I'm a Local...Get Me Out of Here!

Facebook is a marvel don't you think? Without it we would not be able to get our grievances off of our chests or read about those of other people that seem to haunt their lives so. It seems that every time I click onto Facebook I see at least one 'friend' moan about where they live and the fact that they have to 'git oot ae this place'. Firstly I would like to point out that I detest people writing like that. I was once a person of such literally laziness but I've since shaken my bones to become the very person that you read today. The only time that you'll catch me writing anything like that would be out of mockery of people that are the same age as me but act as if they are 12. Anyway, back to my main point. People don't ever seem to be happy with where they come from. They always seem to feel that the grass is much greener somewhere else but my view is that the place you live is what you make of it, not what it says on the tin.

Back Home

I've been pining after this day for a very long time now. I could spurt out some useless clichés such as 'you don't know what you've got until it has gone' but I'm starting to understand just what that means. Now, from those couple of sentences, with it being Christmas Eve and the fact that I'm writing this from home and not from Edinburgh, you would think that I'm happy to be home and that Christmas has finally wriggled its way into my psyche - you would only be half right I'm afraid. Yes it's grand to be home and to feel a modicum of Christmas cheer but the greatest thing that I can say I'm delighted about it that I can blog again, free from the guilt of procrastination and the stress of exams. I can't begin to tell you just how many ideas I've had for posts over the last few weeks whilst the exam period kept me hostage - solitary confinement tends to get the mind working. I'm so happy to be home and to be spending Christmas with my family but to add gravy to the turkey, I'm blogging again and that makes me feel just as at home.

Signing Off

I couldn't bring myself to do this last night on account of the fact that I was on my knees after a long day but I'm here now. This is pretty much me reporting to all of you lovely readers that I'm going to give myself a few weeks away from my blog because of my immanent exams. Like the rest of my peers I'm certainly a little bit on edge at the moment but I feel that the next week or so might serve to help me get my head above water and into full speed mode. I think that I made the same decision last year to stop blogging throughout my exams because all I would write is how crap I feel and nobody wants to read about that. I'm hoping that at the end of the exams (only a few days before Christmas by the way!) I'm going to have that great feeling of having a weight lifted off of my shoulders and that is the kind of thing that I like to write about. 

There is a good chance that I'm not going to blog before Christmas so if I don't then I hope you all have a great festive period whatever you may be doing. I would also like to extend a message of good luck to people sitting exams all across the country and a particular shout-out to my fellow law students - it hurts I know, but we'll all be fine!

Thanks for reading and be sure to keep an eye out for a post around about Christmas/New Year time - over and out!

Martin

Time Spent in the Wrong Places

Apologies for the solitary post last week but after my controversial post on Monday evening I thought it was best to keep a low profile. The angry mobs outside of my window (which might just have been the wind but I'm convinced it wasn't) meant that I've not left my flat for a whole week solid now and I'm running out of food/clean clothes to keep me going. Come to think of it, if I let my clothes get so unclean then they might become edible? Not a good idea? OK. Anyway that is a whole load of rubbish and fine well you know it. My excuse from Wednesday was the age-old one of football and for that, as I've said many a time before, I will never be sorry (except for the fact that Chelsea lost - I'm sorry for that). Today's post is about something that makes me a little bit scared about my own ability. They say that the more you put into things, the more you get out of the other end - you have to earn success - and of course this is true. The sad thing is that I'm aware of that for all of the wrong reasons.

The Inevitable Has Happened

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR READERS OF RAMBLINGS OF A TEENAGER
Sorry but this blog will soon be closing down on account of it's chief (and only) writer being a liar and a scoundrel - he bought a Kindle. Your computer will explode in 5...4...3...2...

Just kidding, you can put the party on hold for now and be safe in the knowledge that I don't have the ability to remotely make anyone's computer explode. But yes, it is true, I purchased a Kindle at the weekend and you know what? I love it. In fact it turns out (as if this was always the plan) that I predicted that one day I would get a Kindle for the primary purpose that I decided to get one on Friday - to put my university reading on it. One thing that is for sure is that I'm not going to lose touch with the good old paper back any time soon and, as if to neutralise the purchase, I spent £25 on books last week - real books. But I've said it already and I'll say it again: I love the Kindle. The screen is like nothing I've ever seen before. I spent the whole weekend at home gazing at it from various angles, testing out the claim that it works in any light. I must have looked like a monkey with a new toy as I contorted by body in an attempt to be able to say something bad about it - I couldn't and I think I probably pulled a few muscles in the process. 

Advice to Naive Sports Stars

Following on from the fact that I don't really blog about much else than person experience at the moment, today's post is going to be about something that I learned today. I'll provide you with your fix of 'world events' later on but you'll just have to wait for it! Today I played football for the first time since the summer and it didn't go very well. I thought that I was a lot fitter than I actually am and this attitude that I had soon lead to problems. 

Into the Home Straight

Week 9. That doesn't mean very much to people other than those at Edinburgh Uni but to me it strikes equal measures of fear and anticipation into my heart and mind. In essence it means that there are only a few more weeks until the exams are finally upon us and that scares me a little. It feels like only last week that we were dusting off our pens and word processors as the first lecturer of the year stepped up and declared the law in our general direction. Having said that, it feels like the summer was a very long time ago - I suppose we are closer to Christmas now than we are to the summer (ouch!). I'm now at that awkward time of the year when I can't quite start to look forward until Christmas but everything around has slipped into festival season mode - kinda sucks.

The thing is that I can feel something rumbling deep inside me - it's not my dinner repeating on me just for the record. No, I feel like something good might be just about to happen. After more or less coasting for the first 8 and a bit weeks of 2nd year I think I'm just about to move up into a new gear that I've either not used for a long time or not used at all before. I tend to think that the former is the truth because I've been here before and I know how it feels to be working at full pelt - it's a nice feeling when you're out of the other side.

All I'm trying to get around to saying really is that the lot of us might well be on the home straight to Christmas (although I would whisper that word very quietly around me) but we've all got a few hurdles to get over before it's holiday time again. I've got 4 sizeable hurdles to leap over and then on the 21st of December, all things being well, I'll get to say that I'm on holiday for a few weeks which might well be the best present that I get this year.

Thanks for reading and I hope I've not dampened any early holiday spirit that you might have had about 10 minutes ago!

Martin

Inter-Disciplinary Conversation: Some Advice

The parity between Monday and Wednesday post is becomes more and more palpable as the weeks go by. Maybe I'm just struggling for ideas at the moment or, even worse, maybe I've lost it all together. The truth of the matter is that they have always been pretty close together anyway and maybe it's time that I dropped the distinction that I've been clinging onto with my fingertips for so long now. The reason why I open with this is because my post for today is literally just talking about my position in the world. I write about that kind of thing most weeks and because there is a mention of the word 'world' in there I suppose that's why I've kept the distinction between Monday and Wednesday going. Anyway I'll get on with it now. Today's post is about something that I started to notice when I came to university which has now grown and developed into something that I feel defines a part of someone's personality. This, my friends, is where society breaks up.

Happy Mondays

Granted, I'm starting to get a little lax with my blog. It's purely been a combination of university and going out that has served to take my precious blogging time away from my finger-tips and, by Jove, does it pain me. I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things properly over the next couple of weeks because I hand in my last essay of the term on Thursday (yay!) but then I'll be starting exam revision (boo!) so we'll just have to see how it goes.

Today my mood is up and the feeling is good. I managed to get up at a reasonable time today, get some work done, went to lectures (one of which was a bit of a zone-out session sadly) and then I've managed to finish off everything that I wanted to have done before I head out for food, beer, pool and a pub-quiz - I feel I have earned all of those things because of today and the busy weekend that I had. Today might very well have been the coldest we've had for a long time but the sun was still shining in vein and trying its utmost to keep the spirits of thousands of chilled students up. I've recently more than I ever have that when it is sunny, regardless of the temperature, it does make you feel a lot happier than when it is grey and horrible outside. If it snows (or should I say, when it snows) this year, I'll be happy so long as the sun still makes an occasional appearance and I'm able to get home for Christmas. Just two little things to get me through what promises to be an awfully tough couple of months for me and my peers.

Thanks for reading and I'll be here again on Wednesday hopefully.

Martin

Warming Again to Coldplay

No post on a Monday!? What is this madness that has occurred over the last couple of days? Well it was Halloween for one and I was in no fit state to compose a blog post and so I thought that I would defer to today when I'm a little more awake. Never a better decision has been made either because today I have probably been as tired as I ever have been before. I could feel my head flopping in lectures this morning (9am start - ouch!) and for the rest of the day I found it hard to get myself going. How I even managed to take lecture notes today is mystery to me but I've managed to make it to tonight unscathed. Tonight's post is based on something that I stumbled across last week. I found out that Coldplay were streaming their concert in Madrid live on Youtube and I was all over it. Subsequently I've hit a real love for their music again, especially their new album - I can't believe that I ever doubted them.

Coroner's Winehouse Verdict

As a follow-up to the post that I wrote when Amy Winehouse passed away, I've been keeping an eye out for the post-mortem report being released by the coroner. It was reported today and the conclusion of it was that she died from drinking too much alcohol. It's apparently called misadventure which I think is a little crass considering it is relation to someone's death. I would never call it an 'adventure' when I decide to have a drink so maybe a little rethink on that phraseology might be on the cards I think. The reason for me deciding to make a note of this report today was that, in the period of time between her death and now, so many people have been saying that it must have been an illegal substance that killed her; it was apparently inevitable that she has taken too much of something. I think it's sad that people jumped to conclusions, even if those conclusions were founded in the hard facts of her life.My view is that she was, and still is, treated far too negatively in the press and I feel that today's news should draw a line in the sand.

Apologies for this being a short post tonight but I'm completely knackered and it's the best I've got for you this evening.

Thanks for reading anyway,

Martin 

To-Do or To-Do? That is the Question

It's happening again! Tonight I lift my head with my stiff neck to see, on the wall, my week planned out before me. Day 1: Lots of work; Day 2: Lots of work, start essay; Day 3: Finish essay (if possible) + lots of work; Day 4: Lots of work for the week after. That is the abridged version of these notes of course because I'm not a complete moron - they are much more substantial than that of course - but you get the idea. I was writing out said week-plan last night when I realised that I was already at Friday. Luckily I realised that I had fired through everything that I needed to do and that ultimately, I should be able to take the weekend 'off'. Sadly the reality of it is that my brain hasn't been switched off since the end of the first week - during which it was technically going anyway but just warming up! 

The 2011 Reality

I love to listen to adults talking about the past and what the good (and bad) things were from their time as a young adult. In many respects the 'now generation' is living the high life because we've not lived through a war that's affected the home front; we've not had to do mandatory service in the army; and as young people nowadays we have more rights than ever. We live in a modern era where the internet provides the basis for almost everything we do and when we can access just about anything we want (from the past and the present) at the click of a button. We have access to brilliant education and we are encouraged to thrive by our elders instead of being ignored. The question I then ask is this: why do some people think we've got it bad?

Words, Words, Words

Coming off the back of last week when I was looking at my favourite posts, I thought that (somewhat ironically) I wouldn't have anything to write about this week. That worry was quickly quelled yesterday when I woke up and actually did something with my day! 'Wow Martin, you've really hit a low' I can hear you all think because, lets be honest, that shouldn't be much of an achievement for anyone but the thing is that yesterday was actually something to behold. My plans were executed to perfection and subsequently I felt great. I also don't think I've ever written as much in a single day as I did yesterday, hence the title of this post.

The plan was made on Saturday night after a trip to the cinema. I made a list in my head of all of the things that I needed to do, both for university and everything else on top of that. The morning wasn't all that easy because getting out of bed recently just hasn't been great fun for me but I shook my weary bones and cracked on. I prepared a couple of tutorials in the morning which took about 3 hours to do but they've been done properly which is good. That's something that I strive to do every time because consistently preparing tutorials well can only be a good thing for my education. I then got on with the house-work that needed done which is nobody's favourite but it's a reality that I'm used to. With that all behind me I was able to sit down and relax but if anything my plans for the day by that point were far from complete.

If you were reading my posts last week then you'll know that I'm also writing a blog on a car website and my post for that was next on my list. I knew that if I did that before all of my university work then that would throw me for the rest of the day. I saved it as something of a treat for me and, as alien as that sounds to some people, it got me through the tough stuff. I'm not sure when my post will get put live but I'll be sure to mention it over on my Facebook page during the week. That was the pièce de résistance of my day and it's always something I look forward to doing - words, I need more words!

So I'm going to have to make a slight admission. Despite the fact that one of the tags for today's post is going to be 'Me on Monday', this post was also composed on Sunday as well - that's how well my plan went. The fact that I go out on a Monday night isn't very conducive to writing a nice full post for your consumption. I guess the reality is that this post should be 'Me on Sunday' but that doesn't sound right and something really exciting or important might happen in the next 24 hours but I think I'll take that chance.

So all that is left for me now to do on my mental list for this evening is this: dinner, pub quiz and then bed before another week of university ahead of me. I guess I'm showing off a little bit with this post but it's not very often I get to say that I've actually had a productive day - especially when the day in question is a Sunday.

Thanks for reading folks!

Martin

My Favourites: Listen to Yourself!

I forgot to post last night and I'm sorry. Well not really but for the last choice of this week there is a slight irony that the reason I forgot was that it was Friday night and I was out having a good time with friends. Somebody came up to me this week and told me that their favourite posts from my blog are the ones when I teach myself a lesson or when I realise something about myself - 'Me on Monday' has never received such high praise! My last choice for this week before I get back to normal posts again next week is the one where I realised that people around me live for the weekend too much sometimes. It was a fun post to write and it was one that I remember talking about with the very same person that I was talking to this week - one of the main reasons for choosing it.

So yes have another look at it because personally I'm going to read it a few more times so I can get into my head again that weekdays are as important (if not more than) weekends:
http://roateenager.blogspot.com/2011/02/try-living-for-now-and-not-weekend.html

Thanks for joining me this week for a look back at my first 100 blog posts - hope you've enjoyed it!

Martin

P.S. I'm now writing another blog over on Netcars - go have a look!

My Favourites: A Lesson Well Learned

I've only got a couple more days to pick out some gems from my blogging back-catalogue and for that I'm a little sad. As I said in yesterday's post, I've really enjoyed looking back into the past at what I've been thinking and feeling about certain things and how I've interpreted them. It's interesting from the point of view that I might interpret various things in different ways now and I might have different ways of dealing with things on the whole. Today's choice popped into my head this afternoon before I even had even sat down this evening to choose a favourite for this evening. In fact it's in my head pretty much all of the time which is testament to just how much of a change it indicated in me. The post in question was the one when I got back from a tutorial early last year to realise that I had just made a massive break through both in confidence and productivity. I can still remember that day as if it was yesterday and the thing that I learned still crosses my mind every time I pass through the door into a tutorial room.

For those of you that are lacking a little confidence or just aren't getting enough out of university, I suggest you take heed from my epiphany from this time last year: 
http://roateenager.blogspot.com/2011/01/eureka-new-way-to-learn.html

Cheers everyone!

Martin

My Favourites: Not so Fresh Anymore

The reason why I decided to do this 'favourites' thing this week was to encourage myself to have a look back at my older posts and see what I was writing about at various moments in the history of this blog. So far I've come across happy times, sad times, stupid times (that have been utterly laughable) and times that should be reflected on. Today's favourite falls under that last category because it's the post that I wrote just after freshers week in first year. Back then I was a lot quieter and more reserved than I am now (believe it or not) and I also had a hunger to start my degree that I had forgotten I could have. I'm absolutely loving the challenge that I've got before me after just a month of second year but it's very refreshing to read just how enthusiastic I was about everything back at the very start. It also reminds me that although I can sometimes get myself down about university work, I've got this bubbling desire to succeed that's always just under the surface and a confidence in my ability to go with it. This week of reading old posts for me has turned this blog into something of a time-capsule for me - just another beautiful aspect to what I've got here.

Enjoy...again!: http://roateenager.blogspot.com/2010/09/week-one-down-rest-of-life-to-go.html 

For the first time ever I'm going to thank myself for keeping this going through all that's happened in the last year and a half but, as always, the big thanks goes to my consistent readership.


Martin

My Favourites: Cheesy Stuff!

To kick off some of my favourite blog posts I'm going to go for one of the basics. This was the 3rd post that I ever wrote and reading it back I can see just how much better I've become just from writing this blog. The message, however, is as strong as ever and I occasionally go back to it just to refresh what I was trying to say all of those years ago. So here is the link to one of my best and favourite posts from the last 100: 

http://roateenager.blogspot.com/2010/02/cheese-theory.html.

Enjoy - promise it was me that wrote it despite how bad it might look.

Thanks again folks!

Martin 

Post 100: The Numbers Game

100. It's a big number but it depends in what context you're saying it. £100 is a lot of money but 100p isn't. 100/200 shares is a lot of shares but 100/10000 is less so. 100 is a big number to me because it indicates a fairly big milestone for me: today is my 100th post on Ramblings of a Teenager. Now if I was to look at them properly (that being all posts that I've written) then it would certainly be clear that some of them haven't been as long as others or haven't actually amounted to any kind of message but the number 100 now shows on my blogger dashboard and it's nice. If I was to try and average out the word-count of all of my posts then my guess is that it would come out at about 500 words per post meaning that I've then written about 50,000 words in this blog, probably more. That for me indicates just what a commitment (and to some extents, what an addiction) this blog has become to me. I would go as far as to say that a little bit of me in now in this blog and it's an experience that I'm never likely to forget.

Tell It How It Is Or Suffer The Consequences

It was only a matter of time before I started to take inspiration from Eastenders. In general I think that most people have 'their' soap and mine, for as long as I can remember, has been the goings on in Albert Square. It provides a nice break from university work or just lets me get away from everything for a couple of hours a week. Escapism is something that I'm always interested in findings new forms of but this is my constant and the thing I can always be sure to make me feel a little bit better - call me sick because I've been called worse in the past! Anyway what inspiration did Eastenders provide me with this week? There is currently a storyline about Phil Mitchell (everyone must know Phil!) and his son Ben who has recently realised he's gay. The thing is that Ben is petrified of him finding out and only him and and an old dude Patrick (who caught him kissing a guy) knows. Phil thinks that Patrick is picking on Ben and subsequently Phil is going crazy with people calling him a racist and other such things. The thing is that this is having an affect on lots of different people in the show and this is where today's message comes from.

Home or Away?

Sadly this post is going to be written in a little bit of a rush this evening and so I'm going to have to limit it to one of those posts where I put forward a simple idea for you to all think about. I'm sure I've dabbled in this topic before but I'm going to refresh my thoughts on it through this question that I've been thinking about recently: is home really where the heart is? I've gone home for the last three weekends for one reason or another (mainly for football) and every time I go home it's like I've been away for ages when I get home and then it gradually turns into a feeling of I've never been away. I've come to one personal conclusion on the matter that it is what is at home that is where my heart is. I love my house and I feel most at home there naturally but it's the fact that my family are there which makes me look forward to going home most. I really enjoy being in Edinburgh (in fact I think that in the future I would like to live here) but it doesn't yet hold the same meaning as home does - I wonder when I'll grow out of it...


Apologies for the brief post this evening but I'm running to a tight schedule just now!


Martin

The One-Upmanship Complex

It doesn't take very long before university students get down to the conversation of how good their respective universities are. If there happens to be a group of people coming together from various establishments then that particular conversation tends to occur sooner rather than later. The usual spiels relate to some kind of ranking system where someones university is 3 places above another out of 1000000 and for someone looking in from the outside it just wouldn't make any sense but I've come up with the reason why people do it. It's not because they want to make other people feel bad about their university, it's not even because they are going to gain anything from it; it's because they are proud of their university.

Re-igniting my Passion for Something Lost

It usually takes something fairly major to shift a few things around in my life. The recent 'major' thing in question is obviously my return to university and all of the fun things that come with that - yes, I'm trying to have a good time! It has moved a few things around for me which I'm not going to get into but one of the many positives that have come out of the last week and a bit is that I've discovered my long lost passion for writing poetry. I can hear people groaning at the thought of more things being written by me ('the blog is enough you ass!') but I've actually got quite an interesting back-catalogue of poetry from about the start of 5th year until the end of high school which I occasionally revisit - sometimes for a laugh but for other reasons as well.

Could Face-to-Face be Phased Out?

As the dulcet tones of one of my university lecturers echoed through the corridor of my flat this afternoon, it dawned on me that personal contact isn't quite as important as it maybe once was. We (that being myself and 2 of my flatmates) had a lecture today that was replaced by a recorded lecture which was online. It was the same stuff that we would have been told had we all trudged over to the lecture theatre as our timetables tell us to but this week the lecturer in question was unable to attend and so made a digital version instead. It's a curiosity of the modern era that, in a time when we are told as youngsters to get away from the computer screen and become more sociable, we are being fed more and more information via the internet. Personally I like it because it adds a new level of flexibility to your day - something that I'm starting to feel is essential after only 3 days of 2nd year - but its long term affects could be perilous.

First Day Back at Big School

It's been a bit more than 3 months since I put down my pen in my last exam and set my sights for home for a long summer away from the textbooks and lecture theatres. Today it all started again and it's almost like I've never been away. My writing hand is a little stiff and my head still feels a stifle stuffy but I'm back and I'm where I belong again. Some people pine after time off so that they can 'relax' and do nothing with their endless days and, I must admit, at the end of the last academic year I was positively parched in the holiday sense. Speaking a few weeks ago you might have caught me saying that I didn't want to go back to university yet and that I felt that the holiday had flown past; looking at it now, I'm delighted to be back and, if anything, the holiday might just have been too long.

Embrace Debt for an Easier Life

Apologies for not posting yesterday but last night was my flat-warming party and I couldn't find the time to post. But anyway here I am, slightly worse for wear from last night and ready to post again. Today's post is about something that I noticed today (yes, that means that I didn't even have an idea for a post yesterday!) when I was walking through the university campus. It's freshers week at the moment and so the central area of the campus is very busy with students of all ages. What that then means is that you catch small chunks of a lot of conversations as you walk past people. It's usually quite funny when you catch little parts of other people's conversations because you don't have any context as to what they are talking about and the words therefore take on potentially wide ranging meanings. The thing about today was that I noticed one word come up at least twice in conversations that I passed that can't really be misconstrued - debt. It appears to be the word on every student's lips at this time of the year because this is when we start taking it on, safe in the knowledge that one day it will all have to be paid back. 

Euphoria by Night

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now - well over a year actually - but it only ever seems to pop into my head just after I've done my blogging for the week, stays there until the weekend and then I forget about it by Monday. It's actually a little strange that it ever slips my mind because it's something that I do think about quite a lot and it also fascinates me as well - the memory moves in mysterious ways. Picture the scene: you go around to a friends house armed with a 4 pack of beer with the intention of slowly sipping through them. You don't of course because when you are talking and having a good time you're drinking arm often slips into over time and before you know it you've got 4 empty cans and a slight gassy feeling. This has happened to me on a fair few occasions (although, let's be honest, I don't often only take 4 poxy beers to someone's house) but there have been a couple of times in my life when it's turned out to be a good thing and it is those times that today's post is based around.

Wounds That Might Not Heal

The sad reality of life is that you have to witness or suffer loss before you can truly appreciate what you have. I wrote in my last post about 'reality' and the pitfalls of ignoring it but I suppose when it's sad and negative it's often very tempting to turn a blind eye to it. The inspiration for today's post (even though it's a bit crass to be inspired by this) is the fact that the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is in a few days time. There have been lots of programmes on the TV this week and the newspapers have been packed with pictures and stories which are as harrowing as they are important. I've read a few of the stories of survivors, people that lost family and friends in the attacks and of course the rescue personnel and each of them pulled at my heart strings. Some of the pictures that have been brought back into the media is recent weeks speak a thousand words and then some more - still images that will be burned into the memories of victims and onlookers alike. If there is one thing that I've learned in the past week from all of the coverage of the anniversary is that the wounds from 9/11 will take many year to heal.

Reality Bites, But Only Because It's Hungry and Needs Attention

Much has been written recently (by myself more than most) about the impending rebirth of the university/college drag and today's post is going to be very much along the same lines. After all it is just around the corner for most of us and therefore the feelings are running a little bit higher about it than at any other point in the summer break. For me, today signals the 2 weeks notice until I pull myself out of bed at some unfamiliar hour for lectures that are going to twist and stretch my brain power to the max - this year never said it was going to be kind to me. My timetable for the year ahead was released last week and it looks pretty ugly - think Shrek after being hit over the face by a thick textbook. The reality of my situation is that the days are going to be longer and the stress levels are going to be elevated. The thing is that I knew it was coming and that's the reason why I think that I'm going to be able to take it in my stride. This is where I'm coming from in today post: if you prepare yourself for the reality of your situation and don't ignore it, it won't be quite as hard to deal with.

My Favourite Day of the Year

For people that are not fond of football or just don't follow it as much as most people, today will be like any other day of summer to them. Depending on where you are reading this the sun might well be shining and whatever you had planned for today will invariably have been pretty common - it's only a Wednesday after all. The thing is however, that for football fans across the globe and particularly in Britain, this day carries a lot of significance: it is (of course) transfer deadline day. I'm writing this post at about 5pm on the 31st August 2011 and it's killing me that I'm away from the TV at the moment. There are very few days like this that will capture the imagination of so many people and I, unashamedly, can admit that it is my favourite day of the year.

The Wrath of the Beer-Belly

I enjoy a good pint and I'm not afraid to admit it. I've grown to love the taste of a crisp, cold pint of beer or ale in the last few years and let's just say that I've had enough experience to lead me to this stage. When I started out drinking, beer was more or less all I would drink. After a few bad experiences with spirits and a deep loathing for cider, I settled on beer. At the time when I was just getting into drinking I over-indulged myself on quite a few occasions which is the norm with young adults. I've seen it all in the last few years: having to drink in people's houses because your not 18 yet and then when you turn 18 riding it for all it's worth. That in turn has led to many a teenage hangover of which I have had my fair share. The thing is that the hangover (which was not always a guaranteed outcome thankfully) was the only problem that I would have with drinking too much. Now that I'm a bit older I'm starting to fear the specter of many a beer drinker - the beer-belly.

Why the E-book is Ruining My Dreams

We all have little dreams that we play around with in our heads that we turn into something huge. I think that it's a shame that people don't talk about their dreams that often because I would love to know what everyone pines after; what makes people get up in the morning. Some dreams always stay just the way they are - far off desires that are ultimately unattainable (Mick Jagger knew what he was talking about) - but others come to fruition. If I was list my dreams in some kind of ranking system the first thing I would notice is probably just how ambitious I am and whether or not I can translate that ambition into something valuable. The next thing that I would notice is just how many of the things that I dream about having one day are attainable with some good old hard work. One of the the things that is right up there for me is having my own library. For those of you that have seen Frasier and have watched it as much as I have, the kind of room I'm talking about is the library that Niles' has in his apartment (watch this to get an idea). Sadly I don't think that I'm ever going to realise such an ambition. Not because I don't think I'll ever have a house that's big enough or a collection of books that's nice enough. No, I just don't think there is going to be any books in publication by the time I get there!

Thought Provoking

With only being able to post once last week I've been thinking about something new that I could do for this week that will quench to almost palpable thirst for posts that I can sense from my readers. The thing that I've come up with almost seems like a contradiction to that because my plan is to write a shorter post with a single line that is sure to get you thinking. So today's post is going to be less than long and might fail to inspire many people but I hope that it hits home with at least a handful of people.

I heard this line a long time ago on a (very) early morning jazz radio program when I was heading on holiday - the reason I was up at that time listening to the radio. I can't quite remember what they were talking about apart from the fact that it was something to do with jazz but it was something that really hit a chord with me and it had me thinking for most of my journey: to feel completely free you must first fully restrict yourself. It was something to do with jazz in the context of the program but I felt that it could apply to life in general. The message I took was that to truly feel the freedom of a holiday or just time off you have to fully commit yourself to the complete opposite, be it university, school or work. Yes everyone enjoys time off from things but it is my feeling that you have to earn that time off by fully restricting yourself first.

Thanks for reading my short but hopefully thought provoking post today!

Martin

Waiting for Something to Happen

With little over a month until I return to university I'm trying to find ways to reinvigorate myself. I've been 'out of the game' for a pretty long time and it's starting to play on my mind a little that I'm not going to be able to do it all again. For someone who's confidence more or less only lies with his academic ability it's quite a shock to the system; then again I've suffered from a fear of failure before and this, surely, is no different. So again I find myself sitting here on a Monday night trying to search deep into my psyche to find something to write about that is fresh off the emotional press and this is just about all that I've got going on with me just now. I think that it all comes from having itchy feet - I just want to get back to it again. 

London Riots: Who Picks up the Bill?

I felt like a ghoul when I stayed up until the early hours of Monday morning watching the live news coverage of the riots in London. It was almost addictive watching it as streams of breaking news rolled slowly along the bottom of the screen to reveal where the violence had spread to. The urge I had to avoid sleep to keep up to date was fueled by the hope that the next update from the terrified and bewildered reporters on the streets would be a positive one - they never were. Monday night produced pictures that will be burned into the memories of millions of people, especially the ones that were there and (more specifically) the ones that have been affected so terribly by the criminality of mindless youths. The harrowing stories that have emerged over the last few days have hit home harder than any of those pictures ever could. They provide a background to the smoldering buildings and ransacked shops and tell of the prevalent fear that London is currently awash with. Those pictures and stories, however, are not able to explain to us how things are going to be fixed. Will insurance policies provide the necessary payouts to get home and shop owners back on their feet? Do the police have a duty to compensate those who have lost so much? Can those people's lives ever be the same again?

Building Myself Up for a Fall

Firstly it would be more than rude to not apologise to the few people that look forward to reading my posts every week on the days that I usually publish. I might have kind of, sort of forgotten to tell everyone that I was going away for a week of peace and tranquility and selfish old me only realised that it had slipped my mind when I got to the place with a lack of internet connection - it seems that the internet hasn't touched every house in the world (and the moon which is actually really nice this time of year). Anyway I'm back now and wanting more than ever to sit down and blog; the thing is that I want more! I've been dabbling with a few ideas as of late which regard starting a new blog with a more focused topic (which itself, like the possibility of starting this new blog, has yet to be decided). I would of course keep writing on Ramblings of a Teenager until my membership to that age-group expires in little over 7 months time but I would love to know that I would have another established blog by that time. The idea of writing two polar opposite blogs excites me but I'm afraid that, as the title of this post suggests, I'm building myself up for a big fall.

The Weekend the World Turned Blue

I find it funny when someone is asked if they watch the news and they say no because it's all depressing and there is never anything uplifting about it. I'm sorry but that wasn't in the mission statement when Sir Trevor MacDonald tapped his first pile of news on the desk all those years ago. Surely nobody can think that the world is a perfect place where only good things happen but to be able to accept that that is not true yet still not watch the news is simply a crime. News is what drives our days: it gives us things to talk about and debate, it provides us with a view of what the world is really like and for this reason it keeps us firmly in reality. The news should be watched, listened to, read and digested by everyone in the world because we learn from it as much as we create it. That 'reality' that I mentioned before was firmly bolted onto everyone's conscious at the weekend with the terrible news of the tragic murders in Norway and then with the sad news that Amy Winehouse lost her life. People should watch the news even if these kinds of thing are prevalent - there is no point in ignoring it because things are always going to be like that.

The Importance of Remembering

Notebooks. I live and swear by them for everything from university lecture notes to writing in my spare time and I've got a fair few floating around the place filled with just about everything you could think about writing down. In the last couple of days I've found myself searching out some of my older ones and having a thumb through them to see what they hold. Most of the stuff in them is lists, little bits of maths from my time at high school and lots and lots of poetry but, no matter what the content is, everything holds a memory for me. It is one of my habits that I'm most happy about because through these multiple notebooks I've managed (inadvertently) to paint a picture of myself from about 3 or 4 years ago which otherwise would have been lost and fleeting flashbacks in my head would be all that I have left. I find that it's important to remember who you were as well as who you are. The person that you are now owes a lot to the person that stood in your shoes in the past and having things to remind you of how you once were is one of the most invaluable tools at your disposal as we all seek to better ourselves.

Different Years, Different Ears

You might have noticed that there is now a new tab residing at the top of my blog - 'Taste of the Moment' - which has come as a result of a shift in the music that I'm listening to at the moment. I've always been one to have one of those music libraries that almost makes no sense; a mix of almost everything is something that I've always found myself with. I take great pleasure in putting my music on shuffle and seeing where it takes me but recently I've started to do that a lot less. Instead I've become an album listener (that being the whole album in one sitting) which somewhat signals a change in my approach to music listening. And it's not only the way I'm listening to music nowadays, it's also what I'm listening to as well. I've found myself going back to my Dad's music collection again for more Bowie, Clapton, Young etc and I've certainly been rewarded. In today's post I'm going to talk about a couple more artists (on top of the ones mentioned above) that I've taken a real liking to in the last few months.

Mind Numbing

I'm sitting in front on my laptop trying to work out what I could write about tonight and nothing is coming to me - and I mean nothing. Some people might put this down as writer's block but I put it down to being idle. Over the last 2 and a half months I've not really done anything that stimulates my brain. Even my holiday is a distant memory that feels like it could have been a year ago instead of a month. I ask myself what I've been doing with my time since I finished university and I sadly come up with very little. I've only finished 1 book this summer and I've hardly got started on another one since then. I've not even found the energy to watch the films and TV shows that I planned to watch which is crazy since I've had so much time before my trip and after to do such things that I can't understand why I haven't. It's now brought me to the conclusion that I've numbed my brain and that I'm going to have to train it back up to be on top form when the new university year comes around. It's not going to be easy and finding the motivation is going to be the toughest part of it but it's something that I've just got to do.

Red-Top Ruckus on the Newspaper Stands

It feels like the privacy of the public has been hacked off at the knees. And the elbows. And the neck. Recent revelations about the dealings of the News of the World newspaper has shocked the nation and the fine people that reside here. Heck, the whole world has been shocked by what vile atrocities have been glooping out of the news as of late - the News of the World has, for all of the wrong reasons, become world news.  Personally I've never been a bit fan of the red-tops anyway and have only even bought a single copy of one of them - and only for a laugh too. I can almost see where the appeal comes from and where the high sales are achieved but I'll never be converted. I'm more of a Guardian/Observer man myself and you can call me a snob but when it comes to journalism and newspaper production, quality always beats page 3 for me. I like to be able to read a paper where I know that I can trust and believe 99% of what is written - something that I don't believe ever has been the case with tabloid newspapers and has been diminished further in my eyes due to recent, shocking reports. 

Subtlety in Blogging

Blogging is an incredible creature. Yes I may well have a biased view on this topic since I've had a blog in my life for quite a while now but I think that my opener encapsulates the general consensus amongst fellow bloggers and blog readers alike. Blogs are very flexible, they can be accessed by anyone on the internet and the content can appeal to so many different types of people. 

When I started out I thought about starting up a 'marmite' blog where the topic of the posts would be very focused and would only appeal to the minority. In many respects this blog that you find yourself on today is testament to the fact that I chose to make this blog appeal to as many people as possible. I might well have shot myself in the foot with that decision because now I write one of millions of 'generic' blogs on the internet and therefore it is hard to get readers. This blog (contrary to the title) isn't even exclusively for teenagers either - it's hard to come up with a unique selling point. Those negatives aside however, I get to write about anything I want to. It's a great thing to be able to play around with because, despite it being generic, I know my audience (damn, I know most of my readers) and therefore I can pitch my posts at them and see what they think. The only problem with this (and yes, I'm being a little negative today but I'm slightly hungover) is that I have to try and be subtle when it comes to writing about things that relate to people I know. I don't name names and I don't act as a news-broadcaster for people's lives - I just put down my take on an event, nothing more nothing less.

A Dreaming Psycho

How often do you remember your dreams? I think that I'm lucky if I can remember (even parts of) mine twice in the space of about two weeks. I know people that can trot theirs off from start to finish and it makes me slightly jealous - until recently anyway. I had a dream a couple of weeks back that really creeped me out and put me off wanting to remember my dreams so much. Below I'll give a brief description as to what happened and how I felt when I woke up and then, if you haven't closed your browser by that point, I'm going to see if this reflection has helped. I've heard that you should write your dreams down when they are still fresh in your memory because over time it builds up a picture of your subconscious. I think that my notebook would be a very slim volume with a few less than savory reminders of my night-time wonderings.

The Internet: The Third Arm of Society

You learn a lot about people when you travel. I'm not talking about the people that you are traveling with in particular because you are bound to get to know them better; I mean the people that you encounter along the way. Traveling appeals to lots of different types of people and therefore when you stay in hostels all over Europe you get to see a very clean cross-section of the 'world society'. Anyone who has ever been in a hostel (either at home or abroad) will understand the kind of mix of people that can be found in places like that - it's all very interesting. One of the main things that I observed about these people when I was on holiday was that they all had one thing in common: they all wanted access to the internet. No matter what type of person it was or where they were from, everyone hovered around the computers in the hostel until there was one free. Most of them were looking for their fix of Facebook but no matter what they wanted to do online it struck me that whatever it was, it was vital. It brought me to the conclusion that most people (particularly young people) can't live without access to the internet for longer than a few days. I'm no different and I knew that I was going to struggle but it's nice to know that I'm one many who need to have the internet at their fingertips whenever they desire it.

Too Much to Learn? Deal With It

It's Monday and I'm me; there is not much else for it than to write a 'Me on Monday' post! After well over a month of eerie silence and wasted opportunities, I'm back for good this time and hopefully the coming weeks and months are going to prove fruitful on the blogging front. Today's post is regarding something that niggles away at me almost every single day of my life. It's a problem that I'm sure I'm not alone with and one that is probably most overt in our teenage years. The problem that I'm talking about is 'choosing' what you are going to learn. Obviously we don't get the choice with a lot of things (we're told what to learn at school and that is that) but then there are those extra-curricular things - the things that make us who we are. Now I've written much on this topic in the past including this post which in which I list the things that I want to learn to do - safe to say that not much of it has been learned in the 6 months since I wrote it. It's not even a case of me not wanting to (of course I do) but when I think about all of the things that I want to do with my spare time I get bogged down and end up doing nothing. This is not the wisest way forward and I'll never learn anything new at this rate. Hopefully this post might help to remedy the situation.

Summary of a Summery Holiday

I've been thinking about writing this post ever since the wheels of my flight left Scottish soil almost a month ago. In fact right from the moment when I knew that I was going on holiday I already had it in my head that, yes I was going to miss a whole month of posting, but that at the end of it I would have some really great things to write about - I was not far from the mark. The truth is that I've got so much to write about from my 3 and a bit weeks of traveling around Europe that I'm not sure that there is enough disk space on any computer in the world to hold it all. My fingers have been twitching for a long time as I've encountered new and interesting things; it felt like I had lost a limb with not being able to post for a whole month. Had it been for any other reason than being on one of the best holidays of my life I doubt that I would have been so accepting of the situation. Anyway, enough of the reasons for me not being able to write and lets get back on it! My holiday consisted of 5 different stops right up the middle of central Europe: Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague and Berlin. The plan for this post is to give a little insight into my favourite things about each of them. I should say that this post comes with a warning though: I'm going to recommend that you visit each of these places and will continue to do so for pretty much every post that I write about my holiday - for this I can only apologise!

Home!

My fingers are stiff and my brain is labored by writers block but I'm back and I'm here to stay. The month that I've been away from this blog has been one of the most exciting and stimulating of my life and I hope to be able to portray that in my up coming posts. It is safe to say that I've missed writing more than I've missed most things but you'll all be glad to hear that I've been keeping an eye and an ear out for interesting things to write about and I think I've got a juicy little batch waited to be squeezed through this keyboard in the coming weeks and months. Anyone that has started a blog will know that it is sometimes difficult to come up with ideas on a regular basis but this, for bloggers, is the bread and butter thing that you have to be able to do otherwise you just won't get readers. My hope is that my recent spells of silence (for my exams and of course my holiday) haven't left people feeling bored with the idea of my blog. If anything I'm more excited about blogging than I have been for a long time and I'm going to try and give something back to everyone that sits down on a regular basis to read my posts. A month is a long time in a teenager's life and I feel like I've undergone a few changes in that time because of things, both good and bad, that have happened in my life. So here is to what promises to be a fruitful summer of writing and I hope you enjoy what I've got to say in my future posts!

Much love,

Martin

My Passion for the Blog

Standing on the brink of another break from writing this blog, I've suddenly got a greater passion for it than ever - so much so that it's going to be hard not being able to post for the 3 weeks that I'm on the continent. That said though, I'm going to be traveling for 3 weeks which will take the edge off this disappointment somewhat. It'll also give me a chance to think about new things to write and might make the things that I write about more interesting. I feel that the best way to make your writing interesting is by being able to include personal experiences in it - something that I should have in abundance come the end of June.

Happiness is in the Eye of the Beholder

I've been waiting to use this piece of writing for a while and, to be perfectly honest, I don't know why I have been holding it hostage for so long. The thing is that I don't get sent much in the way of guest writer material and I guess that I've been keeping it 'special' for a while - something in the bank for a the day when writer's block reigns supreme. The thing is that I'm not struggling to write stuff this week but I felt that I would go for a little bit of variety. It means that I now have no more guest writer pieces and so I'm asking for more - people always seem to love them as well. The great thing about the material that I've got for you today is that the person doesn't think they are that good. I think that it's true that some people just can't get to grips with writing but my feeling is that everyone has something to say no matter how 'bad' they think they are. Don't compare yourself to the stuff that I write every week for the very reason that I get quite a lot of practice. Most people have the natural ability, it's just whether they choose to hone that ability as I have. Anyway here's my most recent offering from a guest writer; someone that has more talent that they know:

Human Sculptors

If I've never used the phrase 'learn from your mistakes' in at least one of my blog posts in the past then I'll be shocked. I feel that the sentiment behind saying such a thing can also be applied to good things in your life: 'learn from your successes' so to speak. It is through the things that we do, and the things we don't do for that matter, that we become who we are. If we were all to sit indoors all day not doing anything or testing ourselves against anyone then we would remain the same until the day we decide to get up and move. It is through physical and mental acts that we create who we are and, as the title of this post suggests, sculpt ourselves in the way that we want.

The Tourist Psychology

Living in the capital of Scotland I encounter my fair share of tourists. You can usually spot them a mile off with their cameras pointing up at some unknown building ('that's just a Greggs mate!') and a map sprawled across their face because of the relentless gale blowing at them from every which way. In fact the easiest thing you can do to identify a tourist during the week is by asking yourself if they are either a student or a businessperson; if they are neither of those then it is highly likely that they are in town for the sights and sounds. I love seeing tourists because they all seem so happy - they have every right to be, they're on holiday after all - and they make you see your home city in a whole different way. For example, I saw a group of tourists (it was the camera thing this time that gave them away) standing at the top of one of Edinburgh's many steep closes and I thought 'what in St Giles' name are they looking at?': it turns out that if you stop to look down those steep piles of steps, it's something to behold. Instead of getting your head down to avoid eye-contact with the junkie standing on one of the steps, have a look past him (or the ever increasing number of 'hers' I see at the side of streets) and appreciate how cool these places are. If it turns out that there wasn't much to look at then the chances are that the tourists were in fact taking pictures of said junkie - they are (sadly) a part of our culture after all.

It's Good to be Back!

As I clear my throat and stretch off my weary fingers, it feels good to be back. My great loves in life are football, books and people but I never considered myself to have something that was a little different - something that I could say was mine. Until this blog was started about a year and a half ago I think it would be fair to say that I was without a hobby. I started it up because I had something to write on a cold day in January and here we are today, over 60 posts later and I've realised just how important this empty text box is to me. These last 2 weeks have been some of the most challenging of my life and have certainly put me and everyone around me through the wringer like never before. I think it was a good idea to take a little break from writing my blog but I really have missed it - have you guys? I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if I was to stop doing it all together because that's generally what happens with blogs over time; unless it hits the big-time the writer gets bored. I've always maintained that I will be happy even if only one person reads what I've got to write and that looks set to continue. It's good to be back!

Notice of Silence

Hey guys. This is going to be a very brief post basically saying that I'm not going to be blogging for the next couple of weeks because of my exams. It might be nice to have some time to think of new and more interesting posts and I plan to have a 'bumper' week when all of my exams are finished and I can try and get back to a little bit of normality. All that remains to be said is 'here goes nothing'...

Over and out (for now),

Martin

A Life Without the Monarchy

You know you have problems when even your habits (good or bad) are over taken by exam preparation. I've been writing two blog posts a week for quite a while and I was starting to find it something of a habit on Monday and Wednesday nights to sit down, write a post and then see what people thought - this did not happen on Monday. For those of you that have found themselves looking out for my posts (and I know that there are at least a few) you will have been scouring your Facebook feed, looking in desperation for what I promised a few people would be an interesting post. It wasn't there, as I imagine you will have noticed by now, and for this I apologise. It wasn't until I was settling into bed for a well deserved sleep that I realised I had forgotten something. I had a strong taste of mint in my mouth so I realised that it can't have been my teeth and so I quickly realised that I was without a blog post - that and I could hear the sound of crying coming from some of you die hard readers as you refreshed your feed over and over again. I'll try and not do it again without prior warning but my head is fairly mushed up with other stuff just now so no promises! Today's, I can happily inform you, will be on your feed. In fact that's probably how you got here so of course it was. I've been looking forward to writing this post for a multitude of reasons, some of which I am going to cover in this, my (recently changed) views on the British Monarchy. 

A Life Without Newspapers

I suppose I was being a little ambitious when I asked for some form of debate on my first 'Life Without...' post last week. In fact I am perfectly aware that people don't really like to comment on the sort of stuff that I'm writing about because it's there to be read, not ripped to shreds. I'm happy that people take time to read my posts; it might be a little to much to ask them to take even more time to write about them as well. So with that I'll move on to the second of my 'life without...' musings - newspapers. It strikes me that I am becoming a part of a rare breed that actually do read the papers. Of course there are people that have been doing it for many years and will continue to do it for as long as newspapers are available, but how long will that actually be? With the growth in the use of the internet and, in particular, portable devices that can access the internet anywhere and any time, where does that leave the good old broadsheet? How long will it be before the only thing that newspapers are used for are as a novelty lining for a bag of chips? In many ways it scares me. 

The Last Weekend

Nothing in the world hurts more than losing a week of your life. It only really happens when you're on holiday and more often than not you can get away with if for a fortnight or so. The only problem is that when those weeks are invaluable to you, their passing hurts more than your team losing the Champions League final - well almost! I'm probably one of the worst for this as well and now I stand at the edge of a two week run until my first exam with 'the fear' well and truly flowing through my veins. It took me until last week's break away by the beach to finally kick myself into gear. If I hadn't been away then I think I would be very close to being depressed which makes me understand, more than ever, why people go on holiday - we really need them or we risk losing the plot. So I got back from my week away in the lovely spring sunshine with a new found confidence and something that felt like motivation too. It was for this very reason why I treated myself with a weekend of gluttony. Now I'm at the other side of that how does it feel? I'm I just back where I started or have I finally turned the corner and climbed aboard the motivation express, next stop exams? I'm not sure yet.

A Life Without Celebrities

Aren't you all just so excited by this new series of posts that I'm going to do? Well it's yet to be seen whether or not they are going to be any good but I'll have a stab at them and see where it takes me - or us (profound huh?). The first is a constant subject of conversation amongst just about every group of people - celebrities. How different would our lives be without constant speculation and news about the same people, about the same stuff? When you watch 'celebrity' versions of game shows and see the people that the production teams have chosen, you really have to wonder if one person's idea of a celebrity is the same as the next's. The stock lines that I hear when a program comes on is 'who are they' or 'what have they done to make them a 'celebrity'? It often makes me laugh (as I'm sure it does you as well) when you compare yourself to those famous people. What have they got that we don't have? What do they bring to the world that is so much better than we can? I certainly believe that we could live without them in our own lives but still I think I might be in the minority with this, my first 'life without...' post.

We're Brought up to Tell the Truth - It's all a Lie

I still remember writing a post this time last year when I was away on holiday. The difference between now and then, amongst other things (or inter alia - damn I've been wanting to use that for a while!) is that I have an internet connection where I am - this is fresh off the press today people! What this leaves me with is the ability to write a post without having to: a) predict the future; and b) without having to adjust my writing style thereof. It also means that you lovely people won't go to bed this evening without that little taste of a ramble still in your mouths - something I'm sure will make you all very grateful of our quickly expanding technology network. The topic for today's post struck me as I was walking along the dunes. I passed some people on the path and I happened to catch a little bit of conversation: something about telling lies (or telling the truth, my memory fails me). In the rest of the time I spent out in the fresh air that day, I pondered the idea of lying. Is it as bad as people make it out to be? Where would some of the most successful people in the world be without lies? How often do people (even the ones we trust) lie to us? We just don't know.

A Life Without...

How I am managing to keep this blog up is beyond me at the moment. I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of revision and other such stressful past-times and for me to be able to continually produce two posts a week is therefore nothing short of a miracle. No, I've not been working every hour of every day (in fact there have been days where I've done nothing) but when I do find some time to get around to blogging I realise I've not been able to spend time thinking about something to write about. Where these words come from is often a mystery to me but, for your continual enjoyment, I shall keep posting until someone tells me to stop - please don't do that anytime soon; I'm having too much fun! The topic for today's post is more of an introduction than a stand alone post. I've been thinking about doing a 'series' of posts on the same theme for a while because that way I really don't have to spend too much time thinking about it before I sit down to write. It means that I'll have a good amount of fuel to go with (for Wednesday posts at least) for a while so that will be nice. The topic for this prospective set of posts is what our lives would be without some of the more fundamental things in our lives. How would we survive without cars? Would the world function without the common umbrella? Would I be able to get things done if there wasn't such a thing as coffee? I'm going to explore these questions in the coming weeks - hopefully I'll spark your brain into gear a little along the way!

The Voice in our Heads

Today's entry promises to be something of a short post since I am pretty tired from playing football for a large chunk of the day. It's nice to have good weather (if a little bit unpredictable) for stuff like that - lifts your mood somewhat. Today's post is about the things that go on inside our heads that make us go stir crazy - I'll try and keep this as cheery as possible, I promise! People say that talking to yourself is one of the first signs of madness but we all do it. Does this make us all crazy or is this the norm? I'm not really talking about vocalising with yourself but more the stuff that goes on inside your head. I'm talking to myself inside my head as I type this post and you'll talk inside your head to yourself when you have finished reading - it's perfectly natural. But what of those things that we spend hours thinking about (the opposite sex, exams etc)? Those are the kind of things that can really eat a person up something proper and I think we all need to learn how to deal with it before we can ever call ourselves happy.

There's a Book in All of Us

For those of you that get to this blog via Facebook (i.e. friends of mine), you will know that yesterday's post was missed because of a game of football. Under normal circumstances I would apologise for missing a post because there will undoubtedly be a bad reason for it but this time around my reason was perfectly justifiable. Football is one of the few things that I will ever put before writing this blog and, even though last night's result wasn't all that good for my team, I will continue to use it as a semi-valid reason for not producing the goods! This of course doesn't introduce this post very well and so I shall move swiftly onto that. I finished a very good book this week in which one of the characters was (eventually) a writer. It got me thinking about the fact that if you can write and think logically, surely you must have the ability to write a book yourself? I believe that we all have a story to tell whether it be about our own lives or lives of others; there is always something that can be written about it - why not a book?

The Emergence of Me

Mondays are back. After last week's lapse in posting, the day that is dedicated to what's going on in my life has returned - don't close the window yet! The funny thing about missing last week's post is that I find myself having two things to write about for today's post which is a very rare thing indeed. The fact that I didn't have anything to write about last week anyway also suggests that last week was a little bit more stimulating for me that my last week of university - how very weird indeed. I'm not going to get into the thing that I'm not going to write about today simply because it's a little bit of a touchy subject at the moment and in some ways I might be able to incorporate it into today's musings. My post today is about me pulling myself out of my shell in the last year or so. The fact that I had a week of doing almost nothing last week gave me a little time to think about the whole thing and this is what I've come up with...

Natural Selection

To open today's post with anything but an apology (or a least an explanation) for the absence of Monday's post would be nothing but rude. My body seems to think that it's in holiday mode and to a certain extent it is. I've had my last classes of the academic year and I've got a whole 6 weeks to play with before my exams come around - who can blame me for missing a 'Me on Mondays' post? Well if anyone can then it would be myself and I do and to be perfectly (and selfishly) honest, the only person I have to answer to is me so if anyone missed out on Monday then it was yours truly. On top of that, a Monday post requires something interesting to have happened in my recent life or at least for something interesting to have occurred to me about myself and nothing really has since last week. Silence is golden and short of blowing my own trumpet (again) I didn't really have anything to write about anyway. But anyway, moving on to today's post which will hopefully make up for a quiet week. As I reached for my 5th or 6th cup of coffee yesterday I wondered to myself if there might be a more natural way to wake myself up. That, in turn, got me thinking about what is actually 'natural' - it turns out that it was a bigger question than I originally thought.

The Two Views of Life

I sometimes wonder if I come a little bit too close to talking about myself all the time in this blog. The idea was to talk about myself on Mondays and then the rest of the world on Wednesdays but I sometimes wonder if I cross the two over a little bit too much. Today's post dances nicely along the line between the two as well but then again I'm going to (try to) avoid talking about myself too much! Monday's post wasn't one of my best because I actually felt a little bit drained after the weekend. Not that it was particularly taxing but I certainly think that having a good time can tire you out. Call me stupid but when you're having a good time you're inevitably going to be using more energy than when you aren't - it follows a fairly coherent line of thought if you ask me. After what was an awesome weekend I felt lethargic and to a certain extent I still do. I think I'll go back to being unenthusiastic for a few days to see if I can get my mojo back - or maybe I'll just start going to my bed earlier! Today's post is all about the two ways that you can look at everything we do in life. In one of last week's posts I talked about the difference between policy and operational decisions and today I'm going to talk about another two-sided thing - who needs tripartite concepts when all you need is 2?

A New Year

And so another birthday has come and gone and it's one that I'm unlikely to forget for a while. In the last couple of years I started to feel like things like birthdays and Christmas are losing their magic and fun - this year proved me wrong. In fact I did have a great (and very memorable) birthday a few years ago but for reasons which no longer really mean anything to me - hence the memory becomes less important as well. Yesterday (well the whole weekend actually) was one of the nicest days I've had in a long time and it has affirmed to me why people enjoy their birthday so much. I don't feel any different - why would I? - and the only thing that I'll have to get used to this time is instead of putting my old age down, I have to put my new age down - it's just a number at the end of the day. 

A Letter to No One

After what can only be described as a challenging read on Monday, I feel it is time to lift the quality of this weeks blogging back up - by have a guest writer post. It has been a long time since my last one of these simply based on the fact that nobody, no matter how many times I bring the idea up, seems to want to bite. People may very well enjoy my style of writing but when it comes to quality then I am of the belief that we all have it. Granted, if I wasn't a good writer I wouldn't be writing this blog but at the same time, everyone would have a blog if it came down to being good at it. It takes a passion for writing which I feel is lost by people when they are asked to write essays from a young age that they just don't care about. Of course there are people who just don't enjoy reading and writing but as someone who writes a lot, I would love to get to read more stuff by my peers. Today's post comes in the form of a passionately written letter which I'm sure you will all enjoy...

Policy and Operational Decisions

Yes, it was only a matter of time before I started to use analogies relating to the stuff that I'm learning at university. It's a habit that I've developed and I'm not surprised that its managed to worm its way into my blog - for better or worse, I'm yet to see. I don't actually think that this can be a bad thing however as it makes me feel like I'm challenging myself intellectually and that never hurts anyone. As the title of this post suggests, I am going to talk about the decisions that we all make and the effect that they have on us. Firstly I should probably just provide a little bit of background as to where this analogy comes from before I just fire into metaphors and the like. In public authorities you have what are called policy decisions and other things that are called operational decisions. The policy ones are the high level decisions that are made which affect everything, meaning that they have a long term and wide effect on things. Operational decisions on the other hand are the ones that are made 'on the ground' and apply only to the situation in hand and the best way to deal with that situation. The analogy I'm going to draw from this is that the decisions we make in life fall very much under these 2 categories. Firstly you make huge choices that affect your future and then you make those day-to-day choices that only really apply to that day or at the very most, your short-term future. Let me explain further...

When What is New is Old

When I sat down to write Monday's post, I wasn't really all that sure what I was going to write about. I guess the idea stemmed from the topic that I had in mind for today's post in that there is 'listening' aspect to it. When you think of listening, the first thing that pops into your head are ears - not in the literal sense obviously unless your whole body started to turn inside out! Through this wonderful connection I managed to produce one of my favourite pieces to date, proving that it can often be the most simple thought processes that produce great things. Today's post topic has been in my mind for a while which in itself is quite funny because since I spawned the idea, things have changed and continue to do so as I write. I've never been one for the top 40 music chart. On the rare occasion I do look at the chart or listen to the radio show on a Sunday, I find myself hearing the same song about 5 or 6 times in a row. Then I'll hear a little bit of genius from someone such as the wonderful Ellie Goulding; but then it'll go back to rap songs about someone's mum or 'saucy' songs by the latest, flash-in-the-pan, girl band. It is at this point I usually consult my iPod in an attempt to re-gain some sanity. If anyone has ever heard me dismiss another person's music taste then I would like to take this opportunity to revoke any such statement because a music taste is one of the best things that people have as individuals. I'm always a bit skeptical when someone's iPod is filled with chart music, but I'll turn a blind eye (or ear if that's possible and no I honestly don't have a fetish) to those ones then go and put some of my own music on.

Ears of Practise

Do my ears hang low? Can I swing them to and fro? Can I tie them in a knot or tie them in a bow? Can I swing them over my shoulder like a regimental soldier? Do my ears hang low? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes. For those of you that have known me for a while or even only a few months, you will know that my lugs are quite interesting creatures. I can't recall a social setting where my ears haven't been the topic of discussion, whether it be for their size or the fact that I can wiggle them 'to and fro'. They are not quite as protruding as they used to be but they are still one of my most distinguishing features - along with my dashingly good looks (line = crossed). When I look at old photo albums (which by the way is one of the best ways to spend your time) I see the same ears that I see every morning in the mirror in all of their glory. Of course they are the same ears - I've not had a transplant - but they have also been the same size for the last 10 years of my life. You know when you were younger and you got some clothes for your birthday that didn't quite fit and your Mum said you would grow into them? Well that's what I've had to do with my ears. The reason why I've given you this (potentially boring) background is because I've noticed recently that I'm hearing more and using them to better effect than ever. The power of the ears, along with your other faculties of course, cannot be underestimated and here's why. 

To Trust or Not to Trust - The Power of Wikipedia

Somehow I managed to get through all of my years at high school without ever having to produce a bibliography. When I tell people this they glare at me and I can feel their leer burn my face but I'm not sure why. I was of the mind that if I knew my stuff then I wouldn't have to look anything up and therefore I wouldn't have to cite anything. It's a very unprofessional way of writing essays as I am coming to realise, but then again it seemed to work pretty well for me. The thing is that I can't get away with that anymore. At university there is too much stuff sitting in books that you don't know for you to be able to get by on only the 'stuff' that you do. If I was to hand in an essay to any one of my tutors that hadn't been properly referenced then there is a good chance I would get pulled up for plagiarism and then swiftly put out on my ear by the powers that be. The thing is that it would have been far from deliberate but because I'm reading so much material now that it's sometimes hard to tell which words are mine and which aren't. As a result my essays are a minefield of footnotes, stapled firmly to a bibliography. I actually don't mind writing this type of essay. If anything I'm enjoying it more than the usual splurge of text that I would punt out for every essay in high school. However it is a time consuming business which brings me on to the topic for this post: Wikipedia. There has hardly been a piece of work that I've done since coming to university which I haven't started at Wikipedia for. We're not allowed to reference it (if one more teacher tells me this then I may flip) so why do I bother using it? I'll tell you why...