The Meaning of The Dojo.

Until I read this post I had no idea just how serious the discipline was concerning a Dojo. Respect is something that should be learnt by us all and if this is the first lesson in things like Karate then I think that is great. Anything that teaches discipline to people definitely has my seal of approval.

Eastern thinking is renowned for its wisdom and because of this it attracts a lot of people who are looking for some meaning in their lives.

A ‘Dojo’ is a Japanese term which literally means place of the way. It can be a training place for many different styles of martial arts.

One last thing, all of you who are into a more planet friendly lifestyle really need to look at this. Enigin PLC has some really amazing ideas for companies who are concerned about thier environmental impact, they may be my new favorite company.

Face-Off With Facebook.

I think that I have to agree with this post about Facebook. I know a couple of people who have got hundreds of ‘friends’ on it. It’s all a bit weird if you think about it.

Maybe befriending people that you don’t really know is a sign of loneliness? I don’t really think that it is normal behaviour... Mind you, it is not the fault of Facebook; it is how people use it.

You could say the same thing about mobile phones; they are really useful things to have but they can become an absolute pain if people spend half their lives sending text messages.

Understanding the Unusual.

Goths are fascinating creatures. Even if you do not like the darker things in life, you cannot deny that they have got a certain strange appeal.

After I had read this post I felt like I could understand them a little bit better. It must be quite a lonely existence at times and I am sure that it isn’t a whole lot of fun having people laughing at you.

Dressing up in things that are a bit more unusual must take a lot of courage. Even though I am not a Goth, I still admire them for being brave enough to stand out from the crowd.

Cattoo.

As I am a big fan of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ pictures, I was bowled over when I came across this blog about a Cheshire cat tattoo.

The colours in the tattoo are amazing and the expression on the cats’ face is great. Out of all of the examples of body art that I have seen, I think that this is one of my absolute favourites.

If you like tattoos then this page is definitely worth having a look at. I shall be looking into McGee’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ later. If this artwork is anything to go by then I am in for a treat. Who knows, I may even change my background from my Battlestar Galactica Wallpaper!

Automatic Writing - splurging the days events

so there we were, sitting in the horrific monday morning meeting. or HMMM. as it had become appropriately named. why. why do we have the meetings at such an horrific time. 8.30am. is the boss not human? does he not have a life outside of the office? he certainly seems t

he type to live life to the full. heck, he has so much energy he could power the whole building in a power cut.

ok. back to real life. the agenda has been passed round. the week ahead. targets. budgets. planning. staff bonuses (yes, we all perked up for that one). and finally, finally we near the end. AOB. what is it with abbreviations anyway. doesn't anyone know how to write in full. I mean, word processors are quite sophisticated these days. you can programme in abbreviations to auto-correct and produce the actual words. magic eh!

anyway. wow. I'm easily distracted today. some words were just repeated. was I meant to hear that? team building. that was it. we're going on a team building course which everyone hopes will remove the enormous gap between them and us. the void separating management from us minions at the bottom of the pile. we all have tension headaches because of the red tape, endless meetings and discussions (most recently the headache has been about the freestanding vending machine that appeared one monday morning right outside this very meeting room. now we can all get bored in the meetings and fat at the same time. next there'll be posters around the building offering rapid weight loss classes.

back to reality. the boss is speaking. he's talking about an away day where we'll all bond. has he actually asked anyone if they want to do this? we would all just prefer to have a day off. spend some quality time with our families instead of erecting the company banner stands and listening to The spontaneity shop sell us their expensive corporate acting workshops that promise to make us happy.

any more AOB....no response. meeting over. sixty long, wasted minutes. now we all have to play catch up until the next meeting where we'll once again slip into a parallel universe of eternal happiness inside our minds.

Bell Ringing: Campanology is Fun!

The posh term for church bellringing is: "Campanology" - a word these days which is usually resticted to pub quizzes/crosswords and most 'campanologists' tend to call themselves ringers or bellringers.

Unfortuantely the general public cannot just wander up a random tower, pull a bell and hope to know what to do with it! The right way to go about it is to contact your local tower with bells - usually by searching through DOVE: dove.cccbr.org.uk/home.php and arranging a time when you can go and visit.

The best thing about church bellringing is that anyone from any profession can learn and the gamut runs from cosmetic doctors to someone who looks after dog insurance in London! It is also completely ageless. We had a situation recently when one of our more experienced young ringers around the age of 12 was explaining something quite complicated to a less experienced but older ringer in his 50s. The older ringer had complete concentration and, when asked afterwards, said he was able to understand more clearly what this young ringer had explained to him.

The "anyone can learn" idea creates a wide bell ringing social network. You can travel up and down the country even around the world (such as New Zealand, Australia or America) arrange to ring at a tower on a practice night and be welcomed by the local band. This gives us a chance to experience different places the general public do not usually get access to, explore new areas and make new friends. One recent example of such social networking is when a couple - who are both ringers - went to New Zealand and rang in various places such as Aukland and Wellington. In one tower, the captain asked where in the UK they were from; on hearing their reply, the captain said he knew some of the couples' ringing friends who had travelled there a few years earlier!

Bellringers who learn at a young age and go to a university can join a ringing society. These are located all over the country and one such example is the: "University of London Society of Change Ringers" - (www.ulscr.org.uk). This society arranges activites such as outings/tours usually for a day or weekend - (visiting another region and ringing in the surrounding towers), social evenings (ice skating, cinema, laser questing, dinners, picnics, treasure hunts...) and anything else society members suggest!

In a nutshell, bellringing is an enjoyable, social and mentally stimulating hobby that anyone can enjoy at any age.

Laser Hair Removal and Alice in Wonderland

Can anyone tell me how much laser hair removal costs? I’m getting so irritated with shaving my legs every couple days. Hah! I know that is common gripe from women, but seriously– it takes me a good thirty minutes every few days to get myself feeling clean and fresh. For me, it is not a physical or appearance thing, merely a personal hygiene preference. I hate body hair! All types of body hard. I’m wondering what it would be like to have laser hair removal all over my body.

On that note, for all of you that said I would regret my tattoo, you were wrong! I am still not interested in removing my gorgeous tattoo.I have a rendition of the Cheshire Cat as pictured in American McGee’s Alice in Wonderland on my left calve. It takes up my entire calve and is very detailed. It took seven and a half hours of pain on this bad boy. I had a great tattoo artist though at a place called Warlocks. We had to take smoke breaks during because it was a bit intense. Still, I go for my touch ups once per year and get it looking nice again. It still looks gorgeous.

For those of you that have not placed American McGee’s Alice in Wonderland, give it a try. The gameplay is nothing impressive but the artwork is just absolutely overwhelming. If I wasn’t getting older and a mother of three boys, I would probably get all of the characters from the game around my calves.

The calve is a great place on your body to get a tattoo if you are considering one, and trust me, if you have a good, you'll never even consider tattoo removal. I never wear skirts or shorts, so no one ever knows I have a tattoo until I explicitly show it to them. Since I have had the tattoo, I have had three children and lost more than a hundred pounds. My calve, since it was so muscular to begin with, barely experienced any changes. Some very minor touch ups to the tattoo (under an hour) took care of all the very minor distortions.