Author: Jay Corless

28 Jul

Freedom - the Parison Sk8 Diaries

Day 44.  This was actually shot on Day 44 but it has taken me a couple of days to edit and post everything online.  The youtube mass uploader never works.  I’ve tried that thing several times and it bites.  Sorry for the delay. The story?  Do you want this story?  I woke up suddenly overwhelmed with [...]
24 Jul

A state of being - One minute of peace

Day 41.  Yep, you guessed it I’m still in France.  It’s now been almost six weeks since I’ve been waiting for my visa to come through the UK Embassy in France with the hope of getting back to some normalcy.   I wouldn’t mind having a routine, waking up for work, waiting for vacation, meetings, [...]
03 Jul

Three great things for an old lady VIP to do in Paris on Bastille Day

Its day 21 or maybe 22, its actually day 23 now, I can’t remember any more. For regular readers you may have noticed my blogging on the Facebook Chronicles has fallen off a bit. It’s simply because I have been moving from cell to cell this week so finding a moment to write with a [...]
26 Jun

Five great things about being a prisoner

It’s day 14, what can I say? I spent a rather restless night.  It may be from all the coffee I drank yesterday, it may be from worry about my predicament or may be I was just too amped from watching Turkey nearly beat Germany.  I really doubt that’s what kept me awake.  As I [...]
25 Jun

Five best places to be a prisoner

I’m into day thirteen of my most recent sentence.  I’m stuck in Paris waiting for my entry clearance visa to return to the UK to work.  Yes, you need a work permit to legally work in the UK if you are American.  I’m learning the hard way. I’m stuck in Paris and I truly feel [...]
24 Jun

Five sure fire tricks to end up alone in Paris

I know what you are thinking.  It’s been a month since I’ve written you and now suddenly I send you three posts in one day.  There is an explanation.  There always is isn’t there? First, I have been working like mad.  I moved from Paris to London to take up my new job with the London [...]
22 Jun

Five things I miss about Paris

Its weird, I’m weird at least, I don’t really know what I miss until I see it again.  I manage to compartmentalize emotions in the moment.  The emotions of leaving and departures are feelings I guess I have learned to manage.  I’m not a big fan of the long weeping good byes in airports or [...]
21 Jun

An Unexpected Evening

My camera ran out of battery as I filmed the closing sequence to one of the most unexpected evenings I’ve lived in recent memory.  As some of you know I’m big into my self narrated videos.  I enjoy filming my life as if I were a bit actor in a much larger story.  I can’t [...]
28 Apr

Guatemala Dreaming

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Guatemala? Does anything? To be honest it took me a little while to think of something. After a few moments though the images started to flow. First the images of incredibly colourful clothing came to mind. [...]
10 Apr

Paris Guide - Quincampoux, Tire Boudin and Place des Victoires

Parts of this walk made me giggle when I first discovered these hidden gems. Other parts are about experiencing new emotions and pleasures. It’s a walk that is composed of several neighborhoods, the oldest and the shadiest streets of Paris. In some places you may cringe, in other places you may laugh while [...]
10 Apr

Paris Guide - Rive Gauche

France, the French and Paris are known for their great debates. Debates are an art form. They are often engaged in with no larger purpose than for debates sake. For many years I survived the debate circuit in France with only a few French words. ‘Camembert’ was my key word if [...]
09 Apr

Paris Guide - The Hands of God Walk

If you only have one day in Paris this is the walk you must do.  It’s the walk that changed my life several times over.  This is the walk that has inspired my greatest moments and has offered comfort during my seemingly interminable miseries.  It is a walk that can last an hour like it [...]
08 Apr

Paris Guide - Noma to Pompidou Walk

The Noma (North Marais ) to Pompidou walk covers a large part of the South and North Marais as well as the connecting streets to the Beaubourg Pompidou Centre area. This is a good half-day walk including museums, galleries, boutique shopping and a selection of cafes. It starts in the historic Jewish Quarter [...]
07 Apr

Paris Guide - Cannonball Walk

The cannonball walk is one of my favorite walks. It covers a part of the neighborhood my sister and I lived in for many years. It has history, great cafes and a nice outdoor basketball court. This is a slow meander that can take up to three or four hours or it [...]
04 Apr

The Last Goodbye

I left UNESCO for the last time yesterday. After thirteen years of almost fanatically serving a cause I walked away. I guess its early to describe the feelings I have for that place. It is after all where I have grown from a naive 21 year old intern to a realistic 34 year old [...]
21 Mar

I Leave in a Week

I leave in a week.  I leave my current job at the end of March.  Ok, for you fact freaks it’s a little more than a week but I only have the time to do this now. I’ve worked here for over a decade.  I’ve enjoyed my time.  As with most jobs and most places I’ve [...]
10 Mar

I am Here to Understand

Haiku: Something so simple unseen, felt and devoured never ending love
03 Mar

Colorado -> New Mexico

A couple of weeks ago I took a drive.  I took a drive from Denver, Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I took a drive very similar to that Tom Petty song about Running down a Dream. Wait, my whole life is about running down a dream.  The problem is that I don’t actually know what [...]
11 Jan

The Year in Review - 2007 Painted

So here I am.  One year later.  My apartment is cleaned and I’m ready to move out and onto a new life.  I leave London tomorrow.  I came to write a thesis.  I handed it in two days ago.  I also came to discover London and myself a little more.  I hope to slowly tell [...]
03 Jan

Happy New Year

Happy New Year people. I’m just taking a little break from my dissertation. I’ve been writing this thing for about a month now. The 25000 words became 18000 and now its down to the requisite hand in length, 15 000. I’m happy that its almost over. I’m also kind of sad. I’ve [...]
08 Dec

Cross Walks

I’m a big fan of observation, reflection and symbolism. It’s neat to sit and think about what drives people to do the things they do. With an active imagination I like to watch people walk the streets, sidewalks and train stations. I’ll usually pick one person from the safety of my café [...]
22 Nov

The Orange Taxi

Painting, for me, is true freedom. Its singular freedom. I can do what I want, when I want and how I want it done. Its freedom from the worries, thoughts and suggestions of others. It’s me alone with a blank canvas. Sound great? Well it is, certain aspects of painting are [...]
16 Nov

Walk and wonder

There was a moment; I think it was near the end of the movie, when Crocodile Dundee was preparing to go where ever it is that he was going. It was when he put on his leather hat, it was leather wasn’t it? He grabbed his bowie knife, slipped on his boots and [...]
25 Oct

Never, Never, Never

I have been feeling sad lately, horribly, horribly sad. It’s a combination of a few things. This is the time of year I begin a sort of mourning. I mourn the year that has passed. It must be the dying leaves, the way they fight and struggle to keep their color before falling [...]
11 Oct

BlackBody

I found you lying on the sidewalk and as soon as I saw you, laying there, I knew you had to be mine. I couldn’t believe someone could just throw you out, so cruelly, left [...]
11 Sep

Back in LondON

  I made it back to London after what seemed to be a mind numbingly long flight. I know it seems I’m going on about this flight but it really, really was long. To be honest and a bit cheesy, I find flying above cities and the earth in general to be somehow inspirational. The [...]
28 Aug

Alone and creepy

My lone reader knows I often travel alone. There are advantages and disadvantages to traveling solo. Some of the advantages are that you can do what you want to do when you want to do it and how you want to do it. If I want to sit in a cafe all day I [...]
27 Aug

Finally

I can’t remember the first time I saw you.  I can’t remember all the times I’ve stared at your photo. But here, finally,  you are now in my life. Not just a presence in my soul, a spirit of memory, today you became real. I walked the bay with you in mind.  I walked the park [...]
26 Aug

I’m in Oz

I was exploring my new city a couple of days.  I was on a walkabout.  I saw the world famous opera,  I saw the bay and the bridge. I think I must of walked miles on the first day.  It actually took me a couple of days to fully realize that I’m here.  This place, [...]
15 Aug

Your Star Wondering

I was on the train the other day and I started wondering what would happen if I took a lot of pictures from the window seat of the train and uploaded them to the web sequentially. So the first step was to take the pictures. I did that. Second I had to resize them to fit [...]
02 Aug

Fragile Lives

I’m not exactly sure why but lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about how everything around us is so fragile or is it? Sometimes it feels or advertising wants us to believe that the course of history can be changed by simply crossing the street, buying cigarettes or not buying drinking water. As I [...]
23 Jul

Cornwall cows

A few weeks ago I took a short drive around Cornwall. Cornwall is in the South West of England. To be honest I had vaguely heard of Cornwall before setting out to discover that part of England. What did I discover? Well not much. I saw mile after mile of roads surrounded [...]
04 Jul

Punk Golfa

Hi regular readers. Are there any out there? I’ve been away for a couple of weeks but I’ve been thinking about you. I was in Dublin, Ireland two weeks ago attending an intensive dissertation residential (www.theideafeed.com) and then I was in the southwest of England doing my best at enjoying Cornwall under [...]
20 Jun

Pink People

This weekend I was invited to a boat party.  There was this party organized on a boat.  It was a big boat.  The guy who invited me said there would be 250 people.   Everyone paid 15 pounds to cruise the Thames in a drunken stupor. I liked it.  Although my friends and I were the only [...]
07 Jun

Three Dollar Bill Week

I went to play some golf with friends the other day. We played best ball. My team won. The losers had to buy the winning team lunch. I enjoyed eating my free lunch at Winter Park’s Brandywines deli. Sitting with old friends and laughing about past times and making fun of each [...]
07 Jun

Silk Screen Miami

I’m back in Florida for a few days. My mom needed to get her passport renewed at the Venezuelan Embassy so I decided to take a little road trip with her to my place of birth. No I was not born in the embassy, I was born in Miami. It’s always nice to see [...]
21 May

My first Picasso

During April I took some time off to visit Barcelona. Well time off isn’t really the best way to describe the period between classes at university. In some ways it feels like university is permanently time off. Yet in other ways there is this always underlying stress or feeling that something should [...]
11 May

Sitting at a cafe

I was recently in Paris. Sometimes its nice to go back to the city and slow down. You actually haven’t got a choice. If you don’t want to slow down the service, the people and the city will force you. I walked the streets taking pictures of things I had seen a thousand [...]
23 Apr

Walk this way to Doha

Doha is this city popping up out of the Arabian desert. Its not just popping up out of the desert its also being dredged up out of the sea.
09 Feb

I love Arepas

If you’re a regular visitor to the site you might know how much I love to eat. Since I’ve moved to London I’ve had a thousand choices to try.