that I attempted to get up really early and be productive, and my body rebelled. Really put me in my place it did. The pain sat behind my right eye for far too long. It felt like a very angry, fiery demon was attempting to force his way out of my head via my optic nerve, and his buddy, who I think was fat, was making his exit via my nose. This was new. My super pills did nothing and my evil body would not go to sleep and make it all better. Have learned my lesson. No more getting up early.

• I made a slight mistake at work this week, which my boss took with good grace. I still feel stupid. But I have definitely learned a valuable lesson and it won’t happen again.

• My annoying, smelly, downstairs neighbours have dumped a load of stuff in the hallway, and it seems it’s all going to stay there. I’m talking proper stuff here, DVDs, books, clothes, pans, duvets…I don’t get it. A person’s entire bedroom/life is sitting in our hall. They’re also being very trusting that none of us are going to walk off with it (not that I want the gubbins) , but it has been very tempting to leave the front door open and hope someone else does. I really, really dislike them.

• I have a paper cut on my finger. Grr.

Dull

• Um…it’s a lovely day outside, but with a bit of an icy breeze. Nope, it’s gonna rain now, all dark and gloomy. Wonder if we’ll get thunder.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. — Anais Nin

I am not very good with change. Beginnings make me nervous, to the point my insides are all tied up in knots and I can’t sleep, because I worry about the unknown, and how I will handle it. Really, worrying is pointless. If a thing happens, you deal with it. You do your best, you get through and it’s done. The little things really shouldn’t be sweated. I am trying very much to learn this. It’s hard, but I think standing in one place is harder. Sure, being comfortable is nice, but when your comfort starts to feel more like it’s suffocating you, something is very wrong. I’m attempting to make changes, the universe just hasn’t caught up with me yet. Whatever happens in the (hopefully near) future, I’m going to try very hard not to freak out about it. Must be level headed.

One of the things I don’t like about change is that, other people don’t seem to like it either. In you. It seems a lot of people like to see you one way, and if you veer from that they don’t really get it. I have this sometimes when I go home. References to behaviour of mine from years ago that is still being used to illustrate who I am. Argh! Yes, there was a time Frosties was my favourite breakfast cereal. I very rarely eat them any more. Can we move on from this? It’s true I used to know the TV guide backwards and forwards, and while I still have a great fondness for all things television related, it is not the sole love of my life. And yes, I did spend a great deal of my teenage life sleeping in on weekends until the afternoon. I liked sleep. I still like sleep, and it’s a bit of a shame I don’t get to do more of it, the shadows under my eyes will agree, but I don’t do that now on a regular basis. Shocking I know. And if you phone me at 8 am on a weekday morning, no, you will not have woken me up. I will be on my way to work because, hey, I have a full time job. Crazy. I am responsible. I pay my bills on time. I look after myself.

Are you never allowed to change? Can you not stop being the person you were at 15…ever? Sure I have a lot in common with that girl, but that’s not all I am. These things could drive a person crazy. But then I wonder, is this just their way of trying to figure me out, a way to make sense of me? If I’m still that girl, then I’m not all that different am I? They can treat me in exactly the same way, and I’ll respond in exactly the same way, and everything will make nice, neat sense. Maybe they don’t do it to drive me crazy. Maybe they’re just not so good with change. Kinda like me.

I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to seeing this film. I keep seeing different trailers for it when I go to see other films, and it has to be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Look at his eyes! How do they make these things look so adorable when they’re just bloody pixels? He does remind me of Johnny 5 though, just a little.

Here’s the full trailer for WALL-E
(or it would be if I could get the damn thing to work. Oh, I am slow, there’s a new way of adding videos now. Phew.)

You know you’re getting old/soft when you can’t watch the trailer without tears coming to your eyes. Oh my god, when he holds his own hand! He’s so lonely. And when he says his name at the end, I’m gone. I’m hoping this isn’t going to be another Finding Nemo though, because I couldn’t enjoy that the first time around, what with all the horrific things that happen to that little fish with the gimpy fin from the get go (aww his poor momma, and the getting lost, and the horrible bit in the tank…it’s all too much!).

I’m hoping WALL-E is less painful for my weak little heart.

Seeing as I am 27 now, I thought I’d get to know this number a bit. Maybe it’ll be insanely lucky, right? Maybe this is the year everything falls into place and I figure it all out? It’s possible I say this every year. It may help me remember I am not in fact 28 if nothing else.

So what do we know about 27?

• Twenty-seven is a perfect cube, being 3³ = 3 × 3 × 3. 27 is therefore the second smallest cube of a prime number. I probably should not have started with maths, but maybe someone can figure out some sort of mathematic equation for how amazing 27 is going to be?

• The 27th moon of Jupiter is Sinope. I just liked this fact. It has no relevance.

• The number of completed, numbered piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his birthday (27 January 1756). This one just makes me feel lazy.

• There are a total of 27 books in the New Testament. I really have nothing to add to this.

• The total number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet (22 regular letters and 5 final consonants)

• The current number of Amendments to the United States Constitution. Because if you don’t get it right the first time, no one will care.

But if you really want to make yourself feel bad, or at least, like you’re not making the most of what you’ve got, look up what others have done by the time they were your age:

• Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer.
• Henry David Thoreau went off for two years to live alone in a cabin at Walden Pond.
• Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.
• Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.
• Albert Einstein published five major research papers in a German physics journal, fundamentally changing man’s view of the universe and leading to such inventions as television and the atomic bomb.
• Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Italy.
• Orson Welles co-scripted, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.

27 is famous for something else though, and that’s being the age that many musicians have popped their clogs, shuffled off this mortal coil, ceased to be. I wonder what it is about 27, that so many have died at this age? Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain (totally spoiling the J thing there) are all part of the 27 Club.

So maybe I should be thankful that I have no musical ability whatsoever. And maybe I should also think about how at 77 John Glenn became the oldest man to go into space, at 80 Jessica Tandy won an Oscar, at 87 Francis Peyton Rous won the Nobel Prize, at 90 Pablo Picasso was still producing drawings and engravings.

I guess it’s never too late to do something great.

In a couple of days I turn 27. For some reason my brain thinks I’m turning 28, cos that’s what number keeps popping into my head whenever I’m asked. I don’t know why I feel the need to skip a year, I’m sure 27 won’t be that bad. But to acknowledge the kind of non-year that 27 is (as perhaps all birthdays are until you hit 40 - ye gods), here are some journal entries from days of yore, in which I moan about getting older and want to stay 25 forever. What the hell did I know?

1997

I hate getting older. What could be better than being 15? This is my last few hours of being 15 and I think it’s strange that today I’m 15 and tomorrow I’ll be 16. I don’t get excited about birthdays anymore. I just feel old…I won’t be able to get the bus for 30p anymore. And I bet I won’t get used to it until I’m almost 17.

Is it wrong to want to pummel your former self?

1998 (I was on a trip to Pakistan, it was basically a nightmare from start to finish)

We’re probably going home tomorrow – the students and teachers that is, because of all the nuclear tests and frictions here between people. It’s not been a wonderful birthday, in fact, I’ve kept forgetting. I haven’t actually thought about it that much, it’s too depressing. We went into the hills today, it took ages to get there and I never imagined there would be so many people living there, villages, shops and houses are dotted everywhere.

(And there’s much more of me whining about being in Pakistan and how much I hate everyone involved and want to go home, but I’ll spare you.)

2000

11.38pm. I’m almost 19. My last year of being a teenager and everything I thought I would have done I haven’t. I still worry about everything.

But I’ve had a good day today. I’ve got lots of presents and cards – Buffy season 1 boxset, yippee! I’m looking forward to tomorrow but I feel so old. I don’t ever want to get to 20. 20 is a grown up for sure. I don’t want to grow up or get old ever. How about I reach 25 and just stop? I think that’s a good deal.

Hmm…I’m not sure I agree with the ‘20 is a grown up for sure’ statement there. Hell, I don’t think I’m ever gonna feel like a grown up.

2002

My birthday! Pretty good day actually. Woke up at 4.45am again this year. Weird. Then was woken up at 8am by my phone. I tried to go back to sleep but it was pointless so got up, checked my post, loads of cards and a present from Mum. It was a box with a happy 21^st birthday bear, very cute. She’d put all these glittery 21s in too, and they were all over the porter’s lodge. I did a bit of revision this morning and then had my exam, it went ok. Freaked out a bit at the beginning but calmed down. Went back to L’s for a cup of tea and opened my present. Came back to the flat, M was in the window shouting at me to hurry up and where had I been, they were all waiting for me. I walked into the kitchen and everyone was squished by the kitchen sink so I couldn’t see them. They jumped out, ‘surprise!’, party poppers, cameras flashing, as usual I looked a mess. There were brownies and a candle and I made a birthday wish. Then I opened my presents…And I go home tomorrow. Yay! I am done! My degree is over. How bizarre.

I suppose at least we end on a positive note. That’s the last birthday entry from time gone by. So what’s changed? Well, I don’t mind that I got to 25 and didn’t stay there. In fact, I was bloody glad to see the back of it to be honest. 25 was not my most fun year. I seem to have lost my dread of getting older too. I don’t know what I was worried about really, except on days I have a flash forward of myself at 80, then I worry. Shudder. But in general getting older is not that painful, and I have no idea why it seemed so awful at 15. Silly, silly younger me.

This year I will be celebrating in the company of family, a whole army of chickens, and a sweet faced dog named Lucy. Who says you don’t know how to rock when you’re old?

I just finished watching this film. It’s a musical, set in the 60s, using the music of the Beatles. I don’t really know how I feel about it. It’s good, it’s different, the trippy bit in the middle lost me a bit, but I loved what they did with the songs. Across the Universe is one of my favourites, and their version of Let it Be is just amazing, it gives me goosebumps. But this is my favourite of the whole film. I am in love with this girl’s voice, and how much slower it is, and how they shot it. I can listen to this over and over. In fact, I have:

Everyone’s pretty worked up over the new Indiana Jones film huh? There’s some seriously mixed reviews out there. Some despise it, some love it, others are more middlin. I’m in the latter section. I like the Indiana Jones films. I probably liked them more as a kid, except Raiders of the Lost Ark. I never cared for that one. Maybe if I watched it now I’d feel differently, but I found Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade much more enjoyable. And that’s the thing, they’re supposed to be fun movies right? A nice bit of escapism.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was that for me, and nothing more. It was almost instantly forgettable, there are no lines in it that I will remember and quote later, no bits that are so funny I’ll want to relive them again and make myself laugh. You shut off your brain for two hours and go to a happy place that’s pretty familiar and then you leave and don’t feel the need to go back. If I want Indiana Jones I’ll watch the old ones. Why go new when you can go vintage?

So, what’s wrong with it? Well…it has no real heart. I’m left wondering how it’s possible that it’s taken almost 20 years for them to make another sequel, and that this is the best they could come up with. The writing is…meh. The story itself moves along easily, but it’s too easy. There’s never any moment where Indy is stuck trying to figure out a puzzle. In fact, there are no real mysteries at all. He just knows what to do and where to go and it’s done. Where’s the mystery? Even the skull itself is not puzzled over. There’s nothing to try and dissuade us from what it actually is, no other theories put forward. It is all just accepted. Where’s Indy’s quick thinking? Where’s the bit where he’s trapped and he’s going to die but his ingenuity saves him? The stupid fridge moment does not count. And never once do you feel any of them are in any real danger. It’s pretty suspense-less all round.

I have to ask, no beg, plead even, that George Lucas not be allowed to write anything ever again, nor create stories at all, because he has lost any talent he ever had, it has been sucked dry by his overuse of hideous CGI. I can only imagine how much better this film would have been if Spielberg had been left to his own devices. George mate, step away from the computer, right now. You created some of the best films of my childhood using nothing more than models and sticky tape, and you still can’t leave those alone. They were perfect as they were. STOP IT AT ONCE!

Yeah, the CGI sucks. It’s so obviously CGI that my brain either goes ‘oh, that was good effects’ or ‘that was shitty effects’ but rarely does my brain not notice that CGI is being used, and that’s a problem. It should be there to back up a story, not as a crutch to make people ooh and aah over the amazing computer skills of some dweeb in a basement.

And then there’s the actors. John Hurt is painfully underused, Ray Winstone is the usual cartoony villain, and someone tell me why Jim Broadbent is in this film? He’s there for all of three minutes! Cate Blanchett bugged the hell out of me, does she blink the entire film? And her accent was a little sloppy. Shia LaBeouf, while I admit to having a slight soft spot for him, does little but comb his hair obsessively. (And why do they make such a big show of taking that bike halfway across the world, only to lose it half an act later?) This is the future of the franchise? He has little on screen charisma and I found myself longing for the cocky, self-assured Indy of old to come back and shake things up a bit. Young Harrison Ford held the screen and your attention with ease. The beefy one does not.

Anyway, it’s not terrible, not at all, in fact the first half is pretty good. The second half is just a bit…odd, a bit much, or maybe not enough, (the jungle fight scene goes on way too long, and swinging on vines with monkeys, really?) and it just seems a bit of a waste. If you’re going to revive a franchise after so many years, at least do it right, at least have it be bloody good, instead of just ok. And don’t let George Lucas anywhere near it.

Today I am one big, sore, bruised shadow of a person. Why? Because I am crazy and last night went to Krav Maga for the first time since the induction class ooh…seven months ago (am crap). Bruises seem to be materialising out of thin air while I’m just sitting here. I have one on my wrist, one on my forearm, one on my knee I keep hitting when I cross my legs. Note to self: Stop crossing legs! Although, to be fair to Krav Maga, the majority of my bruises right now are from the bed at the Hotel du Vin. The one bad thing about it was the wooden trim I kept smacking my shins into. Those bruises are meaty.

I was kind of dreading going, while at the same time wanting to, because I had left it so long, and because doing new things is always scary. Plus, I am generally rubbish at anything remotely sporty, and have no coordination whatsoever, so being me in one of these classes is hard, and often humiliating. It was all right though. I got partnered with the only other girl there, and she probably weighed about 100 pounds and proceeded to beat the shit out of me for a bit, and then I got to do the same to her. After my wrists started to swell up the instructor said ‘Oh, would you like some pads?’ I could have tried to be all tough and said no, but I said ‘Yes, for the love of god yes!’ And almost wept with relief. I have never had swollen wrists, I looked all odd.

It was tempting to give up and go home. The quitter in me was all ‘This is hard, let’s go home and watch telly instead’, and the fighter in me was all ‘Shut up Quitter! We’ll be as buff as Buffy if it kills us!’ And so we stayed. We (as in the class, I don’t always refer to myself as more than one person) learned some kicks and blocks and then self defense moves, so if anyone ever grabs my arm I can get away in one beautiful sweeping motion. Or stand there going ‘Er…hang on a minute, wait, I’m just trying to remember…’ while they bludgeon me to death.

Today I am exhausted, as I was last night, but I didn’t sleep very well even so and am a bit of a zombie now. But I will go back. I am going to try and go at least once a month, and twice if I can be remotely motivated. Not next week though, I’m busy next week…