You Are Quiet But You Are There

Dear ones, salutations. I hope I find you well and in good spirits. If not, my sympathies. I have had a very up-and-down week but at the moment am on a good level of contentedness. 

I've got some great things to share with you this week, including music and a website so great that my little blog is shamed into insignificance. 
But first, get this. I experienced new levels of sexism last week when I went to get my car mended at a local garage. Now....I will freely admit that I don't know enough about my car, or indeed cars in general. I memorised where all the things were under the bonnet so I could point them out on my driving test, and all I know about topping things up is petrol and the screen sprayer water holder bit. However, whilst I love a bit of banter now and again, and don't at all mind having jokes made at my expense, I take serious issue with lazy jokes made about men or women, like..."oh haha, you don't know where anything is in your car, hahaaaaa women". Or "oh haha, you're a man but you clean someone's house, paha". What is that. Come on now, people. 
My knowledge of the whereabouts of various car components has nothing to do with being a girl, but everything to do with the fact that I find cars really super boring and don't care about how they work. So anyhoo, I rang to get the headlight fixed and it went like this:
Me: "Hello, I need my headlight fixed and I wondered if you could tell me how much it would cost?"
Him: <pause> <laughs> "Right, I'm going to need a bit more information. What car do you have?"
Me: "Oh I'm sorry, BLAH BLAH BLAH 
*CAR TALK REALLY BORING ETC.*"
Him: "Bring it tomorrow"
Me: "Can I come in after work?"
Him: <pause> "Yeah, all these things I'm supposed to know...when do you finish work?"

So that went on for a bit, him being rude, me explaining my questions very politely despite my blood raging through my veins, firstly at his horrendous customer service and secondly at his immediately adopted tone at hearing my delicate, female tones at the other end of the phone. When I got there, this happened:

Me: "Hello, I've brought my car to have the headlight looked at"
Him: <pause> "No, you've come to have the bulb looked at....need to get the terminology right."

I was so furious. SO FURIOUS. I would bet real, hard, currency that he would not have spoken to a fellow, clearly superior, male in that way. I almost....almost....wrote a strongly worded letter. But I didn't. 

Wow....that was quite ranty, and was perhaps heavier reading than you were expecting but it's something I feel incredibly strongly about - casual sexism abounds and I've absolutely had enough. Who's with me? YEAH! REVOLUTION!

Here's some stuff I do like:

ONE. 
Luke Leighfield's new album New Season came out last week and it is SO. SO. GREAT. It's quite different from Have You Got Heart? but is equally wondrous. There have been some very positive reviews posted online, and I hope these few sentences are almost grand enough to stand alongside them haha. New Season is incredibly emotional, heartfelt, moving and intense. There are some songs, or moments in songs, that have moved me to tears. Having had a bit of a rubbish time last year, it speaks strongly to me about moving into a new time, a new season (obvi), and forgetting what's happened before. It's quite spiritual in places, but you can make of that what you want. You can go HERE to stream it or buy it. I'd recommend buying an actual CD (shock!) coz you get a beautiful sleeve with it and a delicious booklet of photos and lyrics. Below are two tracks from the album. Enjoy!




TWO. 
So that was the music I've been enjoying this week, and this is the website I've been enjoying for the last month or so. The Good Women Project is a website run by a lovely American lady which posts different articles about......oh man..... I'm finding this really hard to word without it sounding suuuuuper lame and lesbiany, like that bit in Friends:
Ross: You sure have a lot of books about being a lesbian
Susan: Yeah, they make you take a course
But what I mean is.....it's a website. And it has lots of articles on it about marriage, relationships, self-esteem, sex, abuse, beauty, general life, being single, emotions and all things like that. I came across it on Twitter, and I immediately thought "wahhhhhh, another Christian-women website that is going to make me feel inferior and like my purpose is to accept my second-class-citizenship".
 That's not in any way to say this is the church's message. At all. I have been made to feel this way by individuals in the past and these individuals have always had delightful, life affirming resources to back that up. 
So this is not that. It's not even that Christiany. It's just really good. The latest article addresses the issue of women being blamed for sexual assault or even just creepy guys being all creepy, just because of what they're wearing. Go and read it coz it's good. Men should read it too. Ooooh subversive!

THREE. 
My brother sent me this yesterday. I laughed and laughed and then watched it again and laughed again. I laughed a lot again when I pasted it into this post. HAHA <<< just like that. 



FOUR. 
It was World Book Day last week....or sometime recently...and we didn't do anything for it at school, which I was a bit sad about coz I enjoy books and I think children do too, but then I found out yesterday that we are doing WBD stuff, but in the last week of term. My class teacher was telling the children all about it, I was smiling along, being encouraging, making learning fun, until I heard her say this:
"It's going to be really good, we've got a whole fun day planned, and we'd like you all to come in dressed as your favourite character from a book. The whole school will be dressing up, and the teachers too!"
My smile froze on my face and dread filled my entire being. I loathe fancy dress. Loathe it because I feel stupid and people always have way better costumes than me but if you make too much effort you look stupid too. It's an impossible balance. And now I have to do it in front of 25 ten-year-olds. ANY. SUGGESTIONS?

FIVE. 
Holy Week is coming up (the week in the run up to Easter Sunday) and there are some fun things happening at Malmesbury Abbey. If you live near by, it might be fun to come. There's late night music, and poetry performances, and drama, and there is also this guy coming with an orchestra and they play lush music to the psalms. Pretty rad. Here is the link to the online program, and here is a picture of Malmesbury looking beautiful to make you want to come here and below is a video of the psalm thing coz it's rad. 

Until next time, fellow humans. Be good, be blessed. 


LOVE X X X X X

A Most Unwelcome Hiatus

Dear ones, here we are again. It's been weeks; sincere apologies for such a hiatus but I have been terribly busy with work, and have found myself away from Malmesbury almost every weekend. 
I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive my neglect, and read on with eager anticipation. 

The past few weeks have seen many exciting things happen. It was my birthday; I got presents and praise just for being born - it was totally awesome. I booked a trip to New York with my mother, a long overdue birthday present which was cancelled the first time around due to a volcano exploding. Casual. 
I have read some good books. I read Of Mice And Men; my class was strangely excluded from this seemingly ubiquitous Year 10 rite of passage. I think we read Silas Marner instead haha. Now THAT is a book. It's about an old man who lives by himself and is really secluded and he has this pot that he loves and one day it breaks and he's really sad. Other exciting things happen too, but the pot episode really stuck with me. I'll tell you more about my current read in a minute.
I got some books for my birthday too, ridiculous levels of enjoyment taken from their solid spines, all ready for bending and loving. Oooooh. 
ALSO my class has started studying Macbeth (studying? Do we think primary school children "study"? Not sure.....). Anyway, they're being taught it. I flipping love Macbeth. I did it in Year 5 too, and liked the witches ("when shall we 3 meet again?" EEE!) but I made the mistake of mentioning that I did my dissertation on it, so now I keep being called on upon for verification of facts. I have a terrible memory; I read something and if I don't write it down over and over, I will forget it within a few days, so I can hardly remember any quotes or historical facts or anything, so now I look like a huge fraud and will probably be put in prison for pretending to know loads of stuff and then not actually knowing anything. 

So now you know all about where I am in life, here are some things I would like to tell you about. 

ONE. 
I am reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali. So far, it's very good. I love books set in other countries or cultures, like A Thousand Splendid Suns. Oh my days, that is one of my favourite books ever. EVER. But Brick Lane is living up to the back-cover-hype, and many friends have said they enjoyed reading it too. It's about a Bangladeshi girl who is married off at 18 to a man living in London. He's fine and sort of nice, but he's older and fat. Not a good combination for a young girl. So far, I have learnt that their flat is very cluttered and they have plates on the walls, and he drops food on himself when he eats. And she doesnt know any English. One negative point - it's written in a very questionable font. It makes me doubt its quality. That is all so far. 

"Read my book"

TWO. 

This weekend, I went with Matt to visit dear friends Tom and Sarah. We stayed in their lovely little flat in Winchester, and we did a big photoshoot for a project of Tom's on Saturday. We went to the New Forest and posed about in the trees, and it was soooo fun! It took a while to set up all the lights and stuff and Sarah and I wandered off into the woods and got stuck in a bog. It was all very Mordor and Gollum-esque. But we escaped the bog and found a pretty little stream and grassy bank, which was much Shire-esque. You can't escape the LOTR imagery in forests. Then we went to Ikea and did more posing on the roof of the car park there, and I nearly bought a box but then didn't. And then we had Dominos and accidentally stole a laminated menu. Then today we had an epic roast and a lovely walk in the water meadows in Winchester. I took some photos but I can't show you lots of them coz they give too much away of Tom's project but here are three...

New Forest

Miss Hasler and Dr. Pickering

Getting our roast on

THREE. 
I know that a great many of you are fans of Pin. I also know that a great many of you have been sorely disappointed at the lack of Pin exposure in this blog, despite the rather promising URL (exitpursuedbyabear.com was taken, alas). However, all is not lost, for she has been rather mischievous and hilarious of late. I'm sorry to say that I have only been able to document two instances of hilarity which you may have already seen but they are just so enjoyable that I shall share them again. She has taken on role of House Protector Against Big Fat Strange Cats. There is one in particular who seems to feel he can just roll on up and help himself to our food and facilities, but Pin takes issue with this. She now sits at the window, making sure he doesnt come in and makes her tail very big and poofy and makes angry growls. Her job as House Protector is a predominantly office-based role though; she sends Lucy out to do the dirty work - the chasing away, the verbal threats, the hissing. 

Keeping watch

The Repeat Offender

Living the dream

It's like Where's Wally?

AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

FOUR. 
Lent started this week and I had sort of decided not to give anything up because I couldn't think of anything meaningful, but after a great ((resonate)) at the abbey this evening (our 20s-30s sesh) I have taken on a focus on prayer for every day, with the aim of using these 40 days to come before God and pray over the same thing every day, and sort of focus on who I am as someone who loves Jesus.
I believe that without Jesus, I have no hope; there is no hope for a fearless life without knowing that it's all in his hands. When I get worried, or go through horrible anxious periods, it means everything to me, literally everything, that my life is in his hands, that he is leaning into me and my life, delighted by my existence, and picking me up when I struggle. Without that knowledge, the fear takes over and I sink into anxiety and depression. I have no hope and no joy without Jesus as my saviour. For me, it's as simple as that - my life is richer, fuller, more joyful, more alive, more wonderful, more exciting, more complete with Jesus. I'm using Lent as a time to reconnect to that truth and to remember that I work so much better when I let Jesus do his thing and stop interfering by thinking I know everything and ploughing on without his help. 
Hope that wasn't too heavy, but that's where I am with that and you can think about it or ignore it. This is a good video about Lent with a lovely song played over the top. 



FIVE. 
Carrying on the God thing, this is also a video that I quite enjoy. It's all over the internet, it's been shared over and over again and has over 19 million views. It's controversial and I think a lot of Christians don't like it. I think a lot of non-Christians don't understand it. I like parts of it and don't like other parts. I thought it might be quite interesting to post it on here and see what people think. I'm easy with wherever you are; watch it, don't watch it; make of it what you will.  

Have wonderful weeks, be good, be blessed.


Big love


x x x

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

Salutations!  Apologies for the hiatus in posting, Christmas/New Year/new job has taken up lots of my time!
I considered this post for a while because I didn't want it to be a lame 'look at my christmas pictures' thing, and as you well know, I don't enjoy showing reams of irrelevant photos to people who just don't care. 
However, my dearest bud is away in the USA so will be missing out on all the joyous retelling of my wild Christmas and New Year. So what follows is a small selection of photos, telling a brief story of the holidays and then it's on to 2012, a new year, non-festive, normal times. 

SO LET'S GO!!

ONE. 
Christmas. Went to my dad's with my brother, our sort-of-step-sisters were there too who are great and really funny. Big walk on the beach on Boxing Day. It was a good time. New Year. At home with friends. It was a good time. 

TWO. 
Ok, so on to new things. I set myself a new year's resolution this year, which I wouldn't normally do coz you just feel like a huge failure when you ultimately fail. But I decided that I will read 50 books this year and a handy bi-product of this means I will spend less time watching the internet for hours on end. So I just finished reading the first very great book of 2012, How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran. It was very good. She swears too much though, and seems to think that feminism means sleeping around a lot. Which I suppose it does because if men and women were equal, there would be less social stigma about a slutty girl, but I'm not really on board with that. It was such an enjoyable read though, and so so interesting. It made me think properly about how I feel about feminism and what it ultimately means to be a feminist. 
I decided it means just wanting everyone to treat everyone else the same. Sexist is as bad as racist, and some of the examples she uses to demonstrate said-sexism just make your jaw drop. There's a brilliant passage about pornography, and near the end, a good Lady Gaga bit haha. 
GO AND BUY IT AND READ IT. Or you can borrow mine. But I don't really like lending books, coz they always come back with little bends and marks and it's like 'did you drop this in the bath? I think you did'. My next book is called Strictly English and is about English. I'm excited. 

THREE. 
As you well know, due to my excessive boasting, I was finally awarded a job just before Christmas. After months of painstakingly filling out application forms, followed by weeks of slapdashedly filling out application forms as my mindset neared "wahhhhhh at least I'm applying for jobs though yeah? It doesn't matter if I'm applying to be a bank manager, I could probably do that", someone finally put me out of my misery and hired me as a Teaching Assistant. 
I started this week. The first day, Wednesday, was mental. I was convinced I had made the worst decision of my life. A boy got angry and went outside to throw a cone around. No one talked to me in the staff room because, to quote, "oh so you're not on work experience? You actually work here? Wow, you don't look 22". Thursday was slightly better. Friday was much better. I have high hopes for Monday. They call me Miss Hasler and ask if they're allowed to have a drink of water, or go for a wee. I have immense power. 

I am a very serious grown up, with a very grown up job

FOUR. 
I ordered an iPhone with Christmas moneydings and I'm very excited for its arrival. Although I feel like I should be getting some kind of huge apology-present from Vodafone coz they lied to my ear and told me on the phone that they'd put the order in but it never arrived so I rang them and they said they had lied and soz, but I wasn't on the list for a phone. But I am now. Its arrival is in the offing. EEEEEEEEP EEEEEEEP EEEEEEEP!!!

FIVE.
And last, but by no means least (one of my least favourite phrases of all time), Number Five. This has been a very self-indulgent post. I mean....actually, all my posts are self-indulgent; is there anything more self-indulgent than a blog about your own life that you believe others are interested in??  But I digress. I'm now taking the self-indulgence of this post to the next level by introducing my next level of indulgence. 
I signed up to Twitter. PAHAHA. As if I need a new platform for expressing myself. Follow me @onechloelouise. Stoopid world took all the good names. Twitter suggested I could use "chloe_hasler_1" and I was like, 'please....I will not lower myself to such humiliating characters'. 


Anyway, so follow me there if you fancy it. Apologies for the lack of photos on this post. 
HAPPY WEEK! 
Be good

x x x x

Happy Christmas, One And All!

But the angel said to them,

"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 

Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you;

he is the Messiah, the Lord.

...

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel,

praising God and saying

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests"

Happy Christmas, the birth of our Lord!

A Beautiful Sight, We're Happy Tonight

This is another Christmas post, how self-indulgent am I?  This is more for the benefit of dear friends living abroad at the moment who are missing our very British Christmas and don't get to witness the extravagant re-telling of my thrilling anecdotes in the flesh. Haha. Flesh. Ha. 
Last night, my brother Jerome came home (ha, rhymes) from university and we merrily began the festive task of decorating the tree. It was a night of....well...there were ups and downs haha. 

APOLOGIES in advance for the utter lack of correlation between story and pictures. 

We dug out the boxes of decorations and realised the new box of fairy lights was missing. Searched all manner of secret hiding places but to no avail. They were nowhere to be found. Gone. Sucked into the black hole that is 92 Gloucester Road. 

Went back to the cupboard - and now I must interrupt myself here and draw your attention to the fact that this cupboard is that cupboard everyone has where you're allowed to be a massive mess. Y'know, you quickly open the door, shove something in and slam it shut. Tape it back up. Reapply the restraints etc. So immediately, it didnt bode well that we were looking for strings of lights in said cupboard. 
So anyway, I spied a plug poking out of this mountain of accumulated crap and realised with dismay that they were last year's lights. My mother, in a fit of 'let's get Christmas out the way', had just bundled them into a ball and thrown them into the back. 

So we drove to 24hr Tesco to buy new lights and LO! they'd run out. We bought a kilo of Quality Street and some champagne instead. 

Yeah, this is a giraffe wearing a wreath, get over it. 

At home, we found a bag of lights in the back of another cupboard that all worked apart from a section in the middle. Anyone care to explain how that is possible???
They were SO tangled, so Jerome spent ages unravelling them, only to realise they were so long, they stretched the length of the entire house. Infuriated by the ridiculousness of the situation, we forced them onto the tree and wound the rest round the whole sitting room. 

Exhausted, we opened the box of decorations and found the new box of perfectly working lights sitting on top. Mocking us with their presence. 

And then I made paper chains. And ate some doughnuts. And we watched Elf.

Happy Christmas, one and all!

On Christmas Night All Christians Sing

Glad tidings, and peace to all mankind!
How are we all feeling about Chriiiiistmassss? Tis a mere twelve days away, I feel like I should be singing the Twelve Days of Christmas everyday. 
HA, at junior school, we once did this bizarre performance of a poem based on that song, about this woman's letters to the guy who is sending her eleven lords-a-leaping. The rents absolutely loved it, lols a-plenty. 

I'm sitting writing this at 3.30 pm and it's pretty much pitch black outside. What is the deal with the weird darkness?  I do not remember it being this dark last year! Sort it out, atmosphere. However, I very much approve of the crisp coldness we have been experiencing this week, gets me right in the festive mood. JJ and I watched Gavin and Stacey Christmas special last night and then I watched Elf. It. Was. Awesome. I must say though, I am thoroughly disapproving of this strange mix of hail and rain and thunderstorms that have been maurading about the west country today. This is not the festive chill that I desire. I had to bring the freaking wreath in off the front door because of the gales and driving rain! 

ALSO, I did some Christmas posting today and it cost SIXTEEN POUNDS postage. That is 1600 pennies. MANY PENNIES. FU royal mail, don't you dare lose it.

Anyway, enough of that. ON WITH THE SHOW!!


ONE.
I finished reading One Day ages ago and forgot to tell you how GOOD it was. You should definitely read it. It's not particularly challenging or intellectual, just a good old read. I'm trying very hard now to get into this:

but I am str-ugg-ling. It's so lame, the ones I've read before were great but this is proving more difficult to get into than a Terry's chocolate orange (I've never quite got a handle on the whole tap-and-unwrap fandango....)  If anyone has any tips, book or Terry related, let me knowwww. 

TWO. 

This is almost too shameful to write and I am blushing from head to toe, cringing mightily, but....who watched the X Factor final? It was a ridiculous affair, dragged out over two whole nights, and the first night was so excessive that I was convinced I was about to learn who had won, only to be informed that I had to wait another whole day and then watch for TWO HOURS for something that took a mere few seconds. And everyone knew who was going to win. Anyhoo, I'm glad I watched because Coldplay were SO GOOD. I'm guessing most of you reading this watched it because it was compulsive Sunday night viewing but OH my days. The UV! The lights! The performing! The wristbands! THE WRISTBANDS!!! If you didn't watch it, thank goodness I was here to aid you. Watch it here NOW. 

THREE. 
It seems a little bit naughty to give this a whole section to itself but it's been a really long time and anyone who knows me well knows how long I've been waiting for this....
Last week I interviewed for a Teaching Assistant job at a school in Swindon and I thought it went really badly and was really sad all day, but then they rang me in the afternoon and offered me the job!  I couldn't BELIEVE it, I was so convinced I'd messed it all up. I went in this morning to sign myself up and prove that I'm not a murderer or pervert and that I'm healthy and won't die on the job. January 4th, here we COME. I also had my PGCE interview this week and it went well, thanks for all the messages and prayers!
This has been a bit text heavy, sorry. Here's a picture of Pin as a reward. 

FOUR. 
My amazingly clever brother Jerome managed to secure some incredible media coverage last week for his final year's exhibition, East Wing X, at the Courtauld Institute. GO HERE for a look at a lovely installation, a great picture of him and evidence that he is great. If you didn't see it in the last sentence, I was telling you to go HERE to see the great article. That was HERE, look HERE.  That's right, well done. 

FIVE.
We put up some Christmas decorations this week but havent got the tree yet. I'm fuming, I want a tree all day every day for the whole of December. In readiness for said tree (haha tree is a funny word: "It was working until you showed up, you big tree"), here are some pictures of Christmas stuff. And trees. And a nice Christmassy snowy Abbey.  

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, ONE AND ALL!


x X x X x 

In Dulci Jublio

Glad tidings, merry men!   


I have been feeling SUPER Christmassy this week; the weather being so delightfully arctic has definitely hurried this along. It's been a very exciting week, Matt and his brother Dan's clothing brand launched, I started my Christmas shopping, JJ bought a car that you wear and I met up with my uni friends. All in all, pretty brilliant.

So let's jump straight in!


ONE. 
I thought I'd share one of my favourite Christmas songs with you now that we're into December and it's legal to play such music. Just press play now and have it on in the background while you read the rest of this week's offering. I love this, but I also find it hilarious haha, especially when the drums come in, it's so military. Military Christmas haha. 



TWO. 
Continuing the festive theme, I went to Bath last weekend with Matt (see last week's post!) and it was mental busy but I was so enthralled by the shop window displays, some of them are so beautiful. Anyway, I was thinking about Great Mate Katie who is stuck in silly old California (hell on earth, I hear....all that sun....) and missing the very British run up to Christmas. Sooo, I took some photos of the best Christmas displays so she doesn't feel too left out. And you can all look at them and enjoy them too, although you could just go to Bath and look at them with your own eyes. Which is your favourite one? Share.

THREE. 

I posted a small announcement about this last week, a mini-post if you will. Matt and Dan launched their clothing brand, it's very exciting. They have 5 different designs, 1 specifically for girls, and they're very reasonably priced!  Go and have a look, maybs get one for your sibling/spouse/lover/parent/teacher/driving instructor/I dunno. They're really great though and very exclusive. Not gonna bump into someone else wearing one. Unless you live in Malmesbury, then you might.  But go and have a look anyway! http://greatest.bigcartel.com/ 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMAL PRICE - http://www.tomalprice.com/

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMAL PRICE - http://www.tomalprice.com/

FOUR. 

I mentioned above that I started Christmas shopping this week; I went to Bath (yes, that's the only place I ever go) with my dad to look for his present to me (eep!) and also to try to get some things for my brother and other people. It was SO fun, so Christmassy and pleasantly busy, as in....there were other people there doing their Christmas shopping too and it was very sociable, being all there together, buying things for friends. Fun! But it wasn't too busy that you just got really angry and ended up hating everyone around you. That happens to me a lot. And I get really hot in my coat coz it's cold outside but hot in the shops so you end up with a fever by the end. But that didn't happen. And I mainly began this ramble just so I could show you the funny thing I bought. My dad was a little incredulous as I handed over the funds. But it smells AMAZING and I keep walking past and it being all 'OOH! Christmas, hoorah'. I also found a book called Strictly English about correct language usage. I wannit. 

That other decoration in the background is one I found outside by the bin last year, thus uncovering my mother's attempts to throw it away.  It hangs all year round in the kitchen as her punishment.  

FIVE. 

Stumbled onto this: Tastefully Offensive. Go nuts. HAHA. 

HAPPY BEGINNING OF CHRISTMAS. 

Peace and merry wishes. 

 X X X X X