Thursday 22 March 2012

Love in Literature

'So Love needs beauty, then, and does not have it.'
'Necessarily,' he said.
'So! If something needs beauty and has got no beauty at all, would you still say that it is beautiful?'
'Certainly not.'
'Then do you still agree that Love is beautiful, if those things are so?'
Then Agathon said, 'It turns out, Socrates, I didn't know what I was talking about in that speech.'
'It was a beautiful speech anyway, Agathon,' said Socrates.


PLATO

Wednesday 7 March 2012

The Future is... Denmark!



I'm coming to the end of my third year of university. So, what am I going to do? Firstly, I'm leaving Norwich, which isn't easy to do. Many of my friends  - and my boyfriend - are staying to pursue music or other job opportunities and I feel like I've really warmed to Norwich this year. For my first two years it seemed too small, with not enough going on. This year it has boomed for live music, whether local bands or international stars. I also feel like I have fully understood my course this year. Yes, it has been hard work but I have achieved higher marks than I expected. It has made me consider taking my studying further, and has given me confidence in my writing, which I will no doubt continue, whatever route I take.

In the short term, my course finishes around the end of April. After then I'll move between home near Bristol and Norwich, where I'll have a couple more months of rent to live out. I'll carry on teaching English to French students with Educastream, hopefully taking on more lessons and saving up! After that I'm aiming to work at a few festivals, if plans pay off and enjoy my summer while teaching alongside.

With summer over, my plan is to move to Aarhus, Denmark either to live with or near my best friend who has lived over there for a few years now. No, I don't speak Danish but I'm hoping to learn quickly! The economy is much better out there than here and, apparently, there are many jobs available to non-Danish speakers. Although I'll be able to continue teaching when I'm over there - the perks of teaching via videoconference - if I can find a very part time job to supplement my pay and get me out of the house it will be the icing on the cake.

My sister and her boyfriend will be moving over to Copenhagen this Spring too, so it will be nice to have then at least in the same country, if not on the same island! Life seems so simple in Denmark. Everyone dresses so cleanly and lives so healthily, seems like a good place to start my 'real' life. I also found my dream job over there, but I fear I am completely under qualified! The Red Cross are looking for mature, experienced English-speaking journalists to work on their new magazine which focuses on asylum seekers in Denmark. I've decided to get in touch with them anyway and see if they have any slots available for an assistant with less experience but lots of fresh energy!

I have been applying to do work experience and internships with various companies like the BBC and Hay on Wye Literary Festival, so we'll see what comes of that. It would be great to get a little boost through experience with some of these places. Overall I am more excited than worried about the future! I really feel like I could go anywhere, and don't feel the need to tie myself down to a career path. I predict that more and more people in my situation will start creating portfolio careers, piecing together part-time jobs and voluntary work here and there to allow themselves freedom, so much more stimulating than a forty-year run in accounting!
What will become of the Ultimate House? We'll see.

Monday 4 April 2011

Dhamma Dipa


Haven't blogged for a while because everything's been a bit crazy: deadlines, training for Easter employment, general melt-downs etc. So I'm going to step back a few and go back to basics. There's a meditation centre in Herefordshire (Dhamma Dipa http://www.dipa.dhamma.org/) that takes students for 10-day stays and teaches Vipassana meditation as taught by Goenka.


The main thing that stands out is that for 10 days you are completely silent, save for optional meetings with the teacher when issues arise. 10 days of pure YOU. As expected it follows a strict vegetarian/macrobiotic diet with no eating after 4/5pm. It's also run on a donation basis, so you give what you can afford, and/or return to help out with future courses. I'm definitely more drawn to this than other meditation weekends that take your money, give you a massage, an hour of yoga and half a grapefruit, sending you on your way 'purified'.



Feel like I'm just skimming and rolling on the surface at the moment. Must admit that I'm worried it's going to drive me crazy! Should I open the box? Although I'm heartened by the fact that that's an FAQ on the website:

Can Vipassana make people mentally unbalanced?
No. Vipassana teaches you to be aware and equanimous, that is, balanced, despite all the ups and downs of life. But if someone comes to a course concealing serious emotional problems, that person may be unable to understand the technique or to apply it properly to achieve the desired results. This is why it is important to let us know your past history so that we can judge whether you will benefit from a course.

Might result in an interesting Summer...

Friday 25 February 2011

Charleston






A few years ago I visited Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury group in Sussex. (People like Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, E.M.Forster and Maynard Keynes). The walls and doors are painted with amazing murals that various different Bloomsbury artists painted. I love the idea that you can stamp yourself so permanently onto the house. Here are some pictures that I am completely unable to position sanely...

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Coventry Peace House

Happy Valentine’s Day!


Last weekend we visited Coventry Peace House (http://covpeacehouse.org.uk/on their monthly ‘Activity Weekend’. We were expecting to pitch in and help out with some work but got there late afternoon – car trouble – and ended up drinking tea and chatting co-ops for a couple of hours instead. The Peace House is run by some really lovely and proactive people, who were very welcoming. The house runs a shelter for refused refugees in part of the building, and a bike workshop in another, and is supported by volunteers helping out with food and manual labour. 
It was set up by a group of activists in the early nineties, if I remember right, so has been around for a long time and still retains one of the original members. It seems like something of a hub of the community around that part of Coventry. I’d be surprised if we ended up doing anything quite that proactive as running a shelter, if we go down the community route it’s more likely to be providing various creative classes, but who knows...





I keep getting far too immersed in planning this house of the future and neglecting other work, but it’s just so exciting. In fact while we were at the Peace House we discussed how we might feel when the project was basically ‘finished’, if a housing co-op can ever be fully complete, and whether it would be an anti-climax. Remembering how the participants of ‘Grand Designs’ seemed so deflated when the lovely Kevin McCloud returned after a couple of years, I wondered if we would feel the same way. The fact that the house is an ongoing project convinces me that we’ll never reach that moment of completion, not in the sense that we’ll fail, but in the sense that upkeep will be continuous and, if we decide to live in the way that seems to be natural to us, the house will be so tied up in our way of life it will be constantly morphing.

I’m wondering what I’m going to do between university and getting anywhere with the house. Clearly I’m going to have to make money for the house somehow. There seem to be two main possibilities: getting a job linked to my degree, whether in publishing, journalism, arts council, the media etc. or getting a job like telesales, bar-work or retail. Ideally I’d live in Bristol but perhaps a short stint in London would make sense if I wanted to work in the media. Either way I’m pretty sure I’d want it to be short term before packing it in and training in a more hands-on profession like therapy perhaps... either way the future’s going to be fun.

Feeling pretty rough after Valentine’s Day night out - way too many lethal drinkies. Good stories though ha. All worth it. Norwich is full of shit bars and clubs but some legendary people, couldn’t live here for more than three years but have a definite soft spot for a bit of N-town.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Nautia Housing Co-op Talk, Norwich

I went to a talk by some of the founding members of Norwich’s housing Co-op Nautia last week as part of my university’s ‘Reclaim Your Life’ week. Although their main aim was to find new members for the co-op their talk was very useful. They are part of Radical Routes (a secondary co-op made up of lots of other housing co-ops across the UK) and gave an honest account of their experience as part of the scheme. By being part of Radical Routes (http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/) co-ops receive lots of support in the form of financial aid, help with manual labour from more experienced members and help with the admin involved with running a cooperative. It also seems to be a gateway into a warm and interesting community strengthened by monthly social ‘gatherings’.
Part of being a Radical Routes member is a dedication to promoting social change. This is something which is checked up on: members must prove that they are using their co-op as a tool to support and raise awareness of ‘radical’ issues, and at least help other housing cooperatives with work. In addition each member is drafted in to perform a particular task within Radical Routes such as accounting, administration, organising the gatherings etc. It seems like joining Radical Routes is quite a big undertaking that involves more than simply benefitting from their support and links to financial aid, but one that is certainly worth pursuing.
The members from Nautia (left) explained how they had started with big ideas of getting a huge house for all of their friends but how things had shaken down to just five people and a three-bedroom terrace house. This leads me to wonder what we’ll end up with, is our dream of owning a large abandoned pub with beer garden a little too ambitious...? At this stage I feel that writing off any possibility would be foolish, so we’ll keep looking at those mansions with swimming pools.
I found out this weekend at another housing co-op (will post about that one another time) that Nautia’s unusual name came about because they stuck a pin in a book randomly to find the word ‘naughtier’ (which book was this, we wondered?) and changed the spelling to make it seem more legitimate. We’ll have to start long-listing possible names for our own housing cooperative: definitely a long-term project, and one we have plenty of time for.
A

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Introducion to the Ultimate House

Well hello,

I've set up this blog to document our progress in creating a housing co-op. Whatever the outcome of the project I thought it would be good to have something to look back on... something from when we were young and naive and unrestrained by mortgages, damp walls and soul-destroying jobs. But actually none of that is going to happen because everything works out in the end, and we lead charmed lives.

In Summer 2010 we verbalised a plan that seemed to have been rattling around, unspoken, for a few years: As a tight group of friends, we discussed the possibility of living together after university. This fairly simple suggestion soon ballooned into further plans to buy a ramshackle shack and do it up ourselves, and further still to set it up as a housing co-operative. Most people who were introduced to the plan caught the bug and we've all spent many hours planning our future home together. As the plans move more into the territory of the possible, the project has become more serious with some of us looking into what kind properties are available and others visiting other housing co-operatives for tips and inspiration.

Although the project started mainly as a way for us to live together in the way we want, we have found that it could provide endless opportunities for us to pursue our interests and passions. Those interested are mostly 'creative', whether in conventional ways such as art, dance and creative writing, or simply in an unorthadox way of thinking and living. We've discussed setting up studios, workshops, events spaces and therapy rooms among other things.

The benefits of living as a housing co-op are many, but crucially this taking collective control removes us (here comes the ranting bit) from the necessity to rely on exploitative housing options and therefore have some hand in preventing the capitalist cycle. In a more positive light, it also allows us to live exactly how we want with no influence from landlords or terrifying property prices. We are by no means entirely driven by an overwhelming desire for drastic social change, and all have different opinions on the matter, our views ranging widely.

As we all grew up partly in, outside and around Bristol, and have consequently fallen, hard, for the city, it is our aim to set up home there. Bristol is the perfect place to explore this dream, as it houses many like-minded projects and people.

Well, there we something of an introduction to our little project, I'll update with details of visits, ideas and information soon,

A