Omar's Blog » general

All my stuff

Omar — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:45:56 +0000

If I’m going to cut down on my possessions then I first need to take stock of what I have in the first place.

Hoping to actually do it all, plus I’m hoping the addition of having to photograph it all will slow me down and spend some actual time considering the things I’m listing.

To do! (Here we go…)

Omar — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:20:04 +0000

(I start these lists with only 1 or two things as well as a hope more will come to me…)

1. Iron ALL my clothes¹
2. Buy more hangers
So that
3. I can hang ALL my clothes^2.
Which will mean
4. That I can put all the stuff from the hole³ in my chest of draws
Which will mean
5. That I can put my clothes rack in the hole which it will fit into, cosily but it’ll fit. Which will just make the room seem bigger and hopefully a little tidier.
6. In the spirit of trying to embrace the minimalist type lifestyle I am hereby committing myself to, by Easter (it’ll take a while!), making a list of everything I own. (Which I may photograph too…)

There are a few related things, like the fact that I still have a lot of Joey’s stuff but I’m hoping to put that in the space outside my room. Also, I will need to sort the stuff from the hole…

1. That can be ironed.
2. That can be hung
3. The cubby hole area in my room where I currently ~~store~~ hide stuff.

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken

Omar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:44:27 +0000

Just discovered http://davidhieatt.typepad.com/, he co-founded (I think) Howies but has since left. In any case, I just discovered his blog. Which is a mix of quotes, thoughts and posts with a creative work bent.

Funny, it seems to fit in with how I’m thinking at the moment. That we should working smarter and think about how we can do that.

I like it.

An update

Omar — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:25:19 +0000

1. My legs are like chickens

2. I’ve been working in a school for the last 4 weeks, it has had ups and downs and I’ve just agreed to work there until Easter.

3. Exercising less but still going regularly and still loving it. (They’ve stepped up the running recently, so that we ran further – which is something I feel I need to improve! Mostly because i want to be at the front!) Training continues for our Trailwalker 100km walk in July, it’s a whole different thing going from relative short work outs to getting into walking for much longer periods of time. When we do it we’ll be out walking for over 15 hours. Plus I have a half-marathon in May! Crikey :D

4.Things ended with J a little while back, amicably but still felt a whole lot of disappointment that things didn’t work out.

The problem

Omar — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:36:05 +0000

For me blogging was simply an extension of all the writing I’ve always done in notebooks. It was a chance to put things down and get things out of my head. It started with a notebook mum got me for when I went to Annecy on a French exchange when I was 12 (is that right?), a hardback red notebook that I still have even though it’s spine is gone and it’s held together with an elastic band and it’s full of cards, photos, scraps of paper, my UCAS letters. It simply progressed from there, I may take years to fill them but it’s been an ongoing thing and I’ve always kept them around.

The problem has always been that I’ve felt the need to keep two separate blogs, because there are things I’m happy to share and things I only want to share with a limited number of people – or at least to keep it away from certain people. Basically it’s a right pain, keeping them apart. It’s meant that one is that and one is that and neither of them is really me (which I kind of want them to be).

So I thought that I had decided to come back to this blog after trying out Tumblr (it didn’t feel like it was working), at the same time I started a new private Tumblr because I like it does things and because there’s often things that I just want to put down. Anyway that Tumblr has now become my main blog where I put everything… Which is the problem.

We will see how it pans out and it’s the reason that I haven’t been blogging here lately.

Breaking More Waves: Ellie Goulding

Omar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:26:38 +0000

Just a question. Is the modern electronic pop production that Ellie Goulding is being given right for her voice, or would she be better suited to simple less populist folk arrangements that we first heard on her Myspace a year ago and can be seen by clicking here ?

via Breaking More Waves: Ellie Goulding – Starry Eyed.

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PULdPep_xfs&feature=player_embedded#

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iasph5zaDT4

no time more important then right now

Omar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:06:15 +0000

Things have changed now that I’ve got a more permanent teaching position. My time is more precious, there are more things to do. Plus this week I’m having to get my head around all the planning and assessment and working out a time table and getting to know ‘my’ class.

It means I have less time to exercise – which in some respects is a good thing. Laura and I have taken to running to BMF, it’s a 5.5 mile round trip in addition to all the running we do at the class. We took it easy coming back today as the class was tough tough tough. The instructor was pretty relentless and had us doing more press ups then we could do. It’s funny how quickly your arms say no. Coupled with him saying ‘follow me’ before sprinting off after those exercises.

Still it was good, I feel good for it. Though the 90 second static ski squat was just painful. Then we ran back from the class.

Up Snowdon soon! :D

Sleep

Omar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:48:03 +0000

Funny thing. Taken to waking from about 3 hours out, checking my clock, feeling a subdued elation and putting my head on the pillow again.

Except today, I woke again at 6:13 (alarm at 6:15) and missed the lying in bed debating whether I would let my alarm go off. (I didn’t and don’t, I can’t do it. My alarm is there just-in-case and is almost always turned off before I get out of bed.)

Trailwalker – first walk

Omar — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:45:31 +0000

Mixed surfaces, from road, through knee deep snow to icy, slushy forest paths. My Maps said we did a little over 12 miles today which felt ok, started to feel it a little in the legs after we upped the pace a little when we got back on the road. Still it did well as a first walk and was all the better for the banter and the burger at one of the walker’s pub at the end

Map link > http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114163422595906582988.00047d4c7db1dad8252f9&t=h&z=13

Photos > http://www.flickr.com/photos/omarc/sets/72157623227405208/

[Cross-posted from my tumblr which I was using but have decided I'm a WP at heart!]

My Howies Merino Long Johns

Omar — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:51:04 +0000

I got my merino long johns from Howies last winter because… I don’t know why I did to be honest. I mostly wore them to school under my trousers which were a little thin and they kept me warm and cosy when out on the playground and in the classroom (but never too hot!).

They aren’t cheap admittedly and I must have got them in some sort of sale Howies frequently do but I only wore them once in the week before I headed off to Mauritius.

Anyway, I wanted to write about how much I love my merino wool long johns. I’ve worn them pretty much all of this week. I’ve worn them with shorts around the house, I’ve worn them when I walked to the pub for a drink, I’ve worn them to bed, I’ve worn them when running around in the snow at British Military Fitness, I’ve worn them to the shops. Yeah I’ve worn them a whole lot and they’ve been perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Just cosy and comfortable and amazing.

Long may the cold weather continue!

1. Yes, they are the female ones. Because they are cooler and they fit fine!. 2. Even though I’ve worn them that much they still don’t smell!