Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York.
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York.
Friday, December 28, 2007
NYC
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Addiction
Being currently wrapped up in series 4 of Desperate Housewives and seeing one of the characters struggle with an addiction (no spoilers I promise), it got me thinking about how much time I spend being addicted to things. Not dangerous things, I'm not that exciting, but certainly little everyday things that notch up the minutes as they eat away at your life. I don't want to think of the amount of hours frittered away on the internet that could be spent doing something useful like knitting, needlework or scrapbooking.
Like Facebook. I've just spent more than an hour surfing on facebook. OK so yesterday night I had my choir practice and I've been working far too much today, so I've been using my time resourcefully up to now, but my evening has just been swallowed up by reading amusing comments and watching funny but time-wasting video posts.
Like text messaging. Not the actual typing of the messages but the checking of the phone - I must do that twenty times a day. Fumbling around in my handbag to fish it out, checking the screen and putting it back must gnaw off a good half hour from every day of my life.
Like email. In my job I have an email in the office and one which is online with a password. Typing in the login and password must take up another half an hour every day. Let alone checking gmail and hotmail when I get home.
Like vente-privee - a French online shopping site which offers brand name products at discount prices for short periods. I check the site perhaps twice a week but always end up staying on it for twenty or so minutes.
I know living alone during the week is probably the reason for all this, and also the undeniable geekiness which flows through my veins.
I would like to go cold turkey for a day, but I just don't know if I could stand being out of contact with cyberland that long. Am I sick? I'm sure there will soon be facebook anonymous groups where people can go who are totally addicted. I'm just glad it's blocked on work computers, funny that I never miss it there. Ooo, just a minute, I've got a new text message...
Like Facebook. I've just spent more than an hour surfing on facebook. OK so yesterday night I had my choir practice and I've been working far too much today, so I've been using my time resourcefully up to now, but my evening has just been swallowed up by reading amusing comments and watching funny but time-wasting video posts.
Like text messaging. Not the actual typing of the messages but the checking of the phone - I must do that twenty times a day. Fumbling around in my handbag to fish it out, checking the screen and putting it back must gnaw off a good half hour from every day of my life.
Like email. In my job I have an email in the office and one which is online with a password. Typing in the login and password must take up another half an hour every day. Let alone checking gmail and hotmail when I get home.
Like vente-privee - a French online shopping site which offers brand name products at discount prices for short periods. I check the site perhaps twice a week but always end up staying on it for twenty or so minutes.
I know living alone during the week is probably the reason for all this, and also the undeniable geekiness which flows through my veins.
I would like to go cold turkey for a day, but I just don't know if I could stand being out of contact with cyberland that long. Am I sick? I'm sure there will soon be facebook anonymous groups where people can go who are totally addicted. I'm just glad it's blocked on work computers, funny that I never miss it there. Ooo, just a minute, I've got a new text message...
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Tinsel time
Today is the 1st December and things are hotting up in the shops. Kids are screaming, mums are tearing out their hair, dads are starting to ask themselves why everyone is crazy. Christmas shopping has begun in earnest in Paris and you can't buy so much as a T-shirt without waiting in a queue for ten minutes or more.
Of course I haven't experienced any of that, because this year I decided to do all my shopping online. I know that "it's not the same" - yes, it's better. No carrying anything, no waiting in a queue and no pushing through throngs of people with no idea what they want or where they're going. Being a fairly organised person in my professional life means that in my private life I'm a bit of a mess, and usually the warning lights of Christmas shopping don't arrive in my radar until at least mid-December.
Maybe I'm getting on a bit, or maybe I use up so much patience with my students during the week, but I just can't stand the thought of traipsing round Galeries Lafayette (as nice as it sounds on paper) with a million Parisians and two million tourists. The tourists are annoying because they don't know where they're going and the Parisians are annoying because they push past everyone at any opportunity.
So, I've probably accrued a delivery bill of more than 50€ in total, but at least I haven't left the privacy of my nice warm slippers.
