250 while I'm 25

Speedy update

Jo Walters — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:41:36 +0000

I promise to come back here and talk about silly list things and include more pictures of cats but in the meantime I’m blogging about more general stuff over at www.joannawalters.co.uk

At the mo it is largely academic digital marketing stuff related to my course but who knows what else I might end up including (presumably cats will find their way in…)

Jo x

I’m 26

Jo Walters — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 20:56:03 +0000

Yep, my year of being 25 is over and nope I haven’t done everything on my list. I’ve done lots that I haven’t blogged about so will post those over the next few months.

I’m going to keep going as I’d like to do everything on my list but for now I’ll leave you with a picture of me on the dodgems on my birthday (it seemed like a list kind of thing to do!)

Jo x

177 – Watch ‘Big Daddy’

Jo Walters — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:56:38 +0000

Marcelle, a student from my work, decided to give me a rather random assortment of list things starting, for some unknown reason, with watching the Adam Sandler classic/cheesefest ‘Big Daddy‘. Ever a fan of list things I can do from my sofa I duly complied.

IMDb summarises the plot thus…

A lazy law school grad adopts a kid to impress his girlfriend, but everything doesn’t go as planned and he becomes the unlikely foster father

I don’t want to spoil the film for those of you who haven’t seen it but after some ‘crazy’ japes and a couple of predictable heartfelt moments the film descends into mediocrity.

I actually spent the first half an hour of the film trying to remember if I’d already seen it or whether it was such a good example of the lightweight comedy films by number that I seem to watch so often (and usually love to be fair) that I’d got it confused with something else. Eventually I decided I had already seen it which further ruined any hopes of suprise plot twists or clever subtexts.

I’m being quite harsh really, it is a perfectly fine film and has a cute kid in it (the one that played Ben in Friends) which always improves a film tenfold for me! Worth watching if there is nothing else on and you’re an Adam Sandler fan (which I tend not to be unfortunately, I’ve never forgiven him for 50 First Dates).

Jo x

A break from your regularly scheduled programming

Jo Walters — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:05:42 +0000

I love this blog – Not That Kind of Girl – proof that I am not the only person in the world oddly obsessed with doing 250 unusual things in a year then telling everyone about it.

Go read it, I dare you

Jo x

97 – Throw out a bin bags worth of your stuff you don’t need

Jo Walters — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:00:14 +0000

This is another suggestion from my brother who managed to come up with a mix of thoughtful and bizzare things for my list.

I feel I should confess loyal reader, my name is Jo and I am a hoarder. Over the years I’ve built up collections of soaps, novelty pens, pebbles from holidays and all sorts of random junk. Recently I’ve started getting rid of some of the more obviously pointless things (often by fobbing them off onto other people – special thanks must go to my Mum and friend Em who are too polite to tell me they don’t want the random bags of things I’ve offered them).

Over the past year my decluttering has stepped up a gear and this week I took lots of bags of things to Oxfam, my favourite charity shop. My new passion for getting rid of things comes partly from reading blogs such as Unclutterer.com but also from realising how much junk I’ve been hanging onto for years. As I’ve lived in my flat for several years now I’ve been spared the shame of coming face to face with my stuff whilst piling it into boxes (and then inevitably watching my Dad roll his eyes at just how many pairs of fairy wings and cute but empty gift boxes I’ve managed to accumulate).

For my Big Clear Out (things look far more impressive in capital letters, then they feel like a Project – I’m a fan of Projects) my rules were;

Will I ever use/wear/want it?
Seriously?!
If I’m certain I’ll use/wear/want it then why haven’t I done it for ages? This has involved some questionable outfit choices as I try to justify keeping some of the clothes I never seem to wear
How much would it cost me to buy a new one? My big weakness is ‘I might use it one day’ which, whilst thrifty and eco-friendly, means I have countless extra things lying around and gathering dust

My big pile of charity shop things adorned my hallway (replace the word ‘adorned’ with ‘cluttered up and made it look like a jumble sale’) for a year and was a good reminder that I should be looking for things to get rid of as well as a more general reminder not to pick up more junk to lovingly cherish (by stuffing into a drawer and ignoring it for years). As well as the charity shop stuff there was an awful lot of recycling (where possible) and chucking out (where not) so I’ve generated lots of nice empty space – and I plan to keep it that way!

All in all, I’ve taken one big box and five big bags of stuff to be turned into money by Oxfam and become someone else’s junk! Oxfam, like many other charity shops, have introduced a ‘Tag Your Bag’ Gift Aid scheme that means they can reclaim money from the taxman (wouldn’t we all like to do that?!) so my stuff is worth an extra 28% to them.They’ll also be writing to me at some point to let me know how much my hoard has made for them, I plan to add this total to the £250 I’m raising for charity this year.

I was tempted to include a note pointing out that the stuff is mine so will a) be worth extra anyway as I am basically a celebrity, and b) be worth more when this blog becomes a bestselling book then film. In the end I decided not to so I didn’t look like a moron (I was already quite embarrassed by some of the random stuff I was donating and didn’t want them to judge me anymore than was necessary!)

Being a hoarder for ages I didn’t think I’d find uncluttering so easy and oddly enjoyable. I’d encourage you to have a rummage through your random stuff – much better it is making money for charity than lounging around taking up space in your house right?

Jo x

99 – Take an alternate route to work

Jo Walters — Sun, 23 May 2010 20:04:42 +0000

I’ve always travelled to work on the bus. I like it, it gives me time to stare out of the window, snoop into people’s houses through their windows and think about important things like ‘which would win in a fight – 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck’ (my money’s on the swarm of evil mini horses). Not being a morning person, being able to wander to a bus stop, get on a bus and get to work without having to be awake enough to drive a car or get through a train ticket barrier (they scare me enough when I’m properly awake!) is best for me (and probably the rest of the world too).

I could get the train (quicker but far too confusing at that time in the morning) or walk (yeah right, I’d fall asleep in someone’s front garden) but those both seem a little bit too sensible for the challenge. When I was invited to a meeting in London to talk about a ground-breaking technological feat (an iPhone taped to a climbing helmet) I thought this was the perfect alternate way to get to work – via a three hour round-trip to London.

View Larger Map

So there you have it, I supplemented my normal 20 minute bus ride with 3 hours of trains/tube/walking. Fun as it was I think I’ll skip the detour in future. I’ll leave you with some pics from my adventure…

Jo x

72 – Destroy your McFly collection

Jo Walters — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:52:58 +0000

I am well known amongst my friends for my excellent taste in music, specialising particularly in late 90′s boybands. My friends pretend to tease me about owning albums by classic bands such as Busted and McFly when I know that really they are just jealous. Michael’s suggestion that I destroy my McFly collection is then, surely, a test of my dedication to the list rather than a dig at my taste in music. Surely.

The damage...

My friend Adam is a big fan of McFly and Busted too (he’ll tell you he hates them but it’s just a front) so I was quite suprised that he suggested we attempt this particular list thing on our day of many list things. Maybe he is just a sadist.

Anyway, it turns out that I’d passed on my McFly CDs (see, I know people that will gladly take them off my hands, I’m not the only one!) so we turned to their musical predecessors, Busted. After getting over my ‘hate to just trash it when I could pass it on or give it to charity’ middle-class eco-guilt we turned to the task of destroying the CD which turned out to be harder than we thought. We’d expected shards of CD flying across the room as I gingerly stamped on it but in the end it took some serious bending and jumping on it to bend it in half then sheer brute strength to rip the disc in half. The case was much more flimsy and even I could rip the liner notes into pieces. You can see the fruits of our labour above.

Another list thing done. Woop woop

Jo x

113 – Get an article you’ve written published on lifehacker

Jo Walters — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:57:24 +0000

Lifehacker is one of my favourite websites and one of the first productivity/geek type websites I subscribed to…

Welcome to Lifehacker, an award-winning daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently. Lifehacker launched in January 2005, and now ranks as one of the top-linked blogs on the internet according to Technorati. Since its inception, Lifehacker has been named Best Blog by Wired, won several Bloggies, and found its way onto many best-of lists by the likes of TIME, Slate, and many more. – From Lifehacker

Andy challenged me to get an article I’ve written published on Lifehacker and hurrah hurrah well done to me I’ve only gone and done it!

Lifehacker have a regular feature ‘From the Tips Box’ which consists of short ideas suggested by readers so I thought I’d try sending them an idea. I’d been working on the end of semester project for my course so thought I’d send them my handy distraction-proofing tip and hey presto, they used it, that’s me in the middle of the page. God bless them they copied and pasted my email in its entirety (hence the random reference to an attachment!) but yey I’m basically a productivity guru now.

Apologies for the lull in posting (what do you mean you hadn’t noticed I was gone?!), I’ve been ill but do not fear loyal reader(s) as I’m back!

Jo x

Week 18 round up – a day of adventures

Jo Walters — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:50:13 +0000

The Adams

Well after a bit of a drop in list thing productivity that done-ometer is going to bounce right back up because I did 13 list things IN ONE DAY! It was one of the oddest days I’ve had for a long time but completely awesome too. My friend Adam suggested we spend a day doing list things so along with another Adam we came up with a slightly random itinerary and spent the day crossing things off my list.

This was how our day of adventures went;

148. Get an outfit in a colour you’ve never considered before
165. If you don’t already have some, buy a pair of colourful trousers – charity shops are good – and enjoy wearing them. If you do have some, get a colourful something else.
51. Learn how to fan shuffle cards if you can’t already
42. Learn to play a card game
50. Go somewhere you have always hated/never wanted to go
154. Bet on something
115. Go to an art gallery
175. Visit a Brighton touristy place you’ve never been to
205. Do something to hang on to your youth
120. Make biscuits
197. Do a jigsaw
72. Destroy your McFly collection
39. Eat a kebab

A hectic and at times surreal day but also loads of fun. Keep your eyes peeled for more information about how we went about each list thing as more updates will be appearing over the next few weeks.

Jo x

102 – Learn to play the rest of Debussy’s First Arabesque

Jo Walters — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 09:55:03 +0000

I started learning the piano when I was about 7ish and had lessons for 10 years. I’ve performed in a load of little concerts and used to take part in an annual music festival where I often came second to the same guy who even beat me one year with a broken arm. A BROKEN ARM! As you can see I’ve come to terms with that (more or less!)

I love playing the piano and am so grateful for the lessons I had growing up and the nagging to get me to practise (which I still didn’t do as much as I should’ve). For my 21st birthday I got a digital piano who has been christened Clive (I have an odd habit of naming some of the things I own, they’re the closest I’ll get to pets as I’m hopeless at looking after living things) and we ended up joining a band and releasing a single! When I was practising my scales whilst growing up I never thought it would lead to me being in a band!

These are some people I’d love to be able to play like…

Tim Minchin – I’ve seen him live and had major piano-playing envy! He is so funny and awesome live

Ben Folds – Some brilliant songs, you have to see him live. I couldn’t decide whether to be amazed or completely jealous so just did both!

Sam Tsui – I just mostly wish I could sing like this guy, check him and Kurt out on YouTube

Anyway, thrilling autobiographical section aside, one of the pieces I started learning when I was having lessons was Debussy’s First Arabesque. This is how it should sound…

…however my version stops at around 0:36 as I never got round to learning the rest.

Those 36 seconds have had a lot of mileage though, for several years I worked in a piano shop and it was my standard demonstration piece (it sounds a bit fancy and if you mess it up you can pretend its just some funky ‘modern’ composition). I must’ve played those 36 seconds hundreds of times (and the cunning thing is you can endlessly loop it if 36 seconds isn’t enough!) but I feel like I should finally conquer the remaining three minutes or so.

I’m going to get practising so watch this space (or just stand outside my house and listen. Actually, don’t do that, that’s kinda weird)

Jo x