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...