A little place of calm

Hello dear readers.

I have had this blog for several years but you've probably noticed i very rarely update it these days. I have decided to move to a new blog at sermoa.wordpress.com.

I have recently left eden and started contracting. There is a post all about it. I have merged my eden blog and this personal blog together into the new one. It is likely that my new blog will have more of a technical focus than this one, though i'm sure i will also blog about personal things from time to time.

Hope to see you there! :)

I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 today, and … I LOVED IT! (Warning, movie spoilers follow!)

It was really well done, especially if you adore the books, like i do. It was very accurate to the book, and beautiful to see the scenes from my mind translated wonderfully on to the screen. Lots of the dialogue seemed to be word-for-word from the book. There were a few small changes, there always are, but like Half-Blood Prince, they only served to make it work better as a film. Whoever's idea it was to have Harry and Hermione dance in the tent, i congratulate you! That was perfect! Part 1 is extremely dark throughout: there is almost nothing to be happy about, but the action and suspense, and small bits of humour keep it easy to watch.

I am happy to see that they put the split point EXACTLY where i hoped they would. See my post from two and a half years ago: Eight HP Movies! (contains spoilers for Part 2). Part 1 contained everything i predicted (apart from the Harry/Ron hug, shame)!

So this means, and for me this is extremely exciting, whilst Part 1 took place over several months, Part 2 is going to span just one day¹. There is SO MUCH action to pack into that one long day. I know people throw the word 'epic' around for just about everything these days, but Part 2 i think will really deserve the word. I came out of Part 1 feeling completely exhausted from emotional adrenaline. Part 2 is going to be all that and more!

The great thing about the movie in two parts is that Part 1 provides just enough clues that you could almost figure out what's coming next. I spent some time exploring theories with my friend who saw it with me, who has not read the book yet. If it were all one movie you'd just get it all delivered to you with no time to think. There are plenty of twists yet to be revealed, and plenty of ends to tie up yet, but you really get the sense that everything is coming together. With eight months to wait until the end, and a DVD release to come, this is a very exciting time for the people who have only seen the movies and not read the books.

Two movies really works well. I am really glad they chose to do it that way and do real justice to the book. Credit to David Yates: i think the last three movies have been better than any of the first four, and i am extremely looking forward to the final exciting installment!

Footnotes

¹ Oh, and the epilogue of course, but who cares about that! ;)

There is a television drama series on BBC3 at the moment called Lip Service which depicts the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women in Glasgow. I'm really enjoying the show and i'm pleased that the BBC is doing something to increase the visibility of lesbian and bisexual women on television. It hasn't done a great job of depicting bisexual people so far, but i was pleased in the last episode when they showed that Frankie's bisexuality is more than just words.

The episode provoked a strong biphobic reaction from a lot of people who were apparently shocked to see Frankie, one of the main characters, having sex with a man. They apparently missed Frankie talking openly about being bisexual in the first episode and flirting with a man in the second episode. I wasn't at all surprised at the way the story developed; it made perfect sense within the storyline.

I commented on twitter that it was a shame to see such a biphobic reaction. Somebody gave me this response:

not biphobic I don't think, just disappointment that what was billed as a lesbian drama has turned out to be a bi one. That's fair

Well unfortunately, that comment in itself sounded biphobic to me. I pressed the person whether a gay character in an otherwise straight drama would make the series a gay drama. As it turned out, the issue was more that they felt the show had been wrongly advertised.

We chatted a bit more. I said i thought it was realistic: bi people exist within the LGBT community, and we often feel marginalised, and i wondered whether they could see how these comments make us feel exculded. To which i got this response:

yes I totally agree that bi exsists in the queer community but not in the lesbian community, they are two conflicting lables

At this point i was so upset and shocked that i decided to pursue it no further and went to bed. But this should not be left unchallenged. This is prejudice from within the LGBT community: this person (who identifies as lesbian) believes that bisexual people are unwelcome in the lesbian community. This person claims not to be biphobic but makes comments like "LESBIANS DONT SHAG MEN!!!!!"

Bi women do exist within the lesbian community. Some are open about their bisexuality, and some are not. Some people who describe themselves as lesbian sometimes enjoy sleeping with men. Some are scared to admit their attraction to men in a community that might consider them a traitor. I know all this is true because i know people in these situations.

I just find it so sad that people who know what it's like to be discriminated against feel it's quite okay to do the same to others.

The upside to this is that it made me all the more grateful for the bi community, which is so accepting of everyone. Gay, lesbian and straight people are welcome in the bi community, as well as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual and queer people. The bi community is a place where all kinds of people feel at home in their diversity. I rarely see discrimination, and i often see great care taken to be inclusive of everyone. People make an effort to learn about different minorities and how to be more encompassing. I've known people to feel terribly distressed if they unintentionally discriminated against somebody through their lack of understanding.

I was recently asked why we need a bi community. Being put on the spot, i floundered a little and said something like, "Because it's nice to be part of a community where no questions are asked and no assumptions are made." If i were to be asked the same question again now, i might answer, "Because, sadly, we are not always accepted within the wider LGBT community."

I'm looking forward to Lip Service tonight, to see how the characters on screen react to Frankie having slept with Jay. I wonder whether the reaction will be similar or different to the overwhelming negative reaction on twitter.

I learnt this prayer on New Year's Eve 1999 and it has stuck with me since then. It is a millennial prayer written by Churches Together in England and it speaks so strongly to me of peace, love and forgiveness. There is always a chance for a new start.

Let there be respect for the earth,
Peace for its people,
Love in our lives,
Delight in the good,
Forgiveness for past wrongs,
And from now on a new start.

Please, can we all just get along?

In recent years i have struggled with an internal conflict over whether or not to wear a poppy around Armistice Day. It is hard for me to feel anything but deep sorrow that war happens at all. It seems to me that the wearing of poppies may have become somewhat misconstrued. There seems to be less grieving and more … it almost feels like celebration … at least there is some kind of honour and heroism that goes along with it, and i find that impossible to associate with.

I know that war in the past has been necessary. I know that people were killed and injured and suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in order to give us the freedoms that we enjoy today. I don't mean to be disrespectful, and i am grateful for what these people have done, and continue to do.

Yet my far stronger emotion is a powerful dislike of war that makes me want to distance myself from it. A red poppy to me speaks too strongly of violence and bloodshed. Everything within me longs for a peaceful alternative to the horror of war. I wish there was another way: i desperately desire peace and harmony, equality and freedom for all. I understand that these may be naive desires, and i certainly don't understand everything about the history of wars and all the reasons for wars that are happening at the moment. Still, this is how i feel.

For me there are no heroes of war, only victims.

Feel free to try and change my mind. I'm still conflicted about this and i am aware that i could be wrong. At the moment, i'm choosing to pay my respects inwardly, as i feel the outward expression may be misinterpreted for something i don't want it to be. So, for now at least, i'm choosing not to wear a poppy.

I woke up yesterday with a simple idea for generating a picture based on an input string. I don't exactly know where the idea came from, but i think i've been influenced by Nick Huggins, whose abstract work i adore, and also in a way by QR codes. I'm not a particularly artistic person, but i figured i could come up with an algorithm and let the computer do the creative bit for me! :)

So i installed the open source tools ImageMagick and RMagick, learned a bit about the RVG library, and set about trying some ideas. I fiddled and tweaked the algorithm until it seemed to consistently output something that was reasonably pleasant. Here is the picture for my name, and for my twitter id.

Having tried random numbers and obvious inputs like my name, i searched for other input sources. Being interested in community generated content, i wrote a script to fetch the current top twitter trends. Here are the results.

As you can see, some come out better than others. I'm adding the input string mostly for debugging purposes so that i can see how the image was seeded. When i get one that i like, i can increase the blur and remove the input string. For example, i really like the images produced by "Kim Hee Chul" and "#bsr_tousounow", so let's try with a bit more blur.

Nice, hey?! Not sure they're ready for a gallery just yet, but certainly an interesting experiment.

Everything in the picture is generated from the input string: the size, colour, number of boxes, box sizes, opacity, border style. It is extremely unlikely that any two input strings would ever generate the same picture. However, the algorithm is not random. Given an input string, you'll always get the same picture, though i may choose to do some post-processing on it (such as blur, frame, lighten or darken).

In the interests of sharing knowledge here is the main structure of my generator, but the really creative part is in how it comes up with the numbers, which is going to remain a secret, sorry!

I am willing to generate images for anybody who asks nicely! :)

I needed to find a good quality image of a Wyvern, the symbol of Wessex, ancient kingdom of the West Saxons. The best i could find was the image on the Wessex Flag, below, but it is poor quality and can't be scaled up. So i had to learn a bit about path tracing and scalable vector graphics.

Wessex Flag by Chrys Fear, found at fotw.net/flags/gb-wessx.html

I used a combination of the free open source graphics tools GIMP, Inkscape and Potrace to trace the shape into vector format. Even at the same size, it's already much better, saved here in PNG format:

The SVG is infinitely scalable and you can download it here: wessex-wyvern.svg

Here you can see the quality improvement:

Here is a close up of the eye, which took a bit of work to get the paths just right:

I needed the Wyvern to form part of the Bi Wessex flag. Here is what we are affectionately calling the Bivern!

The Bi Wessex flag is also available as SVG, should you want it: bi-wessex-flag.svg

If you need to improve the quality of an image, i hope you will feel encouraged that it is possible, with a little bit of effort and experimentation.

BiCon 2010, the 28th annual bisexual conference/convention took place from August 26th – 30th at the University of East London, Docklands campus. It was combined with the 10th International Conference on Bisexuality, and the first international Bisexual Research Conference. About 450 people attended, from 28 countries!

I got up ridiculously early on Thursday 26th August in order to take the coach from Winchester to London leaving at 06:30. The journey was smooth and I was at UEL by 10am, in time to check in and drop off my suitcase in my accommodation.

The research conference was utterly brilliant, full credit to Meg Barker and Christina Richards for running it. Most of the talks were of exceptional quality, and i feel i learnt a lot. I enjoyed hearing about Helen Bowes-Catton's research into how people perceive and visualise bisexual spaces. Kaye McLelland spoke about bisexuality in the works of Shakespeare, and i marvelled at how well my English teachers at school managed to hide it all from us!

I was thoroughly inspired by a keynote talk from Robyn Ochs, a public speaker, writer, and long-standing bisexual activist. Robyn spoke of the importance of the impact that we make when we create space for people to be comfortably bisexual. I was touched by Robyn's description of the reward when somebody tells us that we make a difference for them. I felt so proud at that moment that I helped to found Bi Wessex in Winchester: proud that people come along and gain something from the group, and that some of the members were there at BiCon.

On Friday i bought Robyn's book, Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World and attended the workshop where we heard from ten of the people who contributed to the book. They stood up and told us something about themselves and read an excerpt from the book. It gave such meaning to hear them speak personally, and when i reach their stories in the book, i will remember them. Their contributions will be particularly meaningful for me. I asked several of the contributors to write in my book, which they gladly did.

I enjoyed hearing Heidi Bruins Green and Dr. Nicholas Payne speak about the results of a workplace survey on bisexuality. It was very interesting to hear the results analysed and validated from a mathematical perspective. Their results showed that bisexuality is not a phase on the way to something else, but a valid destination point, as are many other sexual orientations. They had some interesting data to show that happiness at work is directly correlated with LGBT support groups in the workplace, and anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

Saturday's discussion about words and phrases for bisexuality in other languages was intriguing. I shared my Esperanto knowledge about the etymology of the word ambaŭseksema and the positive phrase borrowed from shipping terminology navigi per vaporo aŭ velo (to navigate by steam or sail). We learned phrases, both positive and negative in German, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Italian, Sri Lankan, Welsh and Hebrew. Everybody contributed something, and the results will be published … somewhere.

I knitted a bi pride bracelet in the amazing craft room, and then on saturday afternoon i took some time out to visit Central London. I went to Covent Garden to visit the new Apple store (the biggest in the world) and enjoyed spending time by myself.

Saturday evening was the BiCon ceilidh which i enjoyed immensely. When it comes to dancing, i really like being told what to do! :) I made a new friend that night, somebody who i feel could become a very good friend. We danced together a lot and had some lovely conversations. Later on the music became too loud but i joined the Corridor Club upstairs where it was quieter and i enjoyed chatting to more people. We were actually the last to leave because we didn't realise when the music had stopped and everyone downstairs had left!

Sunday was the disastrous "Bisexuality in Science-Fiction & The Future" workshop. It was marred by the speaker being late, a church group being in the room we were supposed to use, the laptop being broken, the projector refusing to work, and the speaker's corny sense of humour which did not go down particularly well at 10am. I gave up and left after about ten minutes of technology fail, and went and joined the church, which i actually really enjoyed! Those who stayed said it only got worse, and by half way through several of them had started their own alternative science-fiction workshop out in the atrium!

The highlight of Sunday was "Smutty Storytelling" which was very well attended, and the storytellers did not disappoint! The stories were well written, and delivered with humour and enthusiasm! There were cheers and a standing ovation by the end! I sat with my new-found friend and mentioned that I had "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" on DVD, which we watched later that evening.

Monday morning seemed to go quite slowly. Things were winding down but there were still a few workshops left. I went to one on sensual play, which was well facilitated, and led to discussions of how we might turn the results into an amusing website! Later i went to have my photo taken professionally, so that hopefully i will appear again on the front cover of Bi Community News and maybe in other publications about bisexuality.

Before i knew it, it was closing plenary. Awards and thanks were given, we celebrated the success of this BiCon, and met the team of BiCon 2011 which will be in Leicester from September 1st – 4th. Registration is already open!

The bi community is amazing. So totally inclusive and unquestioning. I am so happy that i went, I am sad that it's over, but writing this is my therapy: recording my happy memories and celebrating the joys of the last few days.

Thanks so very much to the BiCon 2010 organising team – you did an incredible job!

These are the last few hours of my 30-day trial of various changes to my life. For the last 30 mornings i have got out of bed and got going at 7am consistently. I have completely cut out coffee, i have gone to bed at a decent time and i have prioritised my evenings more effectively, much reducing the amount of time i spend watching television.

By consequence i've felt a lot happier, more engaged, more enthusiastic to do my job and do it well. My weekends have seemed more structured. I've felt emotions that seem somehow more authentic, and i've looked forward to my bedtime, enjoying a good read in bed. I've often woken up before my alam sounds in the morning, and enjoyed dozing in bed listening to the birds and the weather. I've given up chocolate almost by accident, and i've no intention to start eating it again. I've come to absolutely love Rooibos Tea! :)

Several people have asked me: what happens next? Well, ideally more of the same. I spent 30 days exercising my self-discipline, forcing myself to follow a routine in order to establish a habit. I'd like to think it won't be difficult to keep it up now. I used twitter extensively, tweeting every morning that i'd got up on time. Some of my followers will be glad to hear that i won't be doing that anymore! Twitter is a great motivational tool, but i no longer need it. I think it would feel weird now to stay in bed after my alarm has sounded.

So the experiment has been a great success and it has set me up to continue the good habits that i've established. Thank you everyone for your encouragements during the past month. I've really appreciated it!

So it's been 10 days since i started implementing the changes to improve my life. I think it's time for a little progress report. On the whole it is going incredibly well, better than i even imagined.

The caffeine withdrawal symptoms were horrible. I stopped drinking coffee on Sunday 18th July. By Monday evening i had a heavy headache, not particularly painful but giving a compressing feeling on my brain, making me feel fuzzy and slow-thinking. Then i threw up. Just a little bit at first, but later on i threw up really horribly and painfully. I never imagined that i could get sick from lack of coffee! Funny, it explains why i've sometimes been sick when i go away to visit people. Looking back now, it's obvious it was the coffee withdrawals that caused it.

On Wednesday and Thursday i felt as if my natural emotions were returning. I began to feel a genuine sense of calm and happiness, quite unlike anything i'd felt for a long time. By Friday i was positively bubbling with wellbeing. It was amazing.

Going to bed on time has been quite easy. Without caffeine, i've felt ready for bed at the right time. I feel a genuine tiredness without the caffeine giving me an artificial sense of being awake. Some days i really look forward to bed time. With my routine, i've found i prioritize my evenings much more effectively. Knowing that i'm going to get ready for bed at 10pm means that i am much less inclined to watch television, putting off other things until later. I'm also delighted for the opportunity to read in bed, now that i've made time for it.

Getting up has not been a problem. The last 10 days i've been up at 7am sharp. I've written down my whole routine, so i do the same thing every day, including weekends. I found it useful and enjoyable to go out for a walk on Saturday and Sunday morning, at the time i'd normally walk to work. It keeps my routine consistent and means i've kick-started my day, getting useful things done early, and getting a bit of exercise.

A completely unexpected side-effect of giving up coffee is that i also seem to have given up chocolate, quite by coincidence! I guess i'm on quite a healthy living trip, so i felt if i was going to cut out caffeine, i ought to do it properly … but it's amazing how i've not even had any desire or craving for chocolate. Every time i've given up chocolate before it's been massively difficult and a big deal.

All in all, i'm feeling a whole lot better than before. My enthusiasm has returned, my lust for life is alive and well. I'm sleeping better, performing better during the day, enjoying my work again. I'm fairly sure this will prove to be the best thing i did all year! Maybe next i'll even find a desire to do some serious exercise! :D