My Caffeine Dreams

I would like to be able to say that the recent lack of posts has been down to extreme exam preparation or because I was very busy with other important things, but I can't. The last month or so has been an odd time for me with the enevitability of exams that May brings not really hitting home at all - well I should probably say that the week running up to my maths exam was fairly ropey but only because I was beginning to infruiated myself with my incessant procrastination. So what have I been doing with all that time that has stopped me from blogging? Well I am pleased to say that I have mainly been reading for the last month and devouring myself with films that I always have meant to watch but never really found the time for. I believe that is not the worst use of my time but why I couldn't find just an hour in May to put up maybe an exam related post is beyond me: maybe because the exams just weren't such a bit part of my life this year or maybe there was just nothing to write about? Anyway I am back and hopefully this post will rekindle the interest of the few that I could always count on to peruse my posts back in the good old days of posts being published at least every fortnight (the good old days of course just being april).

One of the main constants over the last few months for me has not been revision or anything nearly as important as that but instead something a lot more trivial. It was only about this time a couple of years ago that I actually started to drink coffee but now it has become a habit for me. I will happily drink a few cups of coffee a day, sometimes even extending into 5 or 6 depending on how I feel. Of course this means I am pumping my body up with caffeine which would mean a lot of restless nights at the start of this habit but now it is a very rare night when I can't get to sleep because of it. In fact there are not many nights I can't get to sleep now and I think it might be down to late nights and early, highly caffainated mornings. Now I am sure that you do not want to read about what I drink so I am not going to go on about it but it is from this love of coffee that the inspiration for this post came from. As I said before, I am getting a lot of good sleep at the moment despite how much caffeine I drink. This has therefore provided me with many a dream which I can only link to the fact that I have been drinking coffee. I'll try and keep this short and sweet because some dreams are not worth writing about and there are others which I would rather keep to myself but certainly it's something that has really interested me over the last month or so.

Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? Well basically it is the art of being able to control what happens in your dreams and to be able to make decisions just like you would if you were awake. Some people can do it naturally but it is also something that you can teach yourself to do with a lot of hard work. I have read quite a lot about this and it is something that I have had the urge to attempt but never really found the motivation to do it. I have been through a lot of phases like this when I have found something that I could teach myself, started it and then put it in the back burner (almost literally because all of those little things like speed reading seemed to have burned away). So I guess that when I had what I thought to be my first 'caffeine dream' I was pretty lucky. I am sitting here not really knowing quite how to describe it actually because there is something indescribable about it. If you have ever had the dream when you fall in your sleep and it wakes you up then I think I am already half way to being able to tell you just what these experiences have been like for me. I have woken up in the past from a dream and felt like it was real but then these dreams that I have been having recently have gone a step up from that. I can remember the words that I say in the dreams and the actions I have taken in them as well. In fact there have been a few occasions when I have been standing in the shower in the morning when I would have to try and convince myself that whatever I dreamt didn't actually happen in real life. The characters that have been in the dreams have always been people that I know so that makes the whole thing seem even more real.

After having a quick gander on google about the effects of caffeine and stimulant drugs of dreams, it seems that instead of making my dreams more lucid, the caffeine is in fact just making me remember my dreams better than before. This suggests to me that I have always been having dreams like that but I have been unable to recollect them once I have woken up. It is an interesting idea that you can be dreaming but be completly unaware of it. Recently I downloaded Sigmund Freud's 'Dream Psychology' in audiobook form (for free of course because I have become quite canny at finding free and legal material as of late) which I have yet to listen to but although it might be a bit of a slog listening to it, it might bring up something that is realated to this pretty cool thing. It's a sad day when one of the most interesting thing in a guys life is the way that he remembers his dreams but then again this is the same guy that sitting writing a blog post fairly early in the morning when he could in fact be in bed. In fact it says a lot when I am currently wide awake because I am already onto my second cup of the day.

To say that I am addicted to caffeine would be far from the truth. Maybe during the first set of exams a couple of years ago when I first took to drinking coffee, I would put an extra spoon of instant into a mug just because it would make me more alert. Now it has become more of a pleasure than the search for a 'hit'. I now make up cefetieres of coffee instead of drinking instant all of the time and can now comfortably taste the difference between different kinds. The proof that I do not drink coffee now for the caffeine is in the fact that I drank decaffeinated for the first time a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it. So I would just like to make sure that you don't think I am a classy addict looking for a buzz now and again!

If you are not bored by this post by now then you must be on something; have you been drinking coffee by any chance? The idea that this post was ever going to be interesting for you to read is one that was really lost on me after writing the first paragraph but I thought that I better follow through with it and try and get myself back into writing again. Maybe nobody will read this post this time, maybe you are going to be the only one but let it be known that I will continue to write in this blog until I find a topic that really interests people. After a month away I am back and doesn't it just feel great. Now, stick the kettle on will you?

Thanks again for reading,

Martin

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go...Please

So as I sit down for yet another cup of strong coffee after a bad nights sleep I wonder if I am missing home. Getting away was something that I pined for a few weeks ago. The idea of getting away for a week to a beautiful wee town on the Fife coast seemed somewhat idyllic to me - and so it still is. Apart from the loss of the vital limb that is a connection to the internet and the fact that I have to stand outside if I want to use my phone, I love it here. The weather has treated me well and the sea air has left me feeling refreshed and revitalised after a period where I was feeling the lethargy that the unrelenting onset of exams seems to always bring for me. I thought that maybe getting away for a while and recollecting my thoughts a little might, in some ways, save me. To a certain extent I believe this has happened but I suppose that once I am back and finding myself trudging through the piles of notes and past papers that waits under my bed I will really know what this break has achieved.

It is an interesting challenge for me since I have no connection to the internet and so this post will not be put online until I get back so this is being written with no knowledge of the day when you guys will first read it. The topic of this post has been one that has simmered under the surface with me for a while. Any time I felt that I could sit down and bash it out, there was a reason that I worried that I would not be able to do it justice and so find myself on the brink of publishing a potentially funny yet rather skimmed view of my feelings on the matter. The topic is a fairly scary one for me to think about and will be one that everyone else will have contemplated at some point of the last few months - moving away from home. It's not something that worries me really, more something that excites me (although it has be said that if something excites me other people generally become scared so hold onto your hats for what could be a rather cathartic post). The main reason that I have not pulled myself up a 'new post' over the last few weeks has been that I am slightly worried that I may make someone depressed or even worse, cry. I am not in the habit of doing so which means that any crying you do from here on in should be about the poor quality of my writing and occasional bad joke. It is weird thought when I look at the different places that the people who I am close to are going. If you took a map of Britain and pin pointed all of the places that everyone you know is going for university then you are bound to realise that it is a massively diverse demographic. It is almost as if we have been getting chewed on for 6 years by high school and now we are being spat out across the nation. Some closer to home could be seen as the big lump of chewy beef that you just can't swallow and has to be slipped onto your plate and then the others - who need to change trains twice or more to get to their new cities - could be seen as a good hard peppercorn, spat like a bullet to a unliked relative at the other end of the table. It's always interesting when I hear people say that students don't chose their universities, they choose them. To a certain extent this can be true. In the unfortunate case when someone does not get offered a place at their first choice but at their second, the university becomes their substitute and so in this case has made up their minds for them. However when someone is lucky enough to get offered a place at more than one establishment that they are interested in then they immediately become the executors of their own future. This may seem to be moving away from the main point of moving from home but in reality it is the essence of the whole thing. I mean does someone decide to move to the furthest university from their homes just to get away? I certainly think not. Their choice is based upon their potential new lifestyles, the academic advantages but most of all there is always the question of 'how easy will it be for me to get home when I need some clothes washed?’ In my case that question occurred to me for a just a moment before the academic advantages of my chosen university became paramount but for some the thought of clean clothes for home is top of their list. Life away from home is always bound to be difficult, mainly because none of us have ever done it before. Personally I have never had to plan dinners, iron clothes, budget or worry about sharing a bathroom with people I don't know. All of these things will soon be a huge part of everyday life for me which indicates a seismic change which will be apparent in most new university student's lives. If I am honest, the comment I made at the start of this paragraph about moving away from home not worrying me is a complete lie. I worry about it every day and will continue to do so right up until it is reality. That, I suppose, is just human nature and is something that I’m sure you can all relate to.

The main reason why this post was going to be difficult to write for me was this - I am going to miss everyone massively. From the idea of knowing everyone’s faces to the simple things like a common room full of the laughter of unheard jokes. People will be going their separate ways in only a matter of months, some destined never to see or hear from each other ever again. I will even miss the people that I don't talk to because what they represent is a feeling of normality and continuity that will be lost as soon as we all walk out of the front doors of our high schools for the last time. I have heard people vowing never to go back again and people saying that they hate the place but, as I have alluded to in previous posts, people are going miss high school like they would a leg. As my head is slightly warped, I am now picturing those who have said to me that they will miss high school trading one of their legs for the right to stay on just for one more year. It’s a disgusting thought that I wish none of you to ever have but, such is the power of writing, you are all now picturing a blood bath in the craft and design department involving band-saws and duck tape. Sorry about that. As not to repeat myself from other posts, I will not list all of the things that I know people will miss but instead I will focus on the biggest one of all. The people that we spend every day of our lives with are the people that have sculpted us (for better or for worse) and are the people that we will miss the most. Surely the occasional bi-weekly email will not replace the day-to-day banter that we all know and love. Never will msn replace the exchange of pleasantries such as hugs (that goes for the guys as well). We think we have made it into a new age where we can keep up appearances with the occasional 'convo' or text but really there is not a thing in the world that can replace face-to-face communication. As I mentioned before, this is a most depressing thought and seems only to be getting darker as the post goes on but fear not for I am here to bring some light to your darkness. Who are these people that you will miss? List in your head the people that you will miss the most when you are away at university and then think about where those people are going and what they are going to study. Think about your current relationship with these people and how they will be affected by this new divide. Now what to do is think of a way to bridge that divide. When can you meet up again? When do these people come home and do they come home at the same time as you? Life away from your closest friends can still retain a certain level of normality. I have seen it with older people I know at university. Even the ones that have come up here from England or over from Ireland have found that life still goes on. You meet new people and then you introduce them to your old friends and they do likewise. Fear not about moving away from friends because if they are true friends then nothing at all will change.

Now just a short bit about the people you go to school with that you don't talk to just now but might one day come across and exchange pleasantries with. These people are surprisingly vital to how you are going to cope with moving to university in my opinion (I know I sound like a bit of an old-hand at all of this but I am speculating more than anything else about this particular point). They may be undesirable to you just now; you may not like them and they may not like you but it is important to realise that you will always have these people in your life. The faces and names may change and the feelings you feel for them may change but they will always be there and will never go away so there is really no need to worry about losing the ones that are currently around you - they are the old models, now bring on new people that you don't talk to.

Thanks for reading. I hope that I did not make you cry and if I did I am sincerely sorry. I'm joking of course because I know that every one that reads this knows all of this stuff and will have come up with their own way of dealing with this inevitability. I just thought that is was a good idea to document it maybe as a reference guide for those days when you get a little down about moving away. The moral of this post I suppose is that there is no point in feeling sad about moving away from all of the people that mean something to you. Make the most of the time that you have with them and don't look back on these next few months and regret anything.

Any comments would be very much appreciated on my Facebook page and even if you only want to object to this post or just heckle me then I'm more than happy to read your thoughts: I would rather you didn't of course because I have tendency to 'laugh out loud' at heckling.

Thanks again,

Martin

The Beginning of the End

WARNING: This post may cause you to reminisce and generally realise that maybe, just maybe high school wasn't as bad as all that.

So after my recent advance in years (that is turning 18) that I had been looking at as sort of the beginning of the end, I have now come to the point where I am ready to start to wrap up what has been a cracking 6 year period in my life. Some may say that school isn't cool, some may say that school is all about being a geek but I myself find that school has provided me with memories (an an education let’s not forget) that will last a lifetime. Now I feel that it is my duty after my last post to pull back in some of the humour that first few posts reeked of so I am going to try my best to make you laugh along the way as I try my hand at looking back over the last 6 years.

My first memory is of the induction days at school towards the end of primary 7. Now I thought I was the mutt’s nuts getting to go to the 'big school' and getting to do 'big school' stuff. As it turned out the 'big school' was a lot bigger than I could ever have imagined and so there I was, a wee boy in a building that felt like a continent. Primary school for me was where it was at for me after the 7 year stretch I did there. When I look back on what I was taught at primary, it really didn't prepare me in the slightest for what was to come. In fact when I think about it, after say primary 2 or 3, you didn't really learn that much. I still hear teachers at high school moaning about this matter saying that primary really doesn't prepare you for high school in the way that it should: it certainly never prepared me for peer groups, peer pressure or the periodical table. There was nothing in primary that I can say taught me about what high school was going to be like. When I got to high school I first thought that a bunsen burner would burn bunsen's (whatever they happened to be) and that a coping saw was some form looking at how we were dealing with the transition. So I would say that high school opened up a new world to us all - a world that was, before that closed to us.

I don't remember much of the first 4 years of high school if I am honest. If you read my 'Noughties' post then you will know that my memory is comparable to that of a common goldfish, even sometimes like the one that you just saw being flushed down the toilet after coming home from holiday to your pride and joy bobbing on the surface of the fish tank. As you can see that I had a childhood full of traumatic experiences like the dead fish(es) or the day that I broke my bugs bunny breakfast bowl. My childhood stank as a result of this trauma and so my memory took a massive hit. Ever wanted to know the reason for something and then come up with your own conclusion just to satisfy curiosity? Well I just blamed me lack of brain power on a cracked bowl so you can see that I am really clutching at straws here. The point that I am trying to make is that the first 4 years of high school were fun for me but never really a challenge. I never really had something to really get my teeth stuck into, nothing to excite me senses. It might even be said that I waltzed through these first 4 years with nothing to show except a few meaningless standard grades and a new perspective on girls. Now I mentioned back at the start that this post was supposed to be of fond memories of which there are plenty from these 4 years, but at the same time there are now that stand out. All the same I spent most of my waking life at school and not to enjoy it would have had a catastrophic effect on me, so I got on with it and in the end had a ball.

Now the last couple of years have been anything but uneventful. In that time I have discovered myself as a person, lost bad friends and made brilliant ones, learned that relationships can often kick you in the proverbial nuts sometimes and of course I have become smarter along the way as well. I like how I left the most important one until last but then again my prioritising skills have never been one of my best traits. So the last couple yours have been great fun for me. Not only am I now in a position to move onto higher education but I am also having the time of my life. Some may say that they wouldn't touch my lifestyle of studying, reading and the occasional heavy drinking session with a barge pole but those people are entitled to their own opinion and in most cases can take that barge pole place it somewhere uncomfortable. What high school has taught me is that there are a lot of different types of people in the world and yes I do believe that I can make such an assumption because at the end of the day, the people that I have been around for 6 years are the adults of tomorrow. I've learnt that you don't have to be like everyone, you don't have to make everyone laugh but as long as there is always someone there that you can trust then you know there is someone like you. There are people that I have come across in my high school career that I would not give the time of day to but then again there are people that I want to stay in contact with for the rest of my life. Being a high school student has let me sample different lifestyles and I know that I have chosen the best one for me.

Lastly I'm going to have a quick cathartic explosion about my last year at high school. Being a senior student has had its advantages and, to a lesser extent, its disadvantages as well. I have gained more confidence this year although I still have a tendency to turn red in certain situations (those of you who have seen this now have permission to laugh) but I would say that I don't do it as much anymore. I have also seen that there is a common ground between the older students and the teachers this year which has been a nice and highly enjoyable privilege this year. There of course is still the odd teacher that will speak to you as if they have just scraped you off their shoe but they are in the minority as far as my experiences have seen. The downsides to this year? Well they have actually been few and far between. I would say that the worst part of this year has been toilet duty where I will stand for 20 minutes outside the toilets where everyone that goes in will give me a dirty look; the kind of look that says "are you a pervert or do you just like the smell?". This hasn't been a highlight of the year for me really although I will look back on it one day and laugh at how wearing a prefect badge entitled me to stalk the toilets at break time without looking like a complete wally. I mean if I didn't have the badge and still did it then what would people say? But as I said the bad moments this year have been few and far between but even they will not be forgotten in a hurry.

So what has school meant to me overall? Well I would say that I now know what a bunsen burner is for and that no matter how much I frown, I will never put the fear of god into people going to the toilet. But seriously I haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of memories and good things that I have taken from this experience. There have been so many things that I have had the privilege to do and I will always look back on this time very fondly. Now all I have left is a few months there and you know, it might just be a place that I am going to end up missing - everyone get their tissues out (and lets block the toilets!!!) - not on my watch.

Thanks again for reading and I hope that you are now thinking back to your time at the place that we all claim to hate but really love - high school.

Respect the Buddha

Whilst wondering what to write my next post about I was truly stumped this time. I contemplated devising another theory based on a food product that I like but felt that this may alienate those of you who have taken to reading this blog. I suppose there is the possibilty to come up with something along those lines in the future because just the other day I did begin to wonder if the quality of a good dunking biscuit could be linked in some ways to human qualities but I am not quite sure how that one is going to work out. What's more is that I thought about this time writing something a bit different rather than about cheese or trying to maim myself. So I was sitting reading my book (A Little History of the World by Ernst Gombrich) when I realised that I had the topic right in front of me. Now this book is one that was written about 60 years ago in German for children. It was supposed to be easy for them to read whilst also providing them with a brief yet interesting look at the history of the world. It has since been translated into many languages and has become a classic not just for children. Now it was when I was reading the chapter that was talking about the teachings of Buddha that I was inspired to write this post. I will urge you to read on because I believe that this is one of the most interesting things that you are likely to think about this side of tomorrow.

I am going to give you a little bit of background information about the Buddha which is something that I never really knew about before reading this book. The Buddha, or Gautama Buddha, was born into a weathly family where he was going to grow up to be a prince. He was kept in his palace by his father and was never exposed to any ill, disabled or old people. This meant that he was never exposed to the terrible world that lay outside of his life of luxury. But one day curiosity got the better of him and he went out in a carriage to see for himself what was apparently to bad for him to see. He was obviously shocked with what he saw when he came across illness and beggars in the street but he took it all in and realised what it all meant. To cut everything a bit shorter as this story has many intricate details in it that I personally enjoy reading about but you yourself might not be so much, he became a hermit and went to live in the hills where he would sit under a tree and contemplate life, trying to find the meaning of everything and a way to achieve happiness. I am now going to quote a passage from this amazing book for you:

"The idea that came to him, his great Enlightenment, the solution to human suffering was this: if we want to avoid suffering, we must start with ourselves, because all suffering comes from our own desires. Think of it like this. If you are sad because you can't have something you want - maybe a book or a toy - you can do one of two things: you can do your best to get it, or you can stop wanting it. Either way, if you succeed, you won't be sad any more. This is what the Buddha taught. If we can stop ourselves wanting all the beautiful and pleasant things in life, and can learn to control our greed for happyness, comfort, recognition and affection, we shan't feel sad any more when, as so often happens, we fail to get what we want. He who ceases to wish for anything ceases to feel sad. If the appetite goes, the pain goes with it"

I must point out that I am not a religious person in any way really but at the same time nor I am against any religions either. I would imagine that if someone reading this had strong beliefs about another religion then they would completely disagree with everything that I have said but personally I am willing to read about anything like this and approach it with an open, fair mind. What I have just quoted is a paragraph that I read 3 or 4 times when I first read this chapter. It makes so much sense that I couldn't stop myself from reading it. There are very few times when I will appreciate something so much that I will go back and read it over again but this paragraph (along with many others in this book I must add) really caught my imagination.

I am also beginning to appreciate just how hard such a thing is to achieve. For example I am sitting in front of a laptop that I wanted, taking for granted material items that fill my bed room (along with some rather unsavory dirty clothes that I can't bring myself to move). Our lives are filled with these things that are there to make us feel good about ourselves. Not for a second am I saying that we should give up all of this stuff because that would be going to the extremes of this concept but what I am saying is that we should appreciate everything that we have and not take things for granted.

I know that those of you who have read my previous posts will have expected me to written a few bad jokes in this post coupled with a whole load of self deprecating satire but I felt the need to step away from that for a change. I mean I could have written about how I always thought that the Buddha was a fat man on a seat (which was actaully the depiction of him by a small ornament in the RE class rooms at school) but I thought that if I was going to be making a serious point about what he believed then it was better not to mock his weight. All I ask of you is that you scroll back up to the passage from the book and read it again, maybe changing example of toys and books to alcohol and clothes or something more relevant like that. I'm sure that you'll agree with me that it is something worth thinking about once in a while when you are feeling angry about not being able to afford something or not getting what you wanted for dinner. Life goes on as they say and I am now beginning to realise that there is a way to help it on its way when things get a bit frustrating.

Thanks for reading again guys.

(Quote and information from A Little History of the World by E.H Gombrich - English Translation 2005 Published by Yale University Press)