Merry Christmas

Just a very quick post to wish any readers a merry christmas and a happy new year!

I expect I won't be making any New Years resolutions this year given I already have 30 challenges to complete, but I have been playing some festive tunes on my ukulele and have a very little something to share...

Apologies for the terrible quality of the recording - one take on a music recording app doesn't quite cut it, but it's a bit of Christmassy fun nonetheless.

Merry Christmas x

https://soundcloud.com/izzy-rees/santa-baby-a-nerdy-girls

A Little Bit of Zen

                         
As long as I can remember I've always been fascinated by different cultures and spirituality within them. I've visited countless places of spiritual worship in various countries and love walking into a calm building and soaking up the atmosphere - whether it's marvelling at the brightly coloured stained glass windows and Saint-ridden interior of Notre Dame or quietly kneeling and lighting a candle before a golden Buddha at a hilltop temple in Chiang-Mai.

On top of this, from quite a young age I remember having a specific interest in the idea of meditation. I once ordered some audio cassette tapes on how to meditate when I was about 10 from a catalogue - being a terrible hoarder I don't think I ever actually listened to them, they just sat on my bookshelf gathering dust. So when compiling this list, I thought this was something it was about time I tried.

Last summer in the run up to the Edinburgh Fringe I ended up busy every night and all weekend throughout the whole of July, on top of a heavy workload during the day. I found myself craving some alone time, and found the best way of getting it was to go for a walk at lunchtime from the office and to sit quietly by the nearby lake and do nothing. After a couple of days of this I realised it wasn't a far cry from actually trying to meditate. I'd tried a couple of guided meditations on YouTube before but found them hard to get into so I decided that when I planned my list of challenges, I would add meditation and go on a proper course.

In October I rocked up at the nearby Buddhist Centre to attend the "Introduction to Meditation 1" course, braced for the possibility that I might end up having to spend the evening with a group of hippy-types talking about visions and spirit animals. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a lovely group of people who were all intelligent and interesting and a joy to be around. Better still, most of us were very willing to talk honesty about how difficult we found some of the exercises, and there was a real sense of camaraderie within the group.

The sense of well being I started to get from the meditation sessions was lovely, as difficult as I found it to switch off from work mode to do it. As it went on it got easier to go into it, and I developed more control over the practise. I began to notice the difference in my behaviour at work, with an increased ability to multitask and juggle difficult projects, as well as a greater sense of control and positivity when things were very difficult and stressful.

I finished my six week course and immediately signed up for the level two course. I went to that, finding it even better and more interesting than the first course - I suddenly found I was able to meditate without guidance and just choose what worked for me and my mood and adapt to my environment too. That sense of improved well-being continued and the discussion in the classes was always thought provoking.

But most of all, I went back again because my teacher and the rest of my class were an absolute joy to spend time with. It's such a pleasure spending an evening with such a kind group of people.

I'm starting the third course in January.

30 Things Stats:

Number: 3 - Try meditation

Completion Status: COMPLETE

Summary: Want to improve your sense of contentment and well-being? Try it. I'm so pleased I've gone to a proper class, it's been really lovely. Really the fact I'm about to start my third course speaks for itself...

I Done Some Running

My legs really hurt the next day. I'm ashamed to say I totally underestimated how tough it would be without any training. I mean, 1.1 miles? That's nothing. I walk that road around the science park some lunchtimes and it takes about 20 minutes, so running it would be over much quicker at least.

I forgot that I'd struggle to breathe and have to slow down to regulate my breath and get back in control of my feeble asthmatic lungs. I forgot that when I do ever run, my left knee throbs for a few days afterwards. I forgot I turn tomato red after cardio and might feel a bit stupid like that around my work colleagues afterwards.

But I did it. Yes, I had to slow down for some bits so I didn't die, but I did it. I may have had a quick chat with a nice girl from one of the companies on the other side of the park who was also struggling half way round. I may have got to the end, handed over the baton to our next runner and immediately dropped down to sit on the floor for a few minutes before regaining the energy to stand and grab a bottle of water and a banana. But I did it.

And even better, we raised a load of money for Children In Need. Running has given me more of an achy body than an endorphin rush, but the warm fuzzy charity feeling's better any day.

30 Things Stats:

Number: 13 - Run a race

Completion Status: COMPLETE

Summary: I did hurt a bit - but really only have myself to blame for not managing to make time for training. In fact, I think I might get back into my zombies 0-5k training app and see if I can improve.

Run, Fatty, Run

               

      

Running is something I've simply never done before. I've always had asthma which can really leave me struggling to breathe during exercise, so doing a lot of cardio has never appealed. I've also never entirely trusted running as a sport - it looks tedious and harsh on your knees, unlike lower impact activities that are done with friends like rowing or hockey.

Around the 30 years old mark seems to be when sports hobbies become very popular though - certainly among my friends anyway. My entire facebook feed has moved on from the posts about trendy cocktail bars and hangovers and is now full of weddings, baby pictures, new fancy bikes and sponsored marathons.

A friend of mine tried out one of the 'couch to 5k' apps on her phone recently that provide a structured running programme to get you from doing no exercise whatsoever to being able to run 5k. As a result she's become frighteningly addicted, and seeing her slimming down at the same time as getting hooked on it has been tempting me to give it a go. Then I found a 'Zombies, Run' app that has a 0-5k training programme with a storyline and zombie chases where I get to save Abel Township from the undead hordes. SOLD.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed it the first few times. Unfortunately the past month in the office has been so ridiculously busy I've barely run at all which means although I hope to get back into it now things are calmer, I've not really improved my fitness at all. Then a friend from work told me about the Cambridge Fun Run on 15th November for Children in Need. It's a relay race in teams of 4, each person running 1.1 miles around the Cambridge Science Park. He'd already signed me up. 

So that's what I'll be doing on Friday morning. I'll be exhausted and sweaty, having an asthma attack in the middle of the science park in front of my colleagues. HELP.

Denmark

                       

I've recently got back from a short work trip to Denmark, which is the first of my new countries to visit. I was sent out there by the company to train the new employees in the Copenhagen office we've just bought on using our systems and generally to be charming and make them feel welcome. They, of course, were the ones who ended up making me feel welcome. And really so did all of the Danes.

Now I'm not terribly used to going to places where I don't speak the language. Having been brought up by a Spanish mother and having learnt French and German at school, it feels like it's not often I don't get to use those - that or I'm in an English speaking country anyway. Even visiting Italy I understand the majority of basic conversation through speaking Spanish, it's only when I open my mouth that I'm found out (although I think we can all agree that the phrase "un gelato fragola per favore" which was the first Italian I ever learnt aged 5 will pretty much see you through).

Danish is a funny old language. When I asked my colleagues there they told me it's a Germanic language that shares a lot in common with Swedish and Norwegian. It makes sense, and also explains why I can guess the meaning of a few words that look a bit German when written down, but can't make head or tail of spoken conversation. Even that's not terribly helpful as the bulk of written Danish I see is the instructions on the tax authorities' website or on invoices, and my favourite of those is still the name of the energy provider 'Dong Energy' which makes me laugh like a 12 year old every single time. In the hurried preparation for this trip I'd only managed to make time for learning the words hi (hej), yes (ja), no (nej), and thank you (tak), so I spent the trip being extra polite and smiley to make up for my ignorance. 

I needn't have worried. The Danes I interacted with were lovely, reserved but welcoming and with a dry sense of humour. Though I was mainly there on business, I found myself some time to go exploring on Friday evening, which involved a walk into town to see some of the area around the city hall (including some geeking-out over the city hall building itself after far too much time spent watching The Killing). I then wandered over to Tivoli Gardens for the rest of the evening to explore it in all its Halloween-decorated splendour. I fell a little bit in love...

The gardens house a large number of stalls, restaurants, fairground games and rides, as well as an aquarium and various other attractions. At the moment they're covered in pumpkins, giant spiders and cobwebs for Halloween (I assume it wasn't just a lack of cleaners) and they have performances on the main open air stage in the evenings, with a light show at the end of the night. I spent a wonderfully relaxed evening exploring all the areas of the gardens with a cup of Gluhwein in one hand and my camera phone in the other and marvelled at the world's tallest carousel as it spun its riders around and around, 80 metres above the night-lit city. 

By about 10pm it had started to rain and I decided that I'd prefer to walk the 20 minutes back to my hotel than wait in the rain for the light show. When I got back I thought I'd treat myself to a Cosmopolitan at the lobby bar while I dried off, and while sat flicking through my photos of the evening I got chatting to a couple of guys from Norway. It transpired that they'd both been en route to Norway and their connecting flight at Copenhagen had been cancelled, so they'd had to stay at the hotel. One was a student on his way back from holiday in Madrid and the other a helicopter pilot heading home from working for several months in Greenland. A number of hours and several stories of travel, DIY house building and polar bear attacks later, we eventually headed to our separate rooms at 2am, setting our respective alarms for 7am taxis to the airport - though only once I was satisfied I'd persuaded the pilot that his British TV references of 'Mr Bean', 'Keeping up Appearances' and 'Embarrassing Bodies' were not giving him a representative view of the Brits as a population.

30 Things Stats:

Number: 18 - Visit 30 countries before 30

Completion Status: 23/30 countries completed

Summary: Copenhagen's gorgeous. I will definitely be going back to eat some smorrebrod and go on the carousel. Now excuse me while I go and find the first series of Borgen to watch and reminisce.

Visit 30 Countries Before 30 - Planning

                  

I've already acknowledged on the list that this particular item may be the most ambitious of my challenges. I thought initially my main constraint would be expense, but actually once I started looking at a full list of countries of the world I saw there's plenty of potential for utilising cheap Sleazyjet flights and combining countries into a single trip that make that a lot easier. As it turns out, the biggest complication this year will be finding enough time from my work holiday allowance - particularly tricky since 10 days of it have already been put aside for the Edinburgh Fringe in August!

I started by finding a suitable list of countries to work from online. A little bit of googling unearthed a few versions, and to complicate matters further the status of a lot of principalities as countries or states is heavily disputed which makes things pretty difficult to define. In fact, according to the site "listofcountriesoftheworld", only 191 countries are not in dispute. Still, I had to start somewhere, and their list seemed as good as any so I've decided to work from that.

From a first review, I've already visited 22 not including England (which I decided was a cheat since I was born here). I was a little disappointed to realise the four US states I initially wrote down wouldn't qualify but never mind. My 22 already visited are:

1) Australia

2) Austria

3) Belgium

4) China

5) Czech Republic

6) Egypt

7) Estonia

8) Finland

9) France

10) Germany

11) India

12) Ireland

13) Italy

14) Japan

15) Mauritius

16) Spain

17) Switzerland

18) Thailand

19) Scotland

20) USA

21) Vatican City

22) Wales

So now I'm fully into holiday scheduling for 2014. I'm lucky actually because through my work I already know I'll need to visit Denmark which I've never been to before, and that also opens up the possibility of crossing the bridge to Sweden while I'm there as its just a short train journey across to Malmo. It doubles up as a brilliantly geeky adventure for a girl who loves a bit of Skandi-Crime, visiting the locations of "The Killing" and "The Bridge"...

I'm also hoping that work requires me to visit the office in Nice again, because although I've been to France multiple times already, a trip to Nice would give me the chance to visit Monaco only a short drive down the road. 

Other than those though I'm pretty open to suggestions. I do of course have South America on my list so that will cover more - but for now I'm off to spin a globe and stick a pin in it.

30 Things Before 30 - The List

So my aim was to have a list by the 11th October - and I did, honest. I have witnesses who can attest to the fact I was talking them through the hand-written first draft over a birthday cocktail in Kettners during London Cocktail Week. Finally I've succeeded in committing that spider scrawled version to the blogosphere.

                 

***DRUMROLL PLEASE***

In no particular order...

30 Things to do Before 30

1) Write and perform a solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe 2014

It'll be my fourth fringe, and first ever solo show, all about my 30 things challenge.

2) Learn a new instrument

I was given a new handmade ukulele for my birthday. Better get learning...

3) Try meditation

I've always been interested in the idea of meditation, and earlier last year I found myself so busy with work and various other things that I was setting aside 10 minutes to switch off every so often. I soon realised it was a basic form of meditation and thought it would be interesting to try it properly. 

4) Try to complete a 365 day photo challenge

Take a photo every day for a year. Pretty simple concept, might be a bit harder to do.

5) Visit South America

It's always been on my travel wishlist, time I ticked it off. 

6) Get something published

Doesn't have to be a full page spread in The Times or a 300 page novel, just something, somewhere.

7) Learn to dance

I'm a hopeless dancer - totally self conscious with two left feet. I need to do something to make myself less embarrassing to be seen on a dance floor with.

8) Learn a language

I'll caveat this slightly: properly learning another language is a massive time consuming project and I don't know that that's practically possible with everything else going on. But picking a language and studying it to a basic conversational level would be lovely. At school I learnt French and German and I already speak (albeit pretty rusty) Spanish, so I'm currently picking a new one outside of those...

9) Learn a circus skill

There's a local circus skills group I've been interested in trying out for a long time and its high time I went and tried it. I'd love to learn aerials, but I'll settle for juggling or something too.

10) Teach a cat a trick

There's plenty of learning objectives for me already on this list - time for someone else to put some work in. Namely one of my two Maine Coon cats. Just blame shopping on Amazon after one too many G&Ts for books on cat training.

11) Appear on TV or film

In the background, interviewed, anything. Might be a bit ambitious but where's the fun if it wasn't?

12) Climb a mountain

I've walked and climbed plenty of large hills and dales, but no real mountains...

13) Run a race

I've never run before, so any running will be a challenge for my weak calf muscles and my asthmatic lungs! I've found a 'couch to 5k' phone app to help me along, now it's time to start training.

 

14) Watch the top rated 30 films of all time

Time for a bit of a film education - I've found a good list of highest rated films on IMDB and I'm going to work my way through.

15) Make or build something

I've intentionally left this a little vague so I've got options of what to do. I like the idea of painting something, or making something that would make a nice gift such as bath products, or even building some sort of storage for the house. Watch this space.

16) Learn sign language

Like number 8, I don't need to become fluent, but it'd be great to learn some key words and phrases to communicate.

17) Learn a magic trick

Learn one magic trick to a good standard...

18) Visit 30 countries before 30

This may be my trickiest challenge! From a quick tally, so far in my life I've visited 20 separate countries (not including England). Can I notch up a further 10 in the next 12 months...?!

19) Learn some basic DIY and car maintenance

Now, I'm not hopeless by any means, but I'd like to develop some more concrete skills in this area so I'm not relying on being able to call my dad if something goes wrong. Some basic tasks like changing a car tyre, rewiring a plug, etc wouldn't go amiss.

20) Brew my own beer

I like good beer, and I like a bargain. Solution: Brew my own.

21) Gamble in a casino

The name's Bond, Izzy Bond. Or something.

22) Learn to play poker

Not entirely unrelated to 21, but I've never tried playing poker. Clearly an essential life skill I'm missing out on.

23) Host a Eurovision Song Contest party

I've meant to do this ever since we used to draw countries out of a hat each Eurovision at university, gather at the college bar and drink along to the points our countries were given. It's time to resurrect some old traditions.

24) See an iconic show

Go and see some iconic show, gig or other performance - one of those shows that you remember forever.

25) Invent something

Move over, Dragon's Den.

26) Walk an underground line / try a monopoly bar crawl / other challenge

I read someone recently talking about a book they had of overground walks of underground lines and I really liked the idea of trying to walk one or doing something similar in London.

27) Interview my granddad

I never did one of those interviews children often do with their grandparents about their youth or when they were in the army, and with my grandpa at the ripe old age of 91 that window of opportunity might be smaller than I'd like to think it is. 

28) Make a piece of clothing (that I actually want to wear)

I've made some items of clothing before. At school I once made a pair of hideous shorts that looked like part of a cheap denim knock-off of a 'Just William' costume - needless to say they were binned pretty quickly. I've made other things more recently, but nothing more complex than an elasticated waist skirt, so a nicely fitted dress or similar would be a nice challenge.

29) Write to someone I admire

I've never been one for writing fan mail, but I enjoy spreading a little sunshine by telling a stranger I like their scarf, or giving a learner driver a thumbs up when they've just executed a perfect parallel park. So I think it would be nice to actually write to some of the people I think are brilliant and tell them why. They could be people I admire from all walks of life and people I may or may not already know.

30) Invent my own signature cocktail

Every girl needs a signature cocktail. For some reason I've had a lot of interest from friends offering to assist with the research and development of this particular item...

30 Things - The Rules

As a borderline control freak, I feel I need to set down some rules for my '30 Things' challenge. 

The 5 Rules

1. I will have fun

These have to be things I genuinely want to do. I'm investing a lot of my precious free time, energy and in many cases money into these activities and there's no point if I'm not having fun.

2. I will leave out the big life achievements

Owning a house, learning to drive, losing weight - they're normal life goals and they're not really done for fun. This isn't the place for them.

3. I will complete a first draft list by 11th October

To make sure I have a full year, the first draft list needs completing by my 29th birthday so I can get going.

4. I will not beat myself up

Realistically it may transpire that an item on the list is impossible to complete due to time or money restraints. If that can't be avoided, then I'll replace the item with an alternative challenge and move on.

5. I will document my adventures

I will endeavor to update this blog to document my progress regularly. I promise I'll try. Honest.