tomorrow evening we’re off to see strung out at the underworld. should be a really good show.

and then friday i’m off for a visit to the states! just in time to see my niece in her halloween outfit, and to hopefully witness history being made.

blogging may be light for the next two weeks.

in the meantime, i leave you with a few particularly apropos strung out tracks.

strung out – your worst mistake

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strung out – crossroads

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strung out – no voice of mine

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i’ve been almost afraid to breathe. the fear that i’ll have my hopes dashed once again this election have me so wound up, i daren’t trust any polls, pundits or predictions.

eight years ago, in spite of all popular will, my candidate lost. four years ago, in spite of all meaningful logic, my candidate lost. along the way, the country has become lost.

so very, terribly lost.

so you’ll excuse me if i haven’t had the audacity to hope for much from this election. when your hope ends up in a million little pieces, time and time again, it gets a little harder.

of course, there’s a certain segment of the american population that understands that truth much better than i do.

like the 109 year old woman, the daughter of a slave, who just cast her vote for the first african-american presidential nominee.

if she still has hope, how can i not?

like these two boys.

if they have hope, how can i not?

like this man. just a man. not a saviour, not the answer to our prayers, not even always right. who is the target of death threats because of the colour of his skin.

yet he still has hope. he tells me there are better days ahead, if we’re willing to shed our fears and doubts.

he asks me to believe.

how can i not?

(links via bitchphd and nicole, respectively)

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i must be getting old, because this made me laugh like nothing…

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running along wandsworth common this morning, and what did i spot? the notoriously craggy face of gordon ramsay.

to be honest, i’m surprised i even noticed – i’m notorious for being oblivious to these kinds of things. he was running with a guy who looked like a personal trainer. didn’t look like he was sweating too much though – c’mon gordo, put some effort into it!

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guess what’s back again?

yes, that’s right, my absentee ballot.

as a point of interest, notice the size of the actual return address, where i’ve indicated with the purple arrows – go ahead and click if you’re curious to see it full size.

third time’s the charm, right?

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in the dreary season that is british autumn

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the red sox season is over.

after staying up to the wee hours of the morning all this week to watch the alcs playoffs, my beloved sox came back from 3 – 1 games down to force a game 7 last night… and lost at nearly 5am gmt.

the only thing more forlorn than being an expat sports fan, awake in the middle of the night, all alone in your devotion, no one to cheer with, and only the cold comfort of the computer screen glowing in the dark… is being a heartbroken sports fan, awake in the middle of the night, all alone in your desolation, no one to commiserate with, and only the cold comfort of the computer screen glowing in the dark.

i know, probably better than most, that there’s always next year.

but today, next year seems like an awful long way away.

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people often think i’m some sort of alarmist when it comes to privacy issues in this country.

i submit exhibit “a”:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

another completely useless proposal. this is meant to get at terrorists who use pay-as-you-go mobile phones. what the government fails to understand here is that:

a) we’re only 2 hours away from the rest of europe… where no such registers exist, and current law says you’re allowed to bring in pretty much anything from the eu into the UK as long as it’s not illegal or exceeds “personal use”

b) the rate at which people swap sim cards in and out of phones, or amongst friends, family, etc. makes any such register hopelessly inaccurate from the start

c) there’s this thing called the internet where you can buy all sorts. clearly no one in government has ever shopped for a mobile from hong kong on ebay.

d) the only way in which this register could possibly work would be if they

- first outlawed private sale of mobiles by individuals (new or used)
- second outlawed private sale of sim cards (which is really what they’re after)
- third outlawed swapping of sim cards amongst individuals
- fourth signed on all mobile service providers
- fifth managed to sign the entire eu onto the notion of restricting mobile/sim sales and import/export in the uk
- sixth outlawed the purchase of mobiles from non-approved sources (such as the internet)
- seventh devoted more enforcement resources to monitoring the internet for sales (because they don’t already have enough to do with trying to restrict guns, drugs, child pornography)
- eighth restricted sales of mobiles only to adults (as the idea of having children’s info on a database would be most unpalatable to the public)
- and ninth devoted more resources to monitoring the mail for the illegal transport of sim cards smaller than postage stamps.

in other words, this is another harebrained scheme by government designed to “crack down on terrorism” by infringing on the rights of many millions of innocent citizens, which is easily circumvented well before it is even put into law… much like the i.d. card initiative.

unfortunately, that won’t stop them from trying.

my morning jacket – off the record

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i requested my absentee ballot a while ago, but had been waiting, waiting, waiting for it to arrive. i heard through the grapevine that massachusetts was late sending out their absentee ballots, and that if we didn’t receive them by the second week of october, to use the federal write in absentee ballot to ensure it got sent in in time to be counted.

so i was waiting, waiting, waiting. then, i ended up unexpectedly booking a trip home for the first week in november. fantastic, i thought – i’ll just vote while i’m home! someone told me to double check the rules, luckily, and in doing so i discovered that because i am no longer a resident of the u.s., i can only vote by absentee ballot. bah.

then, this tuesday, just as i was getting ready to use the write in option, my ballot finally arrived. i carefully marked my selection, took it down to the post office the next day, had it weighed, and got an airmail stamp. i noticed that the envelope, despite having the address in big bold letters written across 80% of the surface, did not specify “u.s.a.”, so i took out a marker and added that, circling it. then i posted it. hooray!

today, as i was cleaning, the postman arrived. what should slide through my letterbox onto the hallway carpet? that’s right, my ballot. ignoring the big bold address and giant circled “u.s.a.” and airmail sticker, the postman had instead decided to use the teen-tiny pre-printed return address label in the upper left corner. yes, i went through all that trouble and paid £1.22 to post a presidential ballot to myself.

now, i know that the u.k. doesn’t generally use return addresses, but come on. and did i mention the big bold address and giant circled “u.s.a.”??! surely anybody with eyes could see where it was intended to go.

i was not best pleased, then, to have to spend my saturday morning queueing at the post office to mail my ballot *again*. let’s hope it actually makes it there this time.

all i have to say is the outcome better be worth it.

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in reading charlotte’s blog post today, i discovered that today is blog action day.

charlotte was the very first person to sponsor me for my recent half marathon on behalf of unicef’s born free campaign, so i’d like to take the opportunity to pay it forward. she’s posted about the links between poverty, aids and women in her native south africa, and has suggested “the girl effect” as an organisation which can help effect change.

and so i’m calling attention to it here as well. “the girl effect” is a foundation which seeks to effect large scale change through raising the standard of living of the 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world.

a few facts about the girl effect:

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.

yet for every developmental dollar spent, girls receive less than one half of one cent.

“if the goal is health, wealth, and stability for all, a girl is the best investment.”

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i finished in about 2:13. i take ten minutes off that time which was spent waiting for the loo at mile four. (the one gripe i have about the organisation of the race is that there were nowhere near enough toilets! they had us using the parks public toilets, which with 6 stalls for the women, was just a disaster.)

it was a warm, sunny, beautiful day, and i felt fantastic the whole way through. i ran the last three miles flat out, just feeling stronger and stronger. i had the *best* playlist, which kept me going.

a few pics from j’s mobile (sorry if they’re skew! taking photos while running is harder than i thought!)

thanks again to all those who sponsored me – it really lifted my spirits during the race to know how many people believed in this cause!

this song has nothing to do with anything, except that it kicked in at mile 12 and sent me flying

phantom planet – do the panic

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so tomorrow is my run! the weather is (fingers crossed) supposed to be good, if a bit warm for my liking. there will be 12,500 people running through the streets of london, and i’ll be one of them, plodding along in my blue unicef t-shirt. i am proud to do my part for this important cause, and great organisation.

so in my last installment, let me tell you a little bit more about why i’m running.

when i last left off on this topic, i told you about how many children are still dying of hiv in underdeveloped countries. how 90% of children born with hiv will die before they reach the age of 5. horrible, *preventable* deaths.

but hiv affects children and mothers in these countries in so many other ways.

– pregnant women are not getting the opportunity to be tested. they can’t prevent hiv tranmission to their children if they don’t know. in west and central africa, only 2% of pregnant women are getting tested.

– babies must be tested early to get treatment early. in poor countries, they must often wait until the age of 18 months to test for hiv. but there is a test available which can be done at just 6 weeks.

– it’s recommended for hiv positive mothers that they do *not* breastfeed their child, as this can be a route of transmission. however in many areas, there are either no available/affordable milk substitutes, or no safe water sources.

– only 10% of hiv+ children will get the medications they need. hiv progresses rapidly in infants. children whose immune systems are most vulnerable, are not getting the care they need, and they are dying. this no longer happens in rich western countries, where hiv positive children usually live well into adulthood.

– when hiv+ mothers don’t get the appropriate healthcare and medicines, their children end up as aids orphans. there are 11.6 million aids orphans today in sub-saharan africa. entire generations of children grow up without parents. some have to become carers for their dying parents. when the parents die, older siblings are often forced to take on the role of parent and hold their families together. on top of the grief of losing their parent, aids orphans are far more likely to grow up poorer, miss out on education, and be stigmatised by the community.

so much of this is so preventable. in the u.s., for example, there were just *38* pediatric aids diagnoses in 2006.

38.

that’s because pregnant women routinely receive testing, treatment, and care to prevent hiv transmission in 98% of all cases. babies who are born with hiv are tested early and receive appropriate care and medication. the mothers receive treatment and followup to stay healthy. they have the highest quality healthcare and support available to them and their children. they will get to see their children grow up.

shouldn’t every mother and child have these opportunities?

that’s what the “born free” campaign is all about, and that’s why i’m running. every child should have the opportunity for a future, and we really can help. it doesn’t have to be this way. we’ve come so far and made so many advances against this virus in our own countries, and yet so many little children are still needlessly facing death every day.

so many people have sponsored me already, but i’m still short of my goal. please consider sponsoring me, no matter how much or how little. it’s really, truly appreciated.

with heartfelt thanks,
jen

edited to add: oh wow!! i’ve just reached my goal!! i am so, so, so thrilled! thank you all so much! i can’t thank you all enough – it means so much to me, and i’m just so happy to be able to do this for something i believe in so strongly.

thank you thank you thank you!!

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… which must be why i keep reading it every day. with everything that goes wrong in the world, it gives me hope that sometimes we get it right.

connecticut supreme court legalises same sex marriages

The ruling makes Connecticut the third state, after Massachusetts and California, to decide its constitution mandates treating citizens equally when applying for marriage licenses, regardless of their sexual orientation.

“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” the ruling said.

“To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others. The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry.”

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US rock band the Foo Fighters have told John McCain to stop using song My Hero in his presidential campaign, saying it “tarnishes” the track.

The band said it had been “appropriated without our knowledge”.

…

The band said in a statement: “The saddest thing about this is that My Hero was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential.

“To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”

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Amity tagged me for this meme, and I thought it’d be fun to play along.

RULES:

* Post at least five current addictions (with some details, please).
* Mention the person who started this meme (Being Brazen) and also the person who just tagged you – amity.
* Type your post with the heading “Current addictions”.
* Tag at least two people and pass on the above rules.

1. baked potatoes (or, to be very british, “jacket potatoes”).

they’re hot, hearty, easy and have limitless possibilities. my current fave topping is smoked salmon and greek yogurt. my second topping of choice is a bit of cream cheese and some capers. my favourite part of the entire thing though, is the delectable crispy skin, with a melted bit of butter and a generous sprinkling of sea salt. i love making baked potatoes for an easy dinner, particularly because j *doesn’t eat his skins*, and lets me snag the empty leftovers off his plate. mmmm, twice the skins. he doesn’t realise what he’s missing.

2. sweats

there’s nothing better than coming in from the cold, wet outdoors, and getting into a pair of dry cozy sweats to lounge. nothing. i come home, and the first thing i do is change clothes. yes, i know it’s terribly sad. but damn, it’s comfortable.

3. my beloved red sox

they’re back in the playoffs, made it through the first round of the alds, going up against tampa bay for the american league championship and a ticket back to the world series as defending champions. i am preparing for my well-worn expat playoff routine: come home, eat, go to bed as early as possible, wake up for 1 am, chug red bull and watch baseball until 4am, head back to bed until 6 am. that’s more than simple dedication – that’s addiction.

4. running

okay, maybe not addicted to it, but definitely preoccupied by it. i do enjoy running a lot, but there comes a time during any training schedule when you’re just sick and tired of it. i’m at that point. yet still, i have to run, and so i run. my race is on sunday, and it should be fun – but i’ll be glad when i can slack off a bit.

5. yoga

this i *am* addicted to. to the point where i’m annoyed that my running is getting in the way of my yoga, because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do both (except on weekends). i’ve been doing this for at least an hour a day, 5 days a week, for seven months now, and am still excited by it. i never could have predicted just how much i enjoy it, but i have no intention of stopping any time soon.

i’m tagging nikoline and sarah - but no pressure…

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i can’t stand the resurgence in 80s fashion…

… but i’m quite enjoying the newest 80s sounds!

a playlist, featuring:

architecture in helsinki – hold music
mgmt – electric feel
of montreal – suffer for fashion
morningwood – nth degree
black kids – i’m not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you
another cynthia – let down
the ting tings – shut up and let me go

MP3 playlist (M3U)

and here’s the feed for downloads.

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new glasses!

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i know blogging has been pretty light the past month – suffice it to say, real life has been very busy. all in good ways (lots of work, a semblance of actual social life, running, yoga, french classes), but it’s keeping me very busy and (gasp!) limiting my time in front of the computer.

after my race next week, things should lighten up a bit, and hopefully i can get back into the (more relaxed) swing of things. there’s so much to say, and so little time! the sox are in the playoffs, the pats are probably out of the running, the economy is tanking, we’re getting together our canada application, and biden is going to kick some serious palin ass tonight.

until then, here’s a lame-ass apology. i’m sorry.

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