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A Short History of Nearly Everything

Iris — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:54:29 +0000

I bought A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson about 4 or 5 years ago. It has spent a long time sitting on my bookshelf unread because to tell you the truth I was a bit scared of it. I expected it to be full of confusing dates, names & numbers like a dry and boring history book.

Having read a couple of chapters I can let you know it does include a lot of dates, names & numbers. However it is also utterly compelling, interesting and most importantly readable.

The reason I picked it up now of all times, is because Andrew and I were reading some Wikipedia articles about how old the earth is and about when dinosaurs walked the earth (these are the things you do as a married couple, you see). It is so easy to get caught up in your own life and small circle of experiences that it hit me with the force of a meteor (har har): this is the same earth that dinosaurs walked on.

Now you might think “DUHHH”, but I find it seriously mind boggling to wrap my head around the fact that this ball of earth has seen creatures as fantastical as that, all in the same place where we now build our houses and schools and Burger Kings. Moreover, that creatures like that came into existence and evolved in the first place, that then they got wiped out and that then mammals evolved and we became us.. us who compared to the age of the universe have only been alive for a fraction of time.

It made me realise how temporary we are/could be. Not in terms of our individual lives (you are born and hope you live around 80 years and then you die), but the longevity of humans (or mammals and the rest of the animal kingdom in general). Looking at the history of the earth and seeing that all life was annihilated almost in its entirety several times and then started up again in a completely different configuration… It isn’t hard to assume that this will happen again (although on average it only seems to happen every several hundred million years or so.. so for now we’re safe to continue browsing the internet, going to the cinema and eating Ben & Jerry’s).

All of those thoughts came from reading a couple of Wikipedia articles and it made me want to know more, and the why and how of things. Hence I finally picked up the book and started reading. My only criticism so far is that it glances over how people found out about certain things. It will tell you so and so had a theory and it was proven blablabla, but to me, a layperson and certainly not a scientist, it doesn’t really explain those parts enough. What was it that really proved something in such a way that it was adopted as the mainstream scientific explanation of something? I am quite ready to believe scientific explanations ‘because scientist x’s research said so and y number of scientists agreed with the theory’ but I’d like to know how they came to that conclusion without having to learn the discipline.

I am crap at updating so it is safe to assume I will not share any further thoughts on this book or this subject in the future (although I will think about it lots and write numerous draft in my head with a much better style of prose than you’ll ever read from me). See you in 2011.

Ah yes, and in case you are not interested in reading my random philosophical musings, here, have some videos of my cat:

(If you are reading this post through RSS you will probably have to go to my actual site to see these)

In 2009

Iris — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:05:05 +0000

I update so infrequently that whenever I do, I first have to upgrade WordPress to the latest version. Happens every time! Here a little update with some major things that happened in my life in 2009.

Moving house

Up until February 2009 Andrew and I were living together in one room in a flatshare with two other people (and were also running our business from said room). We’d been there since the beginning of our relationship 4 years previously and needless to say it was ~~cramped and you couldn’t turn your arse~~ cozy. Having got married the previous autumn we’d really hoped to be able to buy by that time, but it didn’t work out. So we decided to at least find our own place to rent. It meant moving slightly further out from the centre of London but the space we got in return for it was definitely worth it. Not having to share the kitchen and bathroom with other people anymore is pure bliss!

Tikka

As a direct consequence of moving into our own place meant I could finally get a cat! I had wanted a cat since I was about 4 years old, but my mum didn’t want cats so I had to make do with first a guinea pig, then several dwarf hamsters and also some mice (none of which I particularly liked as they were poor substitute for a cat). I had been doing research on cats for a while and decided I really wanted a Bengal as the personality of the breed really appealed to me as well as the look. At the beginning of April we picked up our little cat and brought her home! We called her Tikka both because she’s a Bengal and because we live near Brick Lane (curry capital!).

She is everything we expected and then some! I cannot imagine life without her now. She is absolutely INSANE which fits our personalities quite well =p Right now she is asleep on top of a pile of boxes underneath a halogen lamp as it’s nice and warm there.

Playing the Violin

In September I took up playing the violin. When I was little I’d had lessons for maybe 6 months or a year but quit quickly (after hardly practicing) because I felt very disappointed at how hard it was and how horrible it sounded! Nevertheless, it had always been my favourite instrument and continued to be so. Now as an adult I thought it more likely that I’d have the patience and dedication to try again. I’m taking lessons at a local college that specialises in evening education for adults. My class is very big (about 20 people – although in practice not everyone shows up every week) but the teacher is great and I feel like I’m making good progress. I enjoy the lessons and practicing at home and can’t wait to get better!

California

Going to California has always been a dream for both of us. We initially wanted to do this for our honeymoon in 2008, but had next to no money left after getting married! So instead we went this year and I’m definitely glad we waited. It was the holiday of a lifetime and I enjoyed it immensely. We both really want to go back or perhaps try to live there part of the year.

1st Anniversary

31 October 2009 was our first wedding anniversary. I’m just so glad to be spending my life with Andrew! Our relationship grows stronger every year and I definitely think the past year has been exceptional in terms of how much closer we’ve become. In 9 days we celebrate our 5 years together!

Overall

This past year has been really good. I’m almost surprised as I am not used to my life being that enjoyable, always expecting disaster around the corner. I think I updated a while back writing about feeling more content and life being more in balance. I’m hoping this will continue and obviously will work on making it happen! One of the most valuable ‘lessons’ I learned this year is that you create your own destiny and that it’s up to you alone how you approach and interpret what happens.

Contemplating Life

Iris — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:16:44 +0000

Earlier when I was walking to the post-box in my flip flops (not only my flip flops, mind) it struck me that I am actually quite happy. This is quite a huge thing coming from me, ever the depressed pessimist.

Life’s thrown some punches at me and I’ve been good at surviving, but lately I’ve felt a bit of a shift. For a few years now I’ve not merely been surviving, but living and lately I’ve been enjoying life with more consistency than ever before.

I just want to mention that although I’ve suffered from depression, I would have never described myself as an unhappy person. The difference I am talking about now though, is something between having happy moments or spells, and a more consistent contentment.

The reasons for this are ample, I think, there isn’t one single thing (I am averse to the whole ‘one single thing’ mindset as a whole, it puts too much pressure and expectation on something that can never deliver). Overall though, I think it can be summed up as ‘life is finally going right for me’.

Sure there are still things I want and would like to achieve, and I don’t want to become complacent, but I feel less like something is missing. That’s quite huge, because my life has been governed by loss a lot (both in the bigger sense from losing my mother, but also in smaller ways, in which I recreate or re-experience loss in almost every situation).

It may sound trite but having a husband who loves me, living in our own place (rented, but not shared with flatmates), having a cat, having a nice bottle of wine every now and again, fiddling with crochet/knitting/art/cooking… it all just fills me with more calm than I’ve ever felt in my life.

It makes me feel like, yes I can have nice things (or rather, a nice life), and no they’re not going to be taken away from me at a moment’s notice for no good reason.

Procrastination Across The Nation

Iris — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:56:55 +0000

Someone kick me and make me update already! I’ve been toying with the idea of updating my blog for about a month but I keep putting it off. So voila, an impromptu update with no topic or meaningful content whatsoever!

I just bought a Nintendo DS Lite off ebay, so I’m pretty excited about that! I got it because I’m going to Holland in a few weeks BY BUS. So for the lovely 10 hour journey I thought I’d get something to occupy myself with. Thing is, going by bus, AND buying a Nintendo DS, is still cheaper than flying… flying is quite expensive at the moment.

Since you didn’t ask, I’m going to Holland (my lovely country of birth and corruption – my corruption, not the country’s) to sign papers for my house which was sold. I’m also visiting my best friend from uni (who is American, studied in England, and then him and his Italian girlfriend moved to Holland.. go figure) who has recently had a child!! And I’m catching up with two of my best friends from high school who I last saw at my wedding where we really didn’t have enough time to properly talk.

A while back I started another painting. Similar to the one before, in the same watercolour Moleskine, with the same techniques, just a different face. I painted the face & hair, I still have to colour in her top and the background (have needed to do that for about 2 weeks now..) which I will get around to sometime, and then I will show you, because I know you’re practically dying to see it.

I’m watching season 1 of Gossip Girl at the moment and it makes me wish I was a teenager again because I have unresolved issues and there are lots of people I would totally kick in the teeth. But not literally. Also, I don’t really wish I was a teenager again because adolescence = hell with too many hormones.

Oh and last night I had this awesome dream and Nathan Fillion was in it.

I’m going to do a serious post (cue ominous music) soon in relation to this book I am reading. But I need to get in the mood to write about srs bsns, so not yet my pretties, not yet.

Also I don’t know why my site is so incredibly slow. Maybe it’s the theme? I just hope for your sake you are reading this through a feed reader.

Being Average

Iris — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:13:05 +0000

(I have to type really quietly because Andrew (the husb) is still asleep and gets very grumpy when woken up. Good luck to me, because my massive G15 keyboard is anything but quiet)

I have such a love/hate relationship with the internet. On the one hand I love it (I could extol the virtues of the internetz and modern technologies for a long time) but on the other hand it allows me to feel baaaaad about myself.

On the internet I encounter people who are just so much funnier than me, better writers than me, prettier than me, better artists than me etc. Some people when encountered with ‘competition’, will strive to do better. Me, I’m like the opposite. I get talent overload paralysis (real condition. No I just totally made that up but it sounds official) and just sit here staring at my screen unable to CREATE for fear that it will be AVERAGE.

Now I’m a pretty rational person. Logic > all, for me. I’ve been told by people they like my painting, they like my writing, they think I’m pretty. AND YET. 90% of me doesn’t believe it (the other 10% of me is a person with a superiority complex the size of Europe). So I continue to look at people who are ‘better than me’ and feel bad about myself. It doesn’t make sense… IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE PEOPLE!