Photography by the blind

I just stumbled across a link in my RSS feeds to a news item on the BBC website which intrigued me, so I just had to follow it.  After all, the idea of blind people taking photos, well it just seems unbelievable, unusual & yet fascinating.

The link took me to a page which explained how some blind people have been taught to take sensory photos.  There is an accompanying slideshow of some of these images and I think you’ll agree that as well as illustrating a fascinating insight into a life of blindness, many of these photographs are actually outstanding.  What makes this all the more poignant I guess is that the photographers will never be able to see the fruits of their work.  Quite a sobering thought.

But dont just take my word for it, check them out for yourself here or go along to the exhibition of the works in London.

Those special things

So I said in an earlier post how I liked an idea I’d heard to do something special every month in 2010.  I duly went away & started to complile my list of “special things” for the year.

Ok, so I’ve not got all that much pencilled in at the moment, but this is a work in progress and one which I intend to build on throughout the year.

I’ll be updating this post as and when with all the new things & perhaps even some comments about how some of them went.

I’m looking forward to a fun-filled year of memorable moments

February – my first visit to the ballet

March – my second visit to the opera

April – going on holiday to Cape Verde – a group of islands off the west coast of Africa

August – working in the US for a few days.  Ok, so perhaps work isnt a special thing, but a trip to the west coast definitely is.

September – I’ll be going on my summer holidays in September.  Dont know where yet, but looking forward to it already tho

Déjà Vu?

You’re standing there, minding your own business, doing your own thing, when suddenly WHAM!  BAM! it hits you, you’ve been here before, you’ve done this before, you’ve seen this before.

Have you ever had one of these moments?  Weird huh?!

Yes, I’m referring to that term known as Deja Vu, which in French, literally means “already seen”. A web definition I’ve found says that déjà vu is “the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before.”  But what exactly is déjà vu and how on earth does it actually work?

The reason I’m thinking this is because I had one of those moments last night, when I was brushing my teeth! Yeah, I know, we brush our teeth all the time, so course you’ll get déjà vu, but no, that wasnt what it was about.  It was the thought process that I was going through and the things I was looking at in my bathroom at that same time, that made me feel I’d been there before.  And they werent everyday thoughts before you quote that at me, no, they were thoughts that were specific to something which is actually happening right now, so I cant have had them before, can I?

So what was going on?  How could I have experienced that before?  Do we all (or perhaps some of us) have the ability to predict & foresee things?  Perhaps we can foresee our future in dreams?  Perhaps we are actually able to  travel in time but dont realise we’ve done so, except for having senses like these?

Hmm, think I’m going to have to do a little research of my own on this one.

Anyone out there have any suggestions or answers?

A new year, a new me? But what’s wrong with the old one?

Ok,  so I’ve written in the past about how I dont believe in making new year resolutions, about why should we have to wait until a specific date to think about making positive changes in our lives.  As we now find ourselves in 2010, a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year, even a new decade, my thoughts havent really changed, however I am using this occasion as a time to reflect & think about my life.

January used to just be another month, well January to be precise, but in the last few years I’ve found myself disliking it.  Perhaps it’s the anticlimax after all the festivities in the past week, or perhaps it’s the sense of fear about the future or regret about the past, or the feeling that I’ve failed somehow or that the world actually expects me to be full of enthusiasm for a new year, in wonderment of what’s to come?   I really dont know.  But this year I want this to be different.  I dont want to spend the next 4 weeks feeling miserable.  I dont want to look back at all the bad things that have happened in the past year.  I dont want to be fearful of what lies ahead.  I just want to be me!  I want to be positive.  I want to be happy.  I want to enjoy my life.

Hmm, so how exactly do I go about that?

To be honest I dont know, but I just heard someone on the radio saying that their new year resolution was to do something special every month.  I think that’s a good place to start.  Plan to do things which are different which make me happy.  Perhaps that’s a good place to start this new year, focusing on doing stuff which brings good feelings?

I really dont know, but that’s where I’m going to start.  Now to start on that list …

the best place to live is …?

ok, so the results of the latest survey have just been released and the winner is …..

are you sitting comfortably?
are you ready for this? 
anticipation mounting?

<drum roll>

the winner is … Norway

Hmm, an interesting choice but one that I really can appreciate – or is that just from my skewed English perspective?  I see Norway as being a very clean country, with intelligent, good-looking people, a high standard of living and beautiful countryside.  And I’ve never even been there – but I really would like to go one day.  I want to see those fjords for myself, to look at those expanses of oh so white snow, to meet the people, to appreciate all that daylight in summertime – although I dont think I’d like the wintery months of darkness I must admit. 

But all in all, Norway’s not a bad choice in my opinion.   What do you think?

(To read what the BBC has to say about this, click here )

What you buy when you buy a lottery ticket

I love this post by Seth Godin, it just seems so right so there’s nothing I can add!

Self pep talk

I’ve made a decision!

People that know me will realise this is a big thing for me. I’m not the most decisive person around & I like to weigh up all the options before I do something. I guess it’s my cautionary nature, that self preservation thing that means I want to protect myself & make sure that I’m doing the right thing.

Anyway, back to the original point, my decision. The past 16 months or so have been a difficult time for me and if you’ve read my old posts you’ll have had a glimpse of some of those difficulties. Basically they centre around friendship and relationships. In some ways I’ve been living in a bit of an idealistic world, assuming that everything would work out in the end. Perhaps that’s something that we all do?  In reality I’ve now realised that’s just not going to happen. Sure, things will work out in the end, but I now know that some of the things I’ve been worrying about just arent going to work out the way I’d hoped & dare I say, dreamed they would. I’ve come to the realisation that things will be different and I think I accept that now. It’s taken a while but I believe it’s for the best and that’s something I really wouldnt have said even a few weeks ago.

So what helped me reach this decision?
To be honest, I’m not quite sure. But I do think that if people mess you around enough, then eventually you snap and realise that you’re better than that and you dont deserve to be treated that way.

At the end of the day, life is tough and sometimes it’s just not worth punishing yourself daily by dwelling on the what ifs. I’m sure we all have enough good people around us to far out-weigh the bad. We need to have more belief in ourselves, that we’re worth surrounding ourselves with people who DO care about us.

I’m grateful to those people who’ve really extended that arm of friendship in difficult times and I hope that I will always be prepared to do likewise.

So here endeth today’s pep talk. And I consider myself told by that too. 

40 winks to a brainwave

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night & had to rush to grab a piece of paper to write down that fantastic idea that came to you in a dream in the middle of the night?  Or perhaps you’ve woken up in the morning just knowing the right solution to a particular problem that you’ve been worrying about?

Well you’re not on your own.  A report suggests that problems are more likely to be solved after a period of sleep, so the old phrase “I’ll sleep on it” does actually hold some truth after all!  Perhaps Orinoco really did know what he was talking about when he had those 40 winks

It’s an interesting issue though.  I wonder just what it is that makes our subconscious selves somewhat more productive than our wake ones.  How can we get that answer when we’re asleep that we cant get when we’re concentrating on it in our woken hours?  Perhaps it’s because everything else is filtered out whilst we’re sleeping?  I dont know, but it’s certainly an interesting thought.

The unpredictability of people

Ok, so it’s been a while since I last blogged.
Correction it’s been FAR too long & I must admit I’ve kinda missed blogging but at the same time got out of the habit. Time to change that I think, altho circumstances mean I wont actually be able to post for a couple of weeks so I’d better get some posts written now instead, hadnt I?

Anyway, today my thoughts have turned to people and how unpredicatable they can be. You can take your time getting to know someone & then, just when you think you understand then, hey presto, something happens & you wonder whether or not you really did get them after all. It’s like someone has waved that magic wand or given them a personality transplant. Very strange and at the same time somewhat upsetting, or perhaps that’s just me being a sensitive soul, or rather, far too sensitive for my own good.

I guess I just like to see the best in people & invariably that means that somewhere along the line they’re gonna let you down, arent they? Very sad

Anyway, onwards & upwards, or so they say. Behind every closed door a window opens & all that.

But does it?
I suppose I’m about to find out ….

Time, or the lack of it

It’s amazing how we have so much time, I mean 24 hours in a day isnt bad, is it? and yet despite all this time, somehow we never seem to have enough of it!  Not enough time to keep in touch with friends and loved ones; not enough time to write that letter, to make that phone call; not enough time to sit & read a book or perhaps a newspaper; not enough time to go to the gym – or perhaps that’s a lack of motivation?  Hmm

Anyway, I’ve found myself rather lacking in time over the past few weeks.  I seem to have got rather caught up in life and living and this has meant I’ve neglected my blog and havent actually posted for a while.  I’ve found I’ve missed that.  Funny how you can miss something so seemingly unimportant, is it?

I’ve lots of ideas in my head, lots of posts in process, but I just wanted to throw my thoughts about time onto here whilst I’m contemplating some of them further.  Time, never enough of it and yet sometimes far too much.  Weird huh?