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.