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Carolyn

The Universe is like a safe to which there is a combination, but the combination is locked up in the

About Me

Well, I grew up in the suburbs of Coventry, England til I was 16, then moved over to The Netherlands to do my A levels for a couple of years. Ex-pat life was pretty interesting - I went from a pretty sheltered upbringing to being dropped in the middle of one of the most mentally and emotionally messed-up groups of people I have ever met, which was pretty entertaining. It's definitely a good life though - I'd recommend everyone try it once. I went back to the UK to do my undergrad and postgrad degrees, and I moved out to California last May to work for JPL as a research astronomer.I'm a huge fan of live music, and I'm taking full advantage of Hollywood and LA for venues. It's so damned cheap out here, too! It's all inspired me to pick up my guitar again, which is definitely a good thing. I usually have all the attention span of a goldfish, so the fact that I've been learning to play for 7 years now is nothing short of a minor miracle. Still, my latest random purchase is a drum set, just to prove that I'm not a grown-up yet. Time will tell whether I actually stick at it, or whether it's just another one of my bizarre cravings for a new hobby that fades in a few months.

My Interests

Snowblading, sailing, ultimate frisbee, guitar, now drums as well. I guess hoseriding (...or even horseriding. hmmm, maybe I've stumbled on a great idea for a new sport - someone call the fire dept...), although I could never claim to be any good at it. Mind you, I'm signed up for a week's ranch holiday in August, so I guess I'd better somehow *get* good at it before then!

I'd like to meet:

Pretty much anyone who can make me laugh. As for those well-known folks, there are a handful of people who really impress me with their incredible achievements, and who I think are awesome, but I'd be far too shy to meet them! (yea, I realise my friends are all now killing themselves laughing at the thought of me being shy, but seriously - I got all tongue-tied meeting Ian Botham for pete's sake, and I don't even care about cricket!!).

Music:

Anything new and interesting. Melissa Ferrick hasn't left my CD player for long in the last few months, although Missy Higgins has jumped to second place on my ipod 'most played' list. Funnily enough I haven't listened to Ani DiFranco for ages, although she was a huge influence on my listening tastes for a while. Other than that, Ernie C. Ernst, Rachel Yamagata, KT Tunstall (although her album is a bit hit-and-miss), Jim Bianco, Sara Bareilles (ok, so basically everyone who plays at the Hotel Cafe!!) Elton John's early years (how one man can go from the genius of Madman Across the Water to the shocking dross of The Lion King never ceases to amaze me!) Dire Straits (listen before you mock!) Fleetwood Mac, The White Stripes, Scissor Sisters, Imogen Heap, Franz Ferdinand, and bizarrely enough, The Black Keys. Gotta thank Kevin for introducing me to them!

Television:

I haven't really watched TV since I got here - thank god for DVD box sets. ER; West Wing; Battlestar Galactica; Six Feet Under; Desperate Housewives; The L Word.

Books:

A bit of a range of stuff really. I recently got hooked on Augusten Burroughs' stuff - Magical Thinking and Running With Scissors. I'm officially addicted to Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (there should be a rehab clinic or something). I'm a big fan of Toby Litt (corpsing, deadkidsongs, Finding Myself) and I loved the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Pretty much anything by Richard Morgan, Iain Banks, Angela Carter (I owe the A level English examinations board a big thank you for introducing me to her stuff!) and of course J. K Rowling. Sad but true.

Heroes:

My childhood hero was Tracey Edwards - a sailor who skippered an all-woman crew in the 1990 Whitbread Round the World race. My adulthood hero is Ellen MacArthur - a sailor who's busy doing similar things single-handed!! Last year she beat the record for the non-stop circumnavigation of the world in her trimaran, setting a time of just over 71 days, which is just an awesome achievement. Makes me wonder what I've been doing with my life!!

My Blog

The suckiness of life

Is suckiness a word? I have no idea - frankly my ability to speak the English language has been killed by a combination of America and only doing science. It's scary - every year it comes to the propo...
Posted by Carolyn on Sun, 04 Mar 2007 04:27:00 PST

hey strangers - long time no talk

You know when you just haven't talked to someone for so long that it seems like such a mammoth task to tell them everything that you keep putting it off and off and off, until finally you realise that...
Posted by Carolyn on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:50:00 PST

Just in case you were wondering too....

So, I found the answer to my pondering about the attendance numbers at the London Masturbate-A-Thon! Apparently 153 people signed in and out, which was several more than the previous best in San Franc...
Posted by Carolyn on Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:31:00 PST

aw hell....

urgh, what are the chances? The day before Im due to fly back to the States, I get some mysterious food poisoning that none of us can figure out where the hell it came from. Fortunately the whole terr...
Posted by Carolyn on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 04:27:00 PST

I was drunk.....

So, I was at a conference last week, and for some reason I decided when I got back to my hotel room at 2 am after a little too much of the falling down water that it would be a great time to update my...
Posted by Carolyn on Sun, 13 Aug 2006 01:27:00 PST

Finally, an update!!! Sorry!!!

Hey kids, how's life? So, I'm really sorry about the total lack of communication from my end. I could tell you that I've been busy working (which is true) or that I've been having way too much fun soc...
Posted by Carolyn on Tue, 01 Aug 2006 07:19:00 PST

Coachella - yay!!

Dammit - I got totally beaten to the first Coachella blog by Minh!! Ah well, I guess I'll just have to plump for the runner-up spot. So yea, awesome weekend! One might almost say it was musicalicious....
Posted by Carolyn on Wed, 03 May 2006 08:36:00 PST

I know - I'm utterly shit at this

Yea, I know - I promised I'd update this more often so you guys wouldn't have to read war and peace every time. I guess I totally failed, huh? no excuses - I've just been totally distracted by the gir...
Posted by Carolyn on Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:42:00 PST

Any more literary quotes?

So, to carry on Minh's topic of good literary quotes, here's another one for you (also from Jeanette Winterson, btw). Anyone want to try topping it? Stick any good ones in the comments. There's a mars...
Posted by Carolyn on Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:36:00 PST

too much to tell you

Wow, so, first off, apologies to y'all for not writing sooner, I've just been far too busy doing stuff to actually update my blog. It's been an interesting couple of weeks though. I guess the real hig...
Posted by Carolyn on Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:08:00 PST