Decaff Coffee and Other Stories From the Past Week

Britney Spears famously sang 'whoops I did it again' - and look at what happened to her. Yes, after two weeks of waxing lyrical about how things have changed for me and how I was going to change, things hit a new (but familiar) all time low for me last week. In today's post I'm going to summarise a few of the things that have happened since Ramblings of a Teenager was last published. I think that you should get yourself comfortable because this promises to be a lengthy post that should make you both laugh and cry in equal measure.

Where better to begin than with the aftermath of last Wednesday's post. I'm not going to lie and say that I regret writing it because I don't. There have been only a few moments in the life of this blog where I felt I was writing something so personal and it felt nice to get it off of my chest. It was a post that was written in a style that I'm not used to writing away from my journal and for me to lay a part of myself bare like that took a little bit of self-encouragement on my part. In fact, 'Just a Glance' could easily be a blurb for a large chunk of what I write about in my journal and therefore you might think yourselves to be the luckiest people on the Internet - you decide. I realised the next day that I had been a bad law student/blog writer when I failed to put in a disclaimer saying that I didn't want any questions as to the identity of this girl. Suffice to say I've been bombarded since by questions and for that I feel a little daft - think before you publish in future has to be the moral of this story.

So anyway the whole thing has brought some level of jocularity to my days because every time I see her I think back to the words that I used last week and chuckle to myself. She'll never know of the frivolities of this blog and I'm sure she wouldn't care if she did - that's what makes me laugh. I might even go as far to say that she is naively attractive but that might be pushing the boat out too far. I stumbled across her Facebook page (which will happen when you spend the amount of time on that thing as I do) and tampered with the idea of 'adding' her. Never have I felt like a stalker before and never again do I want to feel like one and so that was the end of that. It's funny how these things play out in my head sometimes but I'm almost certain that similar stuff goes on in the heads of lots of guys (and probably girls) across the world. In no way is this situation unique.

Since I'm a fan of continuity I'll use the above tale to lead this post on to that low point that I referred to above. Thursday night was the pub quiz again and after the week before you would have thought that I would have taken the drinking a bit more easily. However, I guess I must have drank too much again because half way through my lecture the morning after it was time for me to leave and for everyone else to stay - that is all I'm saying on the matter. The reason why there is continuity (although having to explain this possibly takes the edge off a bit) is that as I was leaving the lecture theatre with about 150 pairs of eyes on me, I caught her out of the corner of mine. My misery was compounded with this and off I slumped with my tail (that being my last shred of Friday morning dignity) between my legs - not cool. 

So I more or less spent the rest of Friday feeling sorry for myself. The folk that were with me during the day will know that I kept hitting myself on my head in frustration as to the state I was in and spent every moment in between looking awful. I went home in the afternoon and told this story to my parents. They called me daft and suggested (in the way that parents do) to try and ease off a little. It shouldn't have taken that but I always do as they say and will be doing a lot of 'easing off' over the coming weeks.

After nursing my misery for a whole day I woke up on Saturday morning to find that my exam results were up - finally. It was in the following hour that I felt that something was back; I wasn't sure what but it was back. After finding out how I had done there was a lot of fist-pumping and (for some reason) a lot of chest beating mixed with sheer adrenaline flowing through every part of my body. I sit here now looking back on Saturday morning with fondness and now I feel like I'm riding a wave that I feel could carry me anywhere - what a difference a day can make.

So here we are the week after all of that fun and, as I sit drinking my umpteenth cup of decaff coffee (because I can) I feel slightly wiser than I did this time last week. The last 3 weeks of my life have been some of the toughest for reasons that I didn't know before. I now know that my head was in the wrong place and that there was only one thing to fix that. The weight that has been lifted off my with the release of the exam results is almost palpable and now I feel ready to charge on with the rest of the year. I'm not perfect (and I never thought I was) because I'll always have vices such as being attracted to girls I can't have but there is something much higher than that which I will always believe in - my brains and my ability.

If you got down to this paragraph then thanks for sticking with me tonight. I understand it's been a bit of a bore for a lot of you but if anything reading something like this should trigger you to think about yourself. A little bit of soul searching now and again is often needed and I feel better for it.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

Just a Glance

It has been a rarity recently for me to write on a Wednesday since I started playing 5s after university. Tonight was very close to being no different really because I'm pretty tired and it hurts to sit still for a prolonged period - suffice to say that tonight's post is going to be brief. I have been withering about producing this post for a wee while now because of the repercussions that I might suffer as a result. I'm not worried that I'll annoy anyone but I am slightly concerned about the effect that this might have on me when I publish in about half an hour's time. It will either go well or it will end up in a foot-in-mouth situation so read on to find out what the outcome will be.

Location, Location, Location

Don't you just love it when something comes up and hits you in the face? I'm obviously talking about a good idea but then again if you're into being punched then don't let me judge you - although I might just do that. I've been on the brink of writing this post for a while now but I've never quite known the right words to say. Admittedly I'm not actually sure if I yet know those words but I'm low on ideas for a voluminous post and it makes no sense for me to have it on my mind for much longer.

I should probably start by explaining the 'good idea' that came to me as I sat down to write this post a few minutes ago. It wasn't an urge to watch Kirsty and Phil (on everyone's favourite house buying show) that lead me to title this post up as I have but rather it was the subject of it. I've recently becoming very conscious of how I feel in different places, with 3 in particular jumping out at me - see how I enjoyed being struck by this idea now?

Back on the Horse

I must say straight away that the only reason that I'm writing this post tonight is because I was just watching Big Bang Theory - that is all. Well, OK I'll explain a bit further in depth in a second but I wasn't planning on writing tonight (shock horror!) because I'm pretty tired and I cut my hand on a broken glass this evening - can't say I'm enjoying this typing malarkey at the moment to be fair. I'll crack on with this smashing post though (might as well embrace this evening's clumsiness) and get back to what I was saying above. Raj said to Leonard that he needs to get 'back on the whores'. He was swiftly corrected by a bemused Howard whilst I chuckled myself into a post dinner stitch and decided that I might as well write about my first day back at big school.

The Week of Coffee, Chocolate and the Box-Set

If someone was ever to write a book about my life then the last few days would be referred to as the title of this post. After initially getting over the confusion as to why someone was writing my biography (and checking they were mentally sound) I would have to ensure that such names were used to describe the inane details of my life - I doubt if it would be an easy read. This last week of my holiday has been spent drinking my favourite brown coloured drink (closely followed by a cup of Bovril), eating more chocolate that I have in the last 5 years and watching the same amount of House as I usually do in these times of 'vacation'. If you read my post on Monday night then you were probably thinking afterwards just how much better you're holiday has been than mine. The truth is that it's actually not so bad at the other end of these fingers that type this sweet poetry to you this evening.

Satisfaction not Guaranteed

It was the longest holiday, it was the shortest holiday. It was the best holiday, it was the worst holiday. It the holiday of success, it was the holiday of failure. In short it was the holiday that I always thought that it was going to be - and there is still another week left of it. I actually feel a little bit daft opening my post like that because, as the more learned readers amongst you will have noticed, it is in the form of the opening to the Dickens book 'A Tale of Two Cities': a book that I've never read before but for a short period of time had memorised the famous opening. When I look back on little things like that from previous holidays (such a frivolous past-time only came a few summers ago) it makes me think how much time I've wasted and how much time I continue to waste as well. Even as I sit here, fighting through an almost palpable bowt of writer's block, I can't decide if I'm using my time well or not.

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. 

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

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! 

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.