Serious Business: Mouse to Manticore in Eight Years

This is the story of my crystal necklace.

Everyone who knows me knows I wear a single AB Swarovski crystal drop on a silver chain. Everyone who knows me well enough knows that I wear it every day, and everyone who knows me better knows to avoid buying me jewellery because I've worn it every day since I bought it and little else. Some people know that I've worn it for eight years, from when I bought it in Venice.

The only thing about the necklace that has stayed the same over the years is the crystal: the chain has been replaced about five times, the clasp about six; I've even replaced the bail that loops the crystal to the chain. Even though the only surviving part of the original necklace is the crystal, I still view it as the same necklace. Like my watch (another item that's almost like a part of me), I put it on every morning on autopilot, not really thinking about it.

On Boxing Day, it went missing. I haven't seen it since.

I remember wearing it on Christmas Day, and taking it off with my watch when every time I opened the oven to check on my roast it heated up and burned me. I remember putting it on the coffee table with my watch. I don't remember putting either back on, nor taking either off before bedtime as usual, nor putting both on in the morning as usual. All I know is that when I came back from the shops on Boxing Day afternoon, I was wearing my watch, but my neck was bare.

I bought it in 2004, during my school's music school tour to Venice (I sang in the choir and played the flute in two other groups). We had a free day before a concert in the evening and were milling around the shops and markets of the city. In a shop full of trinkets and tat, there was a small stand on a table next to the checkout with a few odd necklaces going for a couple of Euros hanging off of it. Like a magpie, my eyes instantly caught the rainbow sparkliness of the single drop crystal necklace, and I bought it. I've always liked the rainbow effect of AB crystals (probably because my birthstone is opal) and around that time I was constantly wearing cubic AB crystal earrings, so this necklace matched perfectly. I ended up wearing the necklace long after I stopped wearing those earrings.

It was also around that time I had stopped becoming almost cripplingly shy and only a little bit shy. I had gone through the first few years of secondary school as quiet as a mouse, swinging from being unable to make friends to being in the middle of upsetting situations when I eventually did make them; more upsetting than your average teenager has to face (which can be tricky enough as it is). Now I was beginning to find my roar. Okay, so it was a quiet, almost apologetic roar, but still a roar. By 2004, which was when I was sitting my GCSE exams, I was talking to people more often. I think my necklace became a kind of amulet, almost like a lucky charm (even though I don't believe in them): something I subconsciously associated with this time of life and the gradual change in me. It symbolised that the bad and sad times were over, and that I was slowly but surely on my way up in the world: and so I wore it every day, only hanging it up to rest when ill, asleep or in costume.

I've lost it once before- it was about three years ago when I was still at university. I was heartbroken, and searched high and low for it. It turned up later in the day tangled at the back of my hair: the chain had snapped, and it and the crystal had luckily snarled themselves in my curls. I knew deep down I'd find it, though- quite often when I lose something I'll feel panicked, but if I'm liable to find it again I'll know at the back of my mind.

This time was different though: as soon as I went to twirl the crystal around my fingers- a habit I've picked up after the numerous years, and probably a contributing factor to my loss- and found it missing, I knew immediately: that was that. Maybe that's why although I was upset- of course I was upset- I wasn't heartbroken this time. I'd already accepted that one day I'd lose it forever when the chain finally snapped whilst I was out.

What has this got to do with the New Year? Well, it seems fitting to me that I should lose my amulet, my symbol of the New Me, days before a new year, and in particular this year- 2012 is the year of extreme ups and downs: my first heartbreak/ breakup with my first boyfriend (well... technically the second, but I don't really count the two months we got back together for after the first breakup); one of my closest friends getting married to another good friend; losing a total of two stone and feeling fantastic; the months of struggle to find a job; finding a job; going to Australia... many things and many more that have shaped me significantly yet again. I suppose I have changed again, because I also felt a weird relief at losing my necklace- there's no longer any sense of automatic obligation every morning to don my amulet. To sound incredibly melodramatic, I'm free from my past: because even though my necklace was a symbol of me changing for the better, it was also a symbol of the mud I had to wade through to get to that point.

I'm still nerdy and geeky, still a tad socially awkward* and still, at times, a smidge on the shy side (not always though- recently I went up to a total stranger in town to ask him why he was wearing a Banana Man costume to advertise online dating- hey, I really had to know**), but no longer a mouse.

So. New year, new necklace? I'm not going to get an exact replacement, and I don't think I'll ever have something that I wear day in, day out again. A shame opals are so pricey... I'd rather like a faceted Ethiopian welo opal (hint hint, for any randomly generous and wealthy passing reader! A girl can dream, right?) In the meantime, I do need a new everyday necklace I suppose. My magpie senses are tingling...

A very happy new year to you all- here's to all the changes that make us, us. Let's made 2013 amazing!

* As is apparent in almost every post in this blog- although I have a feeling being British has a lot to do with it, too

** He told me miserably, 'My manager told me it'd attract more attention.' Well... I suppose I can't fault that.

Friends with Sugar

My friend Vicky was visiting from Germany, and this evening we went to a dessert bar in Chinatown, where we ate a silly amount of cake. Vicky also gets a bit jittery on MSG, so having already been to another Chinese restaurant she was already getting a little bouncy. Me too- I'd just had a drink that was made out of 50% beans and 50% sugar. This didn't matter though- we were ready to tackle this magical place of cake.

By the end of it, we were giggling like idiots at nothing much in a cake and sugar-induced stupor. I was vaguely aware of Vicky beginning to stack the plates up neatly when I heard her declare proudly, "I shall be helpful! Ploop!"

The 'Ploop!' was accompanied by my sugar-crazed friend more or less slam-dunking the chunk of lemon from her half-finished lemon tea back into her mug- out of which tea shot out of in all directions.

I suppose she was helpful in the end, as she mopped all the spilled tea up- I was less so though, because I was too busy laughing like a hyena.

In Which I Win Christmas in a Box

Message from me to my friend and ex-colleague Celyn, today at 2:33pm:

'I won something in the office Christmas raffle a little while ago. Out of the nearly forty prizes there were to be won between hundreds of employees, it’s just like me, being Jewish, to win the Christmas tree.

I'm totally putting it in my bedroom. =D x'

I never win anything. Ever. The last time I won a raffle I was in primary school, and I won a pencil case- I wasn't even there to experience winning because I was off sick, so my best friend came over later in the afternoon to drop it off having collected it for me. So when I bought a bunch of tickets for the office raffle today, I thought I'd just have some fun whilst donating to Save The Children in the process, not expecting to win anything.

Imagine, to my surprise, one of my numbers being called for the penultimate prize (by which time I'd totally switched off and was now chatting to a couple of colleagues, so I nearly missed going up to get it).

There were two prizes left to choose from: one was a big box of colourful stationary, wrapping paper, ribbons and a load of chocolate (very temping), the other an equally large box- a sealed box- a mystery box. Of course, I chose the mystery box. I hefted it over my shoulder, the box being almost shoulder-height to me, and lugged it back to my desk. A few colleagues gathered eagerly to see what I had won, and I hastily slashed at the cellotape that sealed the secrets contained within the magical box.

Hidden in the box was a big box of Thortons chocolates and a small bottle of sparkling wine with 23 carat gold flakes, but best of all, it contained a small Christmas tree, complete with self-powered fairy lights, a box of baubles and a  double CD collection full of wonderfully naff Christmas music. It was like a portable emergency instant Christmas kit- or as Celyn quite perfectly put it when I emailed her in excitement, '...it’s like a compact Christmas in a box and you won it!'

Now if you know me you'll know that I come from a Jewish family (as well as Christian Chinese one on the other side- which probably explains my colourful outlook on life), and also you'll know how luck tends to laugh at me in various ways. In this case I had the last laugh: my very first Christmas tree, with decorations and everything! I gleefully set it up in my room as soon as I got home, but it's now living on the kitchen table after my (quite bemused) dad said he didn't mind it being downstairs. If only Hanukkah didn't end a few days beforehand- it would have looked awesome right next to the menorah.

Season's greetings, from whichever culture or creed you come from!

Check out my cake blog for the finished tree with gingerbread.

Crouching Tasha, Hidden Panda

This is my hat.

Marvel at its panda-ness.

Last week I got to don it when we had a sudden cold snap. Everything froze overnight, and since it had been a bit damp the day before all the trees and plants appeared to turn into beautiful crystalline structure. When I parked in my office car park and got out I noticed that the weeds on the grassy bank behind my car had developed some fun-looking ice prickles, so I decided to snap them. I crouched down with my little compact camera into the foliage to attempt to get a clean, car-less shot.

After a while my legs fell asleep, so I had to get up really slowly to stop myself from falling over. Little did I know there had been someone curiously (and slightly nervously) waiting the other side of my car, probably having heard me scuffling about in the grass and wanting to make sure everything was alright. She stared at me, partially curious, partially a little bit scared, and possibly with a hint of pity. When I thought back about it later, I realised this is what she must have seen:

A pair of black bear ears, slowly rising from behind a car, followed by a pair of panda eyes, a panda nose, my eyebrows, and gradually the rest of my face and body, looking guilty (because it's my default expression) and poised with a camera, standing in the middle of the grassy bank.

I can't read minds, but her thoughts might have had something to do with spies, sneaks and weirdos.

Oh, and here are the photos I took, by the way. I'm not sure they were worth it.

~Fin~

Make or Break Business Names

This totally fills me with confidence.

(Taken in Soho. Apparenty it's actually a pretty good place.)

So I Went to Australia and...

... Nothing happened.

Well. Lots of things happened. I went to my cousin's wedding:

Went to the Blue Mountains:

Cuddled some kangaroos:

Saw some fun fish:

... And of course, did touristy things:

But you know what the really odd thing is? Nothing, well, odd, happened to me during during any of the ten (well, eight, since two whole days were lost through travel) days Down Under. In fact, this is a trend I seem to face whenever I go abroad: weird things don't follow me on holiday. Except for one time quite a few years ago where food poisoning literally nearly killed me (don't forget: salads are washed in local water), nothing really happens to me.

Must be a British thing.