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)

My Cheese Theory

So I am in my kitchen today making myself a lovely cheese and chilli toasty when something occurs to me. Now this first thing has nothing to do with the 'theory' at all but it’s quite funny. I am cutting this cheese (nice big slab of white cheddar) and somehow I find myself almost cutting my ear off. I think I got a little ahead of myself and wanted to eat one of these perfect slices that I had been cutting so I pick one up with the knife in my hand, put the cheese in my mouth only to feel the cold edge of the blade on the outside edge of my ear. Now this was a scary moment for me as you can imagine. Never before had I thought that cutting or eating cheese could be such a dangerous pastime. The bad thing is that if any kind of health and safety boffins catch wind of this then there is a huge chance that teenagers may never be allowed to cut cheese in school so I suggest for those of you that are reading this who do some kind of cooking in school and enjoy the dairy delight that is cheese, then you laugh it off for the next few minutes and then forget it ever happened. I would also like to use this as a warning to fellow cheese slicers out there - don't try and multitask because it will more often than not go wrong; I guess I just got lucky. If my luck ever does run out and I do cut my ear off whilst cutting cheese or a similar food item then you'll know that my lack of 2 ears is not down to a romantic gesture Van Gogh style. It’s more likely that I cut a really juicy slice of red leicester that I couldn't wait to munch.

So now onto the main reason why I am talking about cheese and if I'm honest I have no idea where this is going to end up as I'm writing so just bare with me. Right, I'm in the kitchen cutting this cheese, cheating death all the while, when something occurs to me about the psychology of cheese. Now I am a lover of the stuff. I will eat almost any type from the basic cheddar to a nice mouldy gorgonzola. But it occurred to me that not everyone is the same. Now you think it's all just cheese, so what is there not to like? Some people can't stand the smell of some cheeses never mind the taste of them. These are the people that this 'theory' of mine is all about. Everyone likes cheddar - I think that is a fair enough comment (and if you don't then what is wrong with you?). But then that's where it stops. They never want to try other cheeses for some reason. The idea of only liking one small section of such a varied selection is the basis to what I am saying. I am going to stop talking in cheese talk now because I think I am going to lose my mind. I seemed like a good thing to use but I am going to pull away from it and talk proper english.

So this idea of liking a fraction of something so diverse is something that I think many people suffer quite badly from. I think that to have opened your mind up to something and then to have closed it to whatever else it offers is basically the equivalent of closing doors. An example (not to do with cheese you'll be glad to hear) might help me to make more sense. I would say that things like music and books are a good enough way of thinking about it. If you fully appreciate what good music is then you will be open minded about listening to almost any kind of music, even if just to see what it’s like, before dismissing it. If you like to read then surely you should be willing to read anything that is put in front of you, from Shakespeare to The Sun. Now we all, myself included, suffer from listening to the opinions of others far too much and we forget that we are more than capable of developing our own views on things. I don't think I would go as far to say that this 'theory' is the definition of being a philistine but at the same time that’s the idea that I’m trying to get over.

This post was never going to turn out to be something of pure genius or of deep insight but I think that I have almost managed to get my point over in the best way possible. For those of you who are sitting there confused out of your minds (thinking "what a freak this guy is") then I can understand that. There's something here that defines the person that I am though. Almost every day of my life I will think of something that makes me think "wow, that’s interesting". Whatever brought me to think this muddle of insanity up when I was in the kitchen today is beyond me at the moment but I feel that any kind of inspiration should be written down so that it can be looked at and revisited in the future.

I'm going to summarise what has been a bizarre post. The 'Cheese Theory' that I found somewhere in my head today is this: If you are willing to accept and sample one type of cheese, then why should you stop there. Apply that to anything you like or enjoy and then try to think what you have been missing out on as a result. It might only work if your head is as messed up as mine but I'm interested to hear what your 'cheese' is (that being the thing you like but have not fully explored).

If you have read this far then hats off to you because I myself might have stopped after the first paragraph. Thanks again for reading this and I hope that you understand what I'm talking about and don't just think I’m a cheese loving freak. Well I am but don't tell anyone!

Cheers.