Abashed, Banal, Bromidic

” We’ve all done it at some point. Sitting at the back of the classroom, our attention span fully exhausted and our will to live somewhat sapping. All of a sudden the paper clip in front of you seems awfully interesting. Now, I don’t proclaim to be an expert on the uses of paper clips but I do know that unraveling the seemingly perfect form is a fantastic way to waste 30 seconds of otherwise unproductive time. Unfortunately I feel as though I have become that paper clip. And I’m sure you also know that re-forming an unraveled paper clip is impossible. I’m hoping I’ve not reached that situation.

So I guess I should explain my feelings and the reasons for them. I’m extremely sorry but I’m going to have to use the C word. Change. Yep, I expect this word is getting quite cocky with its dominant position in my tag cloud but it really is one of the major driving forces in my life en ce moment. The dynamics of my life have shifted and I’m now in a strange position – I’m adapting in a way which I feel like I can control. “

Ok, that’s what I started with. Re-reading it it just sounds pretentious, nonsensical and plain crap. So I’ll try a more concise route to my point (if and when I ever decide upon one.)

Basically the changes in my life have stopped and I’m now in the situation where I can finally take stock and try to decide what path to take. My emotions and feelings have sort of toned themselves down and I now feel like I can enjoy what I have at the moment, in the moment. I’m pretty confident that I’ve judged the situations around me relatively well and I can see the ways things are heading. There are bits I’m not going to enjoy but equally things on the whole are looking up.

I seem to have lost all inspiration with regards to this blog and I genuinely don’t know what to write here anymore. You can see that my last post was a week ago so obviously procrastination is starting to have its wicked way with me. I think, as a result, that a change in direction is in order. My next post may well be something very different to my usual ramblings on about various thoughts, alternatively it could just never appear.

Recently I’ve been writing a piece about a boy in secondary school, I may even type a little bit up for a change. Though I’d risk boring those of you who ever read this to death.

Sorry this has been genuinely crap. I’m sorry that you’ll inevitably feel that some of your time has been wasted. It you really want to make up for it and do something productive try bending a paper clip into a straight line!

Wow, that sure was an horrific ending.

Hm, Sorry.

A break from the

I had an urge to write something on here but have no idea what. Normally I like to have a rough idea of what I’m going to write so then I can plan a layout-of-sorts for whatever it is I’m trying to say. But for once I’m just writing – scary!

Well, actually it’s not. Normally I’d be all “argh, need to make it sound just right” but being as I have no point to put across it doesn’t really matter. I was talking to a friend about this blog a few days ago and I said that it was just random thoughts. And she made me see that really it’s not. It’s filtered thoughts dressed in some sort of structure with (at times) some form of direction. So perhaps once in a while I should throw caution to the wind! That’s right, I’m trying some genuine spontaneity.

Yes, that sounds pathetic – my idea of spontaneous is not planning a piece of writing but I really am that much of a control freak! On Thursday I went to Doncaster for the first time ever, it’s only an hour away by car and the people I went with had been there millions of times before. But my god did I panic about it! I looked up all train times there and back for the entire day, and even for the early hours of the last morning, I checked buses incase the trains died, I made a list of people I knew in the area incase things went wrong. Essentially I had to have all eventualities covered, which is one of my biggest problems. I spend so much time worrying that sometimes I lose track and forget to enjoy the moment. However, things are looking up on that front.

I’m in quite a good mood and I’m really ready to change myself. I’ve decided that I’m to become more spontaneous (but not reckless) and I’m to worry less (don’t quite know how yet.) And I’m going to lose weight and take up spanish again. They (you know they, those people that know everything – maybe one day I’ll become part of they, but then how would I refer to everyone else?) say that a change is as good as a rest. Well, I’ve had a rest with the holidays and it was good, so a change should be equally pleasing.

Ok, I’m drifting into a form of structure so now in a desperate attempt to not be as conformist I’m going to change the subject totally!

I really really dislike F keys! I had this conversation recently too. I just hate them, you press them and they ruin your laptop! And they’re cocky too! They sit there all smug, high and mighty above the other keys, thinking that they’re something special. Well let me tell you something now F1 – a)You’re nothing but a type of car racing! b)If I want help, I’ll ask a real person!!! What does F stand for? (actually checking now) Function – F stands for function. But, my laptop has an FN key – a function key. Ok, I see what’s going on here.

How many F(number) keys are there? 12! How many disciples did jesus have? 12! The Fnumber keys are disciples – they’re not anything special – they don’t know it all and they often get things wrong. Sometimes (Judas) they do naughty things when pressed (F12 which destroys your web browser) yet sometimes they can be helpful in combination with other things (John the baptist and water – alt+F4.) And what the designer of this laptop has seen is that they could be so much better if only they had something to aspire to. The Jesus (FN) key. You see, when I press FN and an Fnumber key things happen which match the little pictures on the keys. FN+F6=lower brightness, FN+F7 = increased brightness. With a little bit of jesus the disciples are a lot more useful and easy to understand. I don’t really know what my point is, but I just thought that I could highlight the biblical parallels.

Ok, time for another shift I think. Oh, firstly let me point out that I don’t mean to be sacreligious, blasphemous or disrespectful (dis-sacrephemous if you will,) I merely try to pour my thoughts through my keyboard onto the screen. I aim not to bring about the fall of faiths or give birth to satanist cults, just to type. Please don’t hate me.

I think that my cat feels slightly neglected at the moment. She’s quite quiet and not as bouncy as normal. Recently the house has felt quite tense and I’m sure that she’s picked up on it. She now sleeps a lot of the day and rolls around on the landing at night. Occasionally she’ll knock on (by which I mean claw at) my bedroom door and then I’ll let her pop in for a chat (actually she just jumps into any drawers which I left open, curls into a ball and looks at me with the “you try and move me and I’ll knife you” face.) Whereas before she’d have just head-butted me for half an hour, got bored and gone outside to try and catch hope – the bat that lives in our garden. I’ve tried talking to her about all this, she’s not as responsive as she used to be. Perhaps it’s a time thing.

I don’t know whether or not I want to go back to college on Wednesday. I have a strange feeling that things are going to be awkward with certain people and to be honest I’d rather run away from it all and bask in the happiness which I have recently found. I, by the way, am going to see Tegan and Sara!!

I still have homework to do, I shall do it after my exams on Monday. Last minute as always, it hasn’t failed me for the past 6 years. Bad habit, must try to break it. But when I do homework well in advance there’s just so sense of achievement when you hand it in because you’ve forgotten all about it. Ah well, c’est la vie.

Oh, and I saw someone yesterday who I hadn’t seen for over a year and a half. He used to be the head teacher at my school. It was so strange seeing him again. I’d seen him in civves before of course, but this was different. I guess when he was at school he always had a very authoritarian, strict yet highly respectable aura about him. Yet yesterday he was just an ordinary bloke looking for a present for his wife in HMV. It kind of reminded me that things have moved on a lot recently, and things have changed.

CHANGE! Now that word has been cropping up a lot recently, but I think I’m coming to embrace it. I tend to live in the future, planning, or the past, analysing what could have been etc. But recently I find myself living slightly more for the moment. Not necessarily IN the moment (yet) and I think this change is a good thing. And it’s one (as I think I’ve already said) that I intend to keep up.

It rained today, it hasn’t rained since my pootle around town a week or two ago. Strangely when I saw it was raining my first thought was “oh, I don’t think anything about it.” Normally I’d think “oh, rain. Crap.” or “Oh, rain, I think I’ll go for a walk.” But today, nothing, total indifference. I did go for a walk in the end though. It was very cold, which I quite enjoyed.

Well, I guess I shall wrap this up. Wow, 1286 words of total nothingness. And normally now I’d think of a picture or photo to put with my entry. Well, I’m still going to do that because I like finding random pictures. I shall try something that is cheery and yet modern, sort of happy but ready to embrace the new so-to-speak. And pink! Because I rarely even ever think about pink.

Found it, and as ever I shall put it at the start of the entry. I wonder, did it feel strange reading me think about what to put up because you saw it before-hand. It’s kind of like you knew what I was thinking before I did. And I don’t quite feel at ease addressing people in the future like this, lol. I feel like I’m writing a will. Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever used lol in my blog yet. And now I’ve used it twice, fneh.

Anyhoo, I shall go and do something equally as unproductive now.

Bis Bald.

Change of path?

Ok, so to fill in the picture I’m currently revising for the first of my A level exams. A week today I have law and general studies, and it’s safe to say that the novelty of college has well and truly worn off. I’m currently on a, slightly deserved (it must be said,) break from re-revising sanctions and sentencing. I was so pleased when I finally managed to recite the 10 sections of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that we have to memorise in order to justify our generic babbling on the topic of sentencing that I decided to give myself a break from writing. Strangely this seemed like something different to do.

Recently the imminent exams have been very much at the forefront of my mind. Revision has become the main staple of my routine and other things have taken a back seat. I say that as though it’s a bad thing, but for me it definitely isn’t. You see, when it comes (or rather came) to exams I’ve normally always taken the mindset of “I know what I need to know, and I’ll revise the rest later if I get time.” Now of course, procrastination takes its toll and eventually you reach the week before the exam and realise that you know pathetically little. Thankfully, however, GCSEs can be passed without masses of revision providing you listened during the lessons. However it seems that unless you read, re-read, summarise, revise and re-revise every aspect of the A level course you are doomed to failure. It’s a strange type of pressure which I think, or rather hope, I’m actually managing to deal with.

That’s right, I just raised a positive point! In contrast with my usual style of criticising everything and anything that’s wrong in the world recently I’ve really started to see the bright side! For example, I expected to be feeling pretty crap around this time and actually I’m pretty mediocre (in a good way) and things that used to really bug me are now starting to pass me by blissfully. Now I really feel as though I should write about something negative, sombre or thought-provoking right about now but to be quite honest I’d rather bask in the moment.

I don’t know quite what to pin my current state on, but that’s not going to stop me trying! Firstly I’ve been quite relieved recently, various stresses have dwindled and my lack of sleep has been greatly compensated for over the Christmas holidays. Secondly, I’m quite hopeful for the near future – thing’s seem to be looking up. And thirdly, and most importantly, the people around me (by which I mean emotionally [ie, friends] not physically) are by far the most amazing people I’ve ever countered and I really thrive in their presence. You know who you are, thank you!

So yeh, I guess this goes some way to prove that we all cycle in our emotions to a degree. Obviously some people less than others, and some people more. And also that sometimes you can find relative happiness in the strangest of places. I’d say I’m the type of person who needs pressure to perform to my best so really the current time is bringing the (academic) best in me, I expect the price I’ll pay for this will be social retardation or something of the like but that bridge can be crossed when I reach it.

Also, recently I’ve learnt that sometimes people are amazing. The one thing, I believe, I take for granted most of all is human contact. Strange though this will inevitably seem, conversation is actually one of the most important aspects of my life and of late I’ve had some damn good ones. Granted, some were in drunken states and some were in peculiar circumstance but I think I may have found the key to a certain degree of happiness – throwing away your inhibitions and, in cases, scruples, and diving into a conversation that you’d never have. Be it with a total stranger, like the lady at the bus stop who actually made my day, or be it something which you haven’t dared discuss. Find someone you truly trust and go for it. The sense of relief, coupled with a bizarre sense of achievement, is truly fantastic.

Now I really am being far too happy. And I expect that you’re most probably sick to the back teeth of it too. So I shall quit while I’m (somewhat) ahead and wrap things up. Besides, I have law revision to do!

So there you go – things change, people change and sometimes, just once in a while, it can be for the best!

Normal service shall resume shortly.

p.s – The photo has no relevance but it caught my eye so I put it up.