I want to be your FRIEND!

People never cease to amaze me.

You know I'm not a Facebook kind of person. Although I do use it for various purposes, like buying/selling stuff or reminding people about meetings. This is really as far as my usage goes.

But recently I had an influx of friend requests, mostly from people I would at most describe as distant acquaintances. I never really talked much with them. And there is no reason whatsoever for them to seek contact with me. They never ever even dropped an email!

And now they want to become FRIENDS.

I find this phenomenon rather incomprehensible. When I added someone it was because we resolved to go and have drinks together and it appears that we get along quite well. Or something of a sort. But I don't go round profiles of everyone I've encountered in my life pressing this horrible send friend request button (as if you could request a friend rather than become one as a result of normal human encounter). Could someone explain why people do it? This feels like a sort of unconscious reflex: this name rings a bell, let's connect!

And what is most surprising, these are people who have their own life, I know this, they have their passions and are very well educated, so I see no reason for them to seek some sort of gratification from a growing number of friends.

Mad, mad world.

The curse of 'I'm fine."

I hear the question "how are you?" quite often, maybe less here in the Netherlands, but in the UK it's definitely sort of a daily plague. It's a question to which in most circumstances the only appropriate answer is to repeat the very same question, something which took me a while to understand. But if you do decide to actually answer this question, the only socially appropriate answer is 'I'm fine.'

Whatever is happening in your life: your house burnt down, your company went bankrupt, you are terminally ill with only a week or so of your life left, your wife decided to divorce you - you're fine.

If you won the lottery and quit work to begin everlasting holidays, your long-awaited son has been born yesterday, you're got promoted at work to the top position - you're fine.

And this is fine. We probably need such social conventions especially with a number of people who might think it appropriate to tell her life story to a hairdresser and give details of his eczema to a taxi driver. Social conventions are a necessary filter which makes our lives here a bit more bearable.

The problem begins when after a long and horrible day you look into a mirror in the evening and having asked yourself this essential question "how are you?", you just say "I'm fine."

Indeed, you might have a relatively undisturbed life. The family still holds together, your boyfriend doesn't cheat on you, you somehow make the ends meet each months and you do not suffer any terrible disease. So you're fine, right?

I watched the above video some time ago, and the bit that I have in mind in particular now is 4:30-8:50. 

This, I think, describes the universal human experience. "I'm fine" is like a human curse. I know, because I've been there: and it's not fun at all. For years I've been fine until I realised, with help from some wonderful people, that I can be absolutely fantastic. I don't need a mediocre life: I only have one, so why not make the most of it? I don't need a mediocre love: I want to drown in him and feel it so much that it hurts. I don't need a mediocre career: I will spend most of my time at work, so at least I want to enjoy it and make it worthwhile. I don't want to settle for 'oh well, it's good enough'. Just good enough is not good enough for me. I want to be more than fine.

Off-line.

The internet at my house does not work very well. In all fairness, the more accurate description would be to say that it doesn’t work at all. Therefore now I have two options: I can go to the library and make use of the wonders of wireless networks there; or I could stay at home live offline for a bit.

The first option has its attractions. It is widely known that library is a place where creativity and productivity flourishes. The quietness of the place helps to concentrate and work get done almost without any effort. If library is not good enough, there is always a faculty café where you can do your thing with a pleasant buzz of fellow students as a background. Yes, the first option is great. The only problem is actually getting to the library.

Contrary to the popular thinking, British Isles are NOT the kingdom of rain. The glorious title belongs to the Netherlands. And thus you wake up in Leiden and it rains. You eat lunch- rain still reigns outside the window and nothing changes all the way through to the evening. Finally, maybe around dinner-time there is a short break in this rainy symphony, but don’t be deceived: the rain will surely return and it will be sooner rather than later.

As you can probably guess, I’m not particularly fond of getting wet, even less so at the very start of my potentially productive day, so I mastered the art of reducing getting out of the house and into the rain to a bare minimum. Nevermind that on the other side there is a land covered with a wireless network.

I’m left with the second option and it’s not looking much better. When I wake up I have no way of checking the news and my email. Grumpy because of such a poor start, I make my breakfast but cannot eat it while watching funny dogs videos. After a cup of tea I finally get round to finishing all these applications that I started ages ago but somewhat never finished. I write about how wonderful I am and that I would make a great commercial lawyer. And so I survived until lunchtime which is not as pleasurable as usual (no news to read), but I persevere.

A light  in a tunnel appear when the rain suddenly stops and the first option can be explored. Hungry for information I go to the faculty café and spend the next three hours looking up recipes, skyping, writing emails and finishing applications which I can finally send because there is a stable connection to do so. Of course during all this time the rain doesn’t stop for a minute and I only make myself wrap up and go when it stops again (although it manages to catch me half way home).

And so we’re back with option 2. Coffee, cakes and a question what to do now? When there is no more tops to fold, dishes to clean or shelves to dust, the only thing which is left is to write a blog post. Interesting how it flows when I don’t pin anything, don’t scroll down my twitter feed or watch comedy shows at the same time. Maybe all this offline time is not as bad as I thought? Although it’s scary how reliant on the internet I’ve become. I still read books, meet with real people and do all this stuff, but it’s somewhat comforting to know that I can simply reach out for my laptop and open up a browser (and actually visit a website rather than see a message unable to connect to the internet).

A new resolution: be more with myself and less with the Web.

Life it too short...

... to be bothered by certain things.

And thus I stopped getting irritated (or madly angry) at some things that are: 1) of no importance whatsoever; 2) completely beyond my control; 3) not worth the bother.

From a list of things I stopped being bothered by:

- that Englishmen do not hold doors open for me and in general are not so much of a gentlemen anyway, at least not compared to the Poles;

- that I haven't kept strictly to my swimming and exercising routine;

- that my phone turns on and off as it wishes and has no intention of co-operating with me;

- that I still eat meat, even though I was supposed to be a vegetarian, or at least a pescetarian, because it is more eco-friendly;

- that my revision got stuck somewhere 

- that some of my written work is not perfect, especially since I've realised perfect does not exist and done is better than perfect;

- that I haven't managed to get my belongings down to the very bare minimum (again);
- that I don't celebrate my birthday, or any such occasion for that matter, in a fun way.

Life is too short to spend it with your entire inside trembling in anger at the world and, more importantly, at yourself. Since I've become more gentle with myself, life is so much easier and more enjoyable. No more frantic days when I don't know where to begin, painful evenings when I realise I haven't done enough during the day and weekend meetings with people I don't really want to talk to.

Quote of the day:

"Life is like a cup of tea. It's all in how you make it."

Important questions, more important reflections.

I have filled in a good handful of vac scheme applications, writing hundreds of words and spending hours on putting in all of my personal details. My irritation reached dangerously high levels after I pressed send for the 7th time, but I have to say that it was a great exercise in appreciating where I am now, what I have achieved so far and where I am going now.

Many questions that I had to answer for the purposes of advancing my legal career would probably never occur to me, or at least not just yet. What was my greatest achievement so far? What am I most proud of? Where do I see myself five years from now?

So far I have managed to survive 5 years away from my home country, kind of learn a new language, get through two years of one of the most demanding universities in the world, write a few interesting pieces (and not only on legal topics), and with all the stuff going on I have managed to retain quite a bit of sanity and a fairly balanced life. What more to want?

Indeed, I'm quite content with my life so far. And first vac scheme rejections coming through won't change it. I believe that, ultimately, I'll end up where I was supposed to be from the beginning. In the mean time, I can carry on my revision and keep expanding my baking skills.

Lemon cake

I made this cake when I was craving something sweet and had to play with what I had in my kitchen cupboards. The original recipe used more butter, sugar and flour, but since I only had 200g of butter I had to play with what I had... and it turned out delicious: light, delicate and lemony. I managed to break it when taking out of the form (too hot!), but it was a hit nonetheless. So here comes the recipe:

Cake:
200g butter
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
zest 1 lemon
200g flour
1 tsp baking powder
dried cranberries

Drizzle topping:
1 1/2  lemon juice
85g caster sugar

Method

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.
Beat together: 200g softened unsalted butter and 200g caster sugar until the mixture becomes pale and creamy. Add 4 eggs (one at a time) slowly mixing through. Sift in 200g flour, then add the finely grated zest of 1 lemon, add cranberries and mix until well combined. I baked it in a small (~20cm) bundt form (I ended up with 4 extra muffins - a loaf form would work perfectly fine too) for 45-50 mins until a thin skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Before taking the cake out of the form, wait to cool down.

Mix the juice of 1 1/2 lemon and 85g caster sugar. Prick the warm cake and pour over the drizzle. Don't worry that the cake will get too moist: it will be just fine. Leave to cool down completely and eat it all!

New Year's Resolution

There will be no old year sum-up. I thought about it and decided that this is unnecessary. Last year was intense, my years seem to be more and more intense. And despite some turbulence, it was a good year, and I don't want to dissect it now. It's enough that it happened.

This time of the year people come up with multiple New Year's resolutions that are supposed to make our lives better.

They say they would lose weight, reconcile with their mother, they will quit the job they hate, save up money to go on exotic holidays, quit smoking, go to spa, stop making excuses to tidy up their house and many more.

I've been thing about what sort of a resolution I could make this year, but everything seemed too superficial. And then it clicked.

Well, maybe it's time for me to stop trying to be a perfect daughter and a good girl and start being myself?

Let this be my New Year's resolution.