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. 

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.

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

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.