Portable music redux

Not everything lasts forever and unfortunately my clip on portable music player died last week after a few years of life.

This Sandisk Clip Zip  music player developed a couple of faults one being being unable to recharge the internal battery from a charger and the second being over 70% of the time it would not be recognized by my Windows Laptop so I could neither charge it from that nor add music to it. 😒

Bit of a problem, what?

I was looking at possible replacements as that manufacture has in many ways lost real interest in new players plus as no longer use exclusively Windows computers (Up with Linux!) something that doesn't reply on a Windows or Apple program to use it.

Recently the Chinese company Fiio discontinued its 2014 X1 player for the X1 Mark ii with blue tooth and a different round scrolling wheel which meant there were  number of the older players on the market both new and some used  and I was able to find one used in excellent condition  for little more than what I paid for the Clip Zip in late December 2012 which is quite a step up from that model.

Removed from its rubberized protective jacket, you can see a bigish 2.4 inch screen showing the menus you navigate using a scrolling wheel, an okay/confirm button in the centre and a back key on the top right. It may be a little old-fashioned in an age of touch screens but hey! it works and is easy to understand.

The bigger screen helps with album art often included in commercial downloads or those you might have added on anything you've copied from cd yourself without the size and format restrictions that were trying on the Clip Zip.

Talking of formats without getting super technical, it'll play Mp3's from the likes of Amazon, AAC files as loved by iTunes and also used by 7digital and lossless "full cd quality" ones in Flac (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and Alac (the same thing but by Apple) other stores supply.

It also includes the ability to play 24 bit so-called High Resolution audio files some stores and artists offer should you have any which as it happens I do as they can sound better than regular cds even.

The headphone output is noticeably better, able to go louder easily when the music requires it without sounding strained and will drive most headphones very well as is.

The real beauty of this is by selecting it on the menu, it can output a very high quality 'line level output' to connect to a stereo system as if it was a audio component so you could use this like cd player except for playing your music files you might of bought from iTunes from instead without having your computer on.

On the right side of the case is a Micro SD card slot because this play has no internal memory but uses these popular and ever cheaper memory cards which means you can make a series of cards up by music types for example and just swap them over.

In Fiio's players you insert the card writing side toward the back of the player rather than the front. Presently it can take upto 128gb cards although cards over 32gb need to be 'formatted' using the formatting tool in the player before first using them to put your music on by just dragging and dropping the folders to the card which I was doing this weekend.

Although it lacks a FM radio, something I do like for listening to shows like BBC Radio 4's "The World at One", this is a really good replacement for that no longer working Sandisk player.

Am I too old to play with toys?

Today I'm going to be talking about something that you might be going through or maybe it happened to you in your childhood that I think matters.

Most of us grew up with our parent(s) or a very close relative rather than say being with foster parents, in care or adopted and generally they oversaw how we grew up including the things we did or played with.

Every so often there was this talk about  the toys we had like if we still wanted them, could a sibling or cousin have them and sometimes they might of said something like "You no longer need Millie, Chris. You're a big grown up boy now and you don't play with dolls."

Not a few boys get told even they shouldn't and are not to play with dolls too which is sad.

If you were really unlucky, you'd come home from school and just find your toys decimated and probing why would produce the answer "You're too big for them now so I took them away"   which tended to be what happened with mine. That sucks!

Actually they could well be wrong especially as it applies to younger teens and a few months back a girl wrote in to the American Girl dolls magazine with the following question to which they wrote this reply: 

This is actually pretty interesting and I have little doubt influenced by children's welfare 'experts' who see so much pressure on acting more sophisticated, in many ways trying too hard at being grown up, being too serious for our own good.

Writing this as someone who is legally an adult I like what they have to say about maturity a  lot which is really what we mean by  being grown up which is more about how we treat others and how we  run our lives. In a word, being responsible which we can struggle with and I won't lie to my younger readers that I haven't had this  too but that is all it is.

Growing up and even being Grown Up doesn't mean we should not enjoy play or doing something creative, indeed only this week gone, someone who isn't an age regressor like me just came out and said they were going to make a Lego model and did, showing pictures to our circle of plain adult  friends.

I said life's too short not to do the things we enjoy and they agreed.

If you feel like it, then don't be afraid to especially if you are feeling stressed.

A Leopard can change its spots

 

It is easy to get into a mindset of thinking about those things in  your life that may not be going so well or even into comparing how you are doing compared to others but that's a habit which so easily leads to you beating yourself up.

Like for instance we may only know of what another person really is doing from what it is they've shared with us which may well be selective, missing out any mess ups and only as they feel it is so really those comparisons may not be too accurate.

The other side of this is we may be understating our own abilities, using a very high baseline to judge them by or be so used to perceiving our failure that we automatically feel we have when maybe we've done okay really.

This came to me on Sunday where I had spent this weeks Study Weekend working on a longform part of guide working with a person I hadn't collaborated with before with no indication of the exact format and structure they were working for even.

Let's say the absence of that usually gets me into tailspinning territory  as I stare into the blank page on my non microsoft office suite so I type a few headings  and eventually find one to start typing to and slowly work may way to the final one.

I review it and send it to the person I am working with with not to say it's not perfect but it's like the best I can do here thinking to myself it's not really good enough, maybe they'll do the electronic equivalent of tearing it up even.

Imagine then you get a message to say although it may need the odd change, they really like it that even they say it's a pleasure to read something so well written, that actually I'd structured it similar to their own section.

Really, Tammy that boarding school feminine gurl severely dyslexic actually manages to pull it off when they was feeling like walking the corridors thinking they'd failed!

I think the point here is I grew up so much with the idea I was no good at this that I came to believe it didn't matter  what I did or anyone said they could help me, that I couldn't change that outcome.

I changed the outcome cos I actually believed in it enough to do the work using techniques that I had learned and was prepared to spend my time on learning  and learning to trust people who were prepared to help me make those changes.

Birthday 2017

Say everybody, isn't just possible that someone has completed an twelve month arc and might still be twelve today? Stranger things have happened around these parts I can assure you!

Hmm, no better a way for this birthday adult little gurl to mark theirs with something featuring my all time favourite things, flowers, although I love football enjoying the action and being covered in mud.

I went out to lunch with Mom and my older brother locally.

Given how old I am, I do get music as presents and this special  two cd version  of an album I liked whose original copy suffered from so-called cd rot making it unplayable is something I'll treasure with its bonus tracks.

This came out last year having a couple of hard to find albums in it and two I only had on download with card replica sleeves so is much appreciated both from Mum.

 Coming soon is this, a new colouring book as I've completed my old one now and some Milk Tray chocolates from my Aunt.

Girls colouring books tend to suit me more.

I got three new books to add to my collection which will be read, a W H Smiths voucher from a member of the extended family that can be used to buy a book with and reviewed plus money from my brother.

Underwear

 At one level to be a Jane Boy or sissy gurl is to be a atamically a boy in a dress or skirt keeping your male biological self but allowing your feminine emotions and feelings expression by not dressing as a boy but if you have some fluidity as I do to the point you may wear short trousers aimed at boys you may wonder where does it all go.

For me a big step between literally wrapping a skirt around any odd boy and being a jane boy or gurl is in what ordinarily you wouldn't see.

You wear gym knickers designed to be modest that do under emphasis your boy bits under a skirt and even under your shorts which means you you have pull them and you knickers down at the loo.

The fact we are wearing them at all sets us apart, for some people being given and told to wear them is in their fantasy for some of us it is what we'd wear anyway as they are more comfortable but also more durable than regular girls underwear which while being nice and soft, doesn't last long.

Socks may be girls pereline or similar but less "fussy" grey socks beloved of junior schools before the silly big girls in high school must wear tights stuff breaks out or even the same socks that prep schools might wear as girls in co-ed prep schools often do that so in skirts we do too.

They do match our skirts well and are warm for Winter months.

That Boarding School Girl

Recently I had actually gifted to me a book from their collection of "Girls Own" fiction, a genre I do so love by an author I had nothing  by but was part of that 1920's through 1940's boom of school based girls fiction rather like Angela Brazil.

It's a September 30th 2003 reprint by Girls Gone  By of a 1925 classic, the second in the  "St Brides" series of stories she wrote replicating the original text apart from two alterations at the bequest of the Estate of the author where the original text can be found.

Thank you so much for this.

A few notes on this: In some ways this and Nancy at St Brides (see separate review) are rather odd bed fellows with Nancy at St Brides being more a full account of her first term there and this being  the earlier novel that deals with the consequences of her having to leave and her being sent in some disgrace to Maudsley Grammar as a day student under that cloud, very much feeling the need work hard in lessons and keep the impulsive and easily lead of her personality very much under a lid.

Indeed so much did she try her darnmost that the gulf between her effort and the remainder of Form V.B. invited suspicions that when a conversation by arch rival  Larkiston school  students on the bus that included one who knew Nancy's past became common knowledge as it was overheard by Maudsley students, form V.B. become convinced she'd done something wicked.

In truth while what she had been responsible for did had very serious consequences, in reality it was more she wasn't sufficiently mature so failed to realize the recklessness of the situation she'd lead the others into.

It was the Head Mistresses perception she was not mature enough for boarding school that was the real reason she left. [She wasn't expelled according to "at St Brides", contrary to the claim in this novel more recommended not to return next term because of the Heads understanding of the real issue around her conduct].

When eventually the truth did come out  - and not being very happy over it - she is better understood for the grasping of the second chance given to her and becomes more an asset never more so when she steps in at the last moment in a inter school cricket match with Larkiston as Charity Sheringham had injured her hand leading her team to a draw with a memorable performance.

What I learned from being away

I was away for a few days with friends recently and here's some reflections upon that time.

There are some reflections I do feel the need to talk about about on here one is learning to be grateful for what people freely do for you such as seeing I was struggling at one railway station a couple kindly offered to help carry my luggage and even checked when I got to the end of the stairwell I was all right who I no idea of. I thanked them profusely for caring so much and acting on it.

There's the people who kept an eye on me as I was feeling a little homesick where I stayed, spending time with and the friend who knowing the sort of fiction I like, gave me a cherished book from their collection which they sure didn't have to and to which I didn't expect at all after giving them a dolly I thought they'd love.

Then there is a friend of mine who kindly put me up, offering a cooked meal and a lift to the train coming back completely out of the blue, seeing I was on the right platform for my train to come in. Even when I found I simply could not eat the whole of their home made and cooked meal rather than just saying it was very nice-and it was was absolutely lovely- from nowhere I found myself apologizing to them for not finishing my meal clearly feeling contrite.

These acts of kindness really moved me but whereas in the past I'd of blocked out my emotions I thanked them properly for all those things they did not have to do,that I have no right to expect nor demand expressing my gratitude, revealing my sense of being humbled openly.

Another thing was around making sure I stayed within contact while meeting one person after a rail journey, letting them know it was doing  and when I would be seeing them which as you may recall resulted in a lecture and spanking last time which I did.

As well I was asked to keep it on while they were going out of the house for a short period later on because they may be delayed and I just complied with the request with no back chat which showed I had learned from last times experiences.

While a few people needed a reminder to tidy up and put their plates in the dishwasher while we were away, I did not and indeed that I had was held up as an example for others to follow.

I think the one thing I can take away from this period is while I may have some distance to go and the potential to relapse, the six days did show I was moving on, being responsible and how I'm being helped to change is really helping me.