How Sez Sees It

"Life, don't talk to me about life." - Marvin the Paranoid Android - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy That is usually what I think when people want to talk about life. We are doing this constantly on social media though. We are all shouting about our lives via tweets and Facebook statuses (especially now Facebook has made the text bigger for shorter posts). Don't worry, I am honestly as guilty as the next person for this. What effect does this have on us all though? Before I started arranging my wedding at the beginning of the year I became really aware of the number of people I knew from all areas of my life who were getting married. I think the ones from Uni were the most obvious because they were all the people around my age. For about two years before I got married I could see all these people getting married and, although I was engaged, I was really aware that I was not financially in a position to get married yet as we had not even bought a house! This m...

I have worked in admin for all my working life now (full-time working life that should be as I had retail jobs before as a student). There are some things I have picked up on that make life that little bit easier for everyone involved as I think there is still a lack of understanding of what administrators are like. As a breed we are pretty open to new ideas and challenges and we love to be kept busy. We also love to learn new things on the job. There are many reasons why we went in to admin. It could be because we love being organised, we want to help people or we just fell into the job and it works well for us (yeah, that last one is me). Just because we are paid to help though does not mean that we are at the beck and call of all. There are some things that need to be remembered about us. 1. We are paid to help...but... That doesn't mean we are just turning up and doing the bear minimum for the job. We actually enjoy being helpful. Remember what I said earlier, it is one...

Recently I have got better at vlogging. By that I mean I do it more regularly. That said, as I write this, I have totally forgotten to do my weekly catch-up vlog that I intended to do every Friday. Last week was a bit boring though, but the weekend was not (more of which later) November has been and interesting month for me. It is really a time of reflection on so many levels. For a start it marked the first month of marriage for me with my husband, Dave. At the time of getting married the day was such a whirlwind (as was the honeymoon after) that I didn't get a chance to sit back and recognise the enormity of what I have done. I feel like this is a very grown up thing. The other thing I have noticed about getting married is that when you change your name you get people look at you in a totally new light. I feel like people treat me more like an adult just because I am Mrs Harding and not Miss Critcher. Like that title change has made me seem more mature and less like a child or ...

There seems to be a shift in global politics at the moment. Everything seems to be shifting to the right and this is something we should probably be scared of. UK I guess there has always been a slant to the right (certainly reasserted itself in 2010) but things have gathered pace over the last few months. First of all there was the referendum that, in my opinion, should never have been which led to a vote for Britain to leave the EU. This was led by groups from the far right of the Tories and UKIP mostly. The main concerns are that there were some Labour strongholds that voted to leave too where voters cited concerns with immigration as a main factor in making a decision. The big problem might be the rise of the right wing press in the UK. Papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc. all pushed for 'Brexit' (which to me sounds like the sort of thing an unimaginative teen would come up with when trying to 'ship' things together). These papers have a wide reader...

2016 is a year that should be remembered for a VERY long time. There has to be a reason that it is so shit and I will try and figure it out so bear with me because I am by no means an expert, but I will give it my best shot. Death: First of all there are all the celeb deaths. We have lost some great people this year like Bowie and Rickman but actually there seem to have been more than ever before. The reason for this, as I think I have previously mentioned, is that they were all baby boomers. They all started their careers around the same time and they all lived a certain hedonistic lifestyle in their earlier years. The 70's in particular were a time of experimental drugs, booze and sex. A time when these people dying now were in their 20's and that is a time when you feel indestructible. The reality is that this behaviour can have an effect years later. That of course and we consider people in their 60's to be young nowadays because we have the ability to keep peopl...

I do these every so often and they are quite fun for me to figure out what the hell is going on in my life, even if they are not so fun for you to read. Helps me get my random thoughts in order. 1. In a week and a half I will be married! That is a terrifying prospect. I know I keep mentioning it but it will be so weird to go from a Critcher to a Harding in the space of a 15 minute ceremony. I actually can't wait for it to be honest but it will be strange after being a Critcher for nearly 30 years! 2. My knee is clearly not as bad as I thought it was. You may recall that I had a weird injury the other week (everything in my life is weird at the moment). I was sat at work and someone asked me to help them with something on the printer and when I stood up my knee trapped some cartilage. I have not felt pain like that probably ever, even when I tripped over a box working for Sainsbury's years ago and landed on both of my knees. The result was that, four weeks before the wedding...

"What is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Thanks Juliet. A name cane mean many things to many people. The literal meaning of my given name, Sarah, is 'princess'. It has it's routes in Christianity (and Judaism and Islam) as the wife of Abraham, the father of the three religions. My surname is old Saxon English and roughly translates as 'one who lives near a cross'. The first churches were effectively fields with a cross in them so that people knew where to meet before buildings were put up. The land was likely owned by the 'Critcher' who would maintain the cross and ensure there was a good place to meet for religious ceremonies. There are many places around the world that give emphasis to the meaning of names. The Japanese really think about the names they give their children and a name like Hajime would mean new beginning. If we believe Haruma Miura's tale (he's a hot and talented Japanese actor) who said ...

The Great British Bake Off (or Bake Off as it is commonly known) is a national treasure. Every week on a Wednesday night the nation sits down and watches a group of amateur bakers creating weird and wonderful baked goods in an attempt to stay in the competition and become overall baking champion at the end of the series. The timing is perfect, just when people are sitting down to a cuppa and a slice of cake at 8pm. Not only that, the show has been on the BBC since it has begun and it seems so British to have that pairing. This week the nation was rocked by the news that the show had been sold to Channel 4 because the production company, Love Productions, was asking too much money for it. The show is enormously popular with around 15 million viewers watching last year's final and an average of 10 million per episode this series. The popularity is also down to the presenters, comedians Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins alongside judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry (national treasure in...

The dodgy knee This is the sort of thing you say to someone before a performance or before they get married or something. It is not meant to be taken literally. I have not broken my leg. I have done something to my knee though. Not sure what. I was sat at work, minding my own business, when a colleague needed some help with the photocopier. I am blaming the photocopier for this injury because we have a hate/hate relationship...there's previous. Anyway, I got up to help my colleague and felt my knee crunch and a pain shot through the joint. The next thing I know I can't put any weight on it and it keeps crunching and hurting. I spent the whole weekend like it in absolute agony. I went to finalise details at the wedding reception venue and had to go careful on the stairs and in the car park. Then walking back to my car at the end my knee went again and I was in agony again. I went to my local town and got a bandage to sort it out. On the Saturday night I was going out w...

1. My legs ache when I climb a hill. I went up a hill I have walked up loads of times before and somehow my legs have been in pain ever since. I was trying to drive home and my legs were spasming and since then they ache like crazy. I walk up a hill every day to get to work so this is really weird. This happened four days ago and I immediately pulled both calf muscles. I have been a right state ever since. 2. I am prone to getting sick when I have time off from work. In the past I have had flu when I have had extended periods of time off and this time I had one day off. What happens? I have a 24 hour stomach bug. Great! Yay for me! I am not sure why this happens every time I take annual leave but it does. 3. I can make a variety of lemon drizzle cakes. Which is a skill of course. They are really nice when made with real lemon by the way. 4. Weddings are easier to plan than I thought. Which is nice. Everything just seems to be falling into place. I am happy about this because the ...

Whatever I try and write about or vlog about I always seem to end up taking extra long breaks. This is mostly to do with getting distracted on a regular basis. I have been meaning to do the second part of my Lord of the Rings vlog for weeks now and I have not got round to it because of a combination of wedding planning and watching the Olympics. This is unfortunate of course. I also seem to have ideas of vlogs when I am away from a place where I can jot down a note of them as a reminder. Then, when I get to a computer I have totally forgotten what I intended to write about. I don't know why this is. If there was a way of getting my creativity sorted I would be better at getting things out on a regular basis. I can only blame wedding planning and anxiety as the things stopping me from doing what I planned. I therefore apologise for that. If there are things you would like me to write or vlog about please let me know.

Just a few thoughts on my time watching horror films. This is the incoherent mess that comes out of my head when I over think things so enjoy this. Sex = death This is a common theme in horror films. Sex is wrong if outside of marriage like before marriage or if it is an extra-marital affair. It can be a symbol for picking up an STD. Curiosity Questioning everything, the status-quo, will get you killed in a horror film. This is a sign that to do the same in general life is dangerous and you should do as you are told. Characters are usually young There are a couple of points around this. It is tragic to see someone die young. Also these sorts of films are more likely to appeal to that age group who want to see films about people like them. There is a message that young people are inexperienced and need to learn though. No one turns the light on The dark means that people can't see what is waiting there and this adds to the feeling of dread and suspense. Nothing appea...

So I am turning 30 soon and it got me thinking about some of the things I grew up with that some of the younger people I know didn't experience. Tamagochis Or rather the cheap versions of them for me. I had one call Bobby the Dinosaur. I also had some robot thing that never evolved but lived forever (until I lost it in Clarks one day) and also I had a Giga Pet but the battery life on it was shit so I got rid of it. I would still like to have a digital pet again though. Those things were life sapping but fun at the same time. Floppy disks We didn't get a home PC until I was 14 but I did use them in school. You had your own floppy disk with your name written on it so you could save all your work on to it. When we got a PC at home we had about a million of the things lying about all over the place. The worst thing is that I have genuinely had people ask me why there were 3D save icons around back when I was a kid. *facepalm* Encarta This encyclopedia...