the complaining one |
oakley
27.10.2003: TV |
TV
Television, the bane of every student's existence. Last year while living in halls we had no TV, at least not one with any decent reception. As a result our hours were passed quietly with the normal student pursuits of drinking, eating and sleeping. Being a History student i naturally have a lot of time on my hands and so spent a considerable amount of time on the above activities. Luckily for my academic studies there is only so much you can do before your liver gives up and so some work was done. I figured it would be much the same this year. I was wrong.
A week before term started one of my housemates and myself headed into Coventry and purchased for 120 pounds a 28 inch screen ex-rental TV. Apart from the obvious difficulty of carrying a TV home from Coventry, this television has striven to ruin my life in many a way. It has eaten into my drinking time (why go out clubbing when you can get some mates round in front of the TV with a fridge full of beer), my sleeping time (just one more late night channel 5 classic before i go to bed), and worryingly my work time. I was always good at procrastinating and generally ducking the responsibility of work even when i had nothing to do. You can only sleep for so long, and drinking at 1 in the afternoon loses its novelty and fun (unless you're an alcoholic) pretty rapidly and hence work became a possibility. Now however, regardless of what time of day or night it is, there is always that big distraction lurking in the corner of my living room. Daytime TV, despite its obviously paucity of quality, has a nicotine like addiction which is very much hightened my an imminent work deadline. The ease with which i can watch two identical episodes of Neighbours within a the space of 4 hours seperated only by some fourth rate soaps, poor attempts at game shows and children's TV (which can be surprisingly not-too-bad) scares me. The thought that at some point there was a world that existed without TV used to send shivers up my spine, but I'm beginning to wonder if we wouldn't benefit from such an existence. Or maybe just me.
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In a mood
It's the small things that can make or break a day. Things so inconsequential in the greater context of life in general that, given a day or two to reflect, it is hard to grasp why it mattered so much. I had such a moment today. A perfectly nice day was ruined in the space of two minutes when some boy I don't know kicked a ball made from hexagonal pieces of synthetic leather into a net. Having played our guts out for a good 88 minutes (which, considering our general fitness and the fact that we were all out on the lash last night, was pretty damn impressive that we were still standing) we were contenting ourselves with a well earned 1-1 draw. Then the afformentioned boy commited his day-ruining act. In a month's time....in fact in a week's time this will have faded in my memory and i will have moved on. Why I've been in such a foul mood will not be will not be comprehensible. It is after all JUST a game of football, which makes no difference to anything. Yet despite continually telling myself this, I'm still pissed off.
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Sunday Shopping
You learn something new every day. Today I've learnt that both Iceland and Kwiksave, the two nearest supermarkets to my house (at about 10 minutes walk in the wind and rain), are closed all day on sundays. It is a lesson I shall treasure.
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Country Lanes
People don't like to stagnate. They'd rather be on the move, going places, even if it's no place useful, just so long as they're moving. A bit like being stuck in a traffic jam. If made to choose between sitting in a massive tailback on the motorway for 3 hours, or taking a side road and risk their journey taking 3 and a half hours a lot of people would choose the second option. Just by virtue of the fact they were moving they would feel better, as if they were getting somewhere even if in reality it was costing them more time (and fuel money). Today's been like that for me. I spent 7 1/2 hours yesterday struggling to write an essay and getting about 400 words done. Today i wrote over 1000 words in the space of an hour and a half. I feel good as a result. It's a shame that most of what i've written is rubbish and it will take three times longer to edit it down to something meaningful. But I'm not going let that ruin my feeling of progress.
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Rachel and her illnesses
Well...our rAchel seems to have got herself into a fix again. This time it's something to do with gallstones, or haematomas, or gall bladders poking through into holes left by appendicies, or something (the doctor wasn't overly useful on the whole 'letting me know' front). Either ways she seems to be in a fair bit of pain and is going to have to spend the night -or rather the best bit of the morning, midday, afternoon and perhaps tomorrow night - getting scanned, prodded, probed and generally explored for any sort of irregularities. When Ivan (her next door neighbour) and I left her she seemed in fairly good shape (on the verge of sleep which means no pain) and with any luck she'll be out in no time and feeling good again. Without it, she'll be looking at an operation and a day or two more in the ward....fun which I'm sure she'd be willing to miss out on. More info will follow as and when it is known .........
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Forget Sunscreen
If i had one piece of advice to give you for the future, it would be 'Look after your teeth'. I have singularly failed to do so and am today licking my wounds (not litterally, that's one of the things forbad me). Over the years, as a result of a stupidly high metabolism which has led me to eat an equally stupid amount of sweets, and poor brushing technique (or lack thereof) my teeth have steadily deteriorated. Today i spent 3 hours in a dentist's chair having fillings put in left right and centre....well not centre but you know what i mean. In fact i had to have some done without anasthetic as they're not really allowed to numb both sides of your jawbone. I also had to have on tooth removed.
While the majority of my teeth are in fact still intact and unfilled, a large number are now not, AND as i've was told several times during my torture session, my teeth were in an appalling state for someone my age.
Friends?
Watching TV today I saw a character (Joey/Friends) confronted with a problem that I have faced a couple of times myself and I'm sure everybody has to deal with in their lives at some point(s). The problem is when you fall for a close friend. Do you tell them and risk it all? Do you sit back and hope the feeling fades? If you tell them, you could end up with them, you could also end up losing their friendship. If you don't tell them you save your friendship, but how valid is this friendship if it has become based primarily on your feelings of more-than-friendship for this person? Furthermore could you deal with the torture of seeing them all the time without ever having them?
I haven't had to deal with this pickle for a while, but in the past when i have, I singularly picked the worst route every time. For future reference and general curiosity, what do you think?
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Pronownsing iz eezee
As I struggle my way through a particularly tricky Spanish translation, I find myself continuously cursing those bastards who tried building their tower up to heaven. What kind of folly was that? As a result of those fools, instead of living in a homogenous world where we all speak Hebrew or some such language of wherever the Tower of Babel was meant to be, I am stuck trying to get a coherent meaning out of a seemingly incoherent set of words.
Mind you, I'm glad to have English as a native language as it must be such a bitch to learn. In terms of simple pronunciation it is absurd. Leaving the semantics of the British/American differences aside, a lot of the pronunciation of the English language bears a very tenuous link to its spelling. Take for example the simple sound of - ough - The variations of pronunciation are so numerous as to be confusing to anyone not from a native background.
Bough - Bow
Rough - Ruff
Trough - Troff
Dough - Doh
Ought - Ort
Through - Thru
What 's more I'm sure there are a number of other examples of which I can't think of off the top of my head. For this and many other grammatical and structural reasons I'd choose to be learning Spanish over my native language any day.
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?
When in his career did Gandhi become an out-and-out opponent of British rule in India?
More to the point does anyone care? Should I? Why did I decide to write an essay on this terminally turgid topic? Why did I take the books out for this essay 4 weeks ago, yet have left it until today (the day before the deadline) to start work on it? Why am I writing this instead of the essay? Why do men get lots of facial hair but women don't (I've always been curious about that)? Why does my toaster give me either warm bread or charcoal, but never toast? Why is the English word for 'why' monosyllabic, while that of France, Spain, Italy and Germany all have two syllables?
So many questions....
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Christmas
While sitting in one of the univeristy coffee outlets today it hit me like a shovel to the sola-plexus. Christmas has arrived. The last month and a half, it seems, was only a warm up. Now is when it all kicks off. I sat there ruminating on this point and admiring the tinsel ornamenting the bar, while Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everyone' or whatever the fuck it's called, blared out meaninglessly over the sound system.
The T.V. shows are the same with presents strewn across the floor of the set and Christmas trees dressed up to the hilt. There was even a show on today simply called 'The Christmas Show' - a truly inspired piece of awful programming.
Am I a Scrooge for my attitude? Is this a fun and festive hating side of my character coming through that makes me feel mildy nausious when all this chintz comes flying at me? Or am I simply being pushed into my jaded and ever-so-slightly embittered standpoint by the overt over-commercialisation of what is, at the end of the day, a holy festival? Who knows, and more to the point, cares?
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Van drivers
Somewhere deep within a mountain in the eastern section of Snowdonia, a well funded evil mastermind has created a base. In this base he trains men (and on occasions women) to be the worst drivers they can possibly be. Over the past four years he has worked tirelessly cultivating all sorts of bad driving, from over-aggressive lorry drivers, to timid little grandmothers in clapped out ford escorts who refuse to breach more than 30 miles an hour below the speed limit.
His aim is to bring about so much road rage that the people of Britain will rise up in anger and spontaneously overthrow their government. With no meaningful opposition he will sweep to power.
As i drove the 4 hour round trip from London to Leamington Spa today the horrible truth hit me. Today was the first day of his plan, there is no other concievable explanation why there were so many people trying to kill me and themselves through poor driving.
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Capitalism is the new Religion
Here's a thought that has just occurred to me. It's very sketchy as I'm writing this as it comes to me so bear with me if it doesn't make much or any sense: Capitalism is the new Religion.
It has been said for a fair while (a good few of millenia) that certain people worship money. It is only recently however that the making of money for the sake of it has become such a central thing for the individual. In some cultures of the past it took pride of place, but on the whole it did not. Peasants worked to survive, workers worked to survive, aristocrats had peasants working for them to so they survived; the only people who bothered working for the sake of earning money were merchants and traders.
As capitalism has taken a grip this idea of working for money has become a much more widespread ethos, especially in the western world. So now it is not the few greedy who worship money and go out of their way to get hold of it, but multitudes who work in order to gain more of the money which they desire. So capitalism, the worship and idolatry of money -particularly prevelant in the US, but not exactly lacking in most of the rest of the western world- spreads.
And as with religion, it also is used as an excuse and as a means of colonisation. Free trade, (or the version of it we buy into which is free for us, less so for them - something which Europe is conspicuously bad at with our food subsidies than the evil-poverty-maker that is the US) is used as an excuse to break down cultural and market barriers allowing for the creeping colonialism of our manufacturers, shops and restaurants. These businesses act as missionaries on the ground, spreading the 'good word' of our culture and helping the breeding of local capitalists.
Of course we view capitalism to be on the whole, one of the best systems of world order. After all communism collapsed like a souffl? in an oven, and capitalism isn't really doing the west any harm is it? Like our belief that Christianity was superior to other world religions, so now in the West we believe that capitalism is superior to other world systems.
Right...I'm running out of places to go, though I'm sure i could carry on if I rambled enough. Am I talking complete crap, or are there patterns here? I'm not entirely sure.........
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Untitled
Why is it that there are so many more straight people in the world than gay people? Obviously there is the whole biological need to reproduce and fill the world with mini-us's, but that's all about physical attraction.
A lot of people aren't just physically attracted (and sometimes aren't even), but fall for the personality of somebody which has little to do with their physical composition, whether they have, or not, certain bits and pieces. A lot of people have really close relationships of people of their own sex, but don't fall for them, but will fall for someone of the opposite sex because of their personality regardless of, and sometimes (if we're going to be honest) in spite of their appearance. There is no good reason why this should be the case.
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Naivet
I woke this morning and stumbled from my bed to the shower, to the breakfast table, to my long neglected tape rack to pick out some cassettes for my coming car journey (old car, no working radio, only tapes), down to the car, back to my room to put some clothes on, and back to the car again.
Once out on the motor way I stuck in a tape and reminisced to sounds I hadn't heard for many a year. Sitting in the London's orbital carpark (a.k.a the M25) I worked my way through my tapes I had grabbed at random. Eventually I came upon Now 2 (asian edition), which i had bought when out visiting relatives in Malaysia back in 1996 at the impressionable age of 13. I couldn't remember much of the tape, but had the distinct feeling I had liked it at some point in the dim past of my early pubescent years.
So into the tape player it went, and I remembered why I hadn't listened to it for 7 odd years.... It was appalling. There were, granted, the occasionaly good track Blur/ Joan Osbourne/ Shaggy. But that aside it was generally a collection of songs that could easily be termed 'Crimes against music'. There were some songs by past masters such as Queen and Meatloaf - but even if you are an avid fan of these artists (which I'm not) these were songs that were made when their careers were on the wane and were pretty poor to say the least. There was a shocker from Bryan Adams, a bland piece by (long forgotten in Britain) Roxette, Boyzone being as poor as always and the the clincher - Michael Learns to Rock.
Ask any native born Britisher who the above boy band are and you'll be greeted by blank faces and and quizzical comments. Put it this way.... in a mid-90's market where Boyzone then Westlife thrived. Take That had just left the scene to much weeping and beating of chests, East 17 was hanging around like a bad smell and the Backstreet boys were doing it for the Yanks, this band didn't make even the slightest ripple on the pre-early teen market. They were that good. So they did the Spinal Tap thing and headed out east.
I digress....needless to say I didn't exactly enjoy this excursion into my past... what scares me though is that I did truly enjoy this tape when I bought it. I feel dirty.
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Christmas (2)
And so another apathetic Christmas slips pointlessly by. For some reason this year I've singularly failed to get caught up in the 'Christmas Spirit' whatever that may be. This is not a regular thing for me, only last year I went very much the opposite direction, and ended up cooking a Christmas supper for the 18 people I lived with at the time. Presents were given, alcohol consumed (copiously), and Christmas songs were sang without a hint of irony or detestation.
Yet this year, from day one, I've been found completely incapable of feeling even vaguely warm and/or fuzzy towards the notion of Christmas. This could be a seasonal thing, as the year before last I felt very similar. Or maybe I've only got so much tolerance for chintz, glitz, and cheesey pretentions, which I used up and more last year. It is slightly saddening that I am unable to get excited for a day that, as a child and even last year, held such wonder and enjoyment for me. It is not that I am virulently anti-Christmas (though I have had bursts when I here the same shitty song three times in the half hour), just that I cannot and could not get excited in advance, at the time, or in retrospect. Oh well, maybe I'll have more 'Festive Cheer' -whatever the hell that is- lined up by time the season comes around next year.
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Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And so onwards into the new year, and what a way to do it. I was up in Edinburgh with some good friends as I counted my way into the next calendar year. As the wind flailed bitterly around my numb extremities and we embraced each other in a semi-inebriated stupor while comforting the girl who had just had a bottle broken over her head by a drunk scottish TWAT, I still could not but feel a strange glow of contentment. Yes we were cold, shaken up by the unprovoked attack 10 mins previously (some more than others obviously), but we were together and were seeing in yet another New Year together as we had many previous ones. Despite having left school and moved on with our lives a few years back, we have managed to keep a good solid friendship going during the holidays and for that we were grateful.
As time passes friends will fade and drift from our lives. Regardless of how hard we try, we cannot hang onto the past; it's like trying to catch a mosquito with a tennis racket. The inexorable plod of life is guarranteed to cause some friendship fatalites, and as such we should make sure to treasure and maintain the friendships we have managed to maintain.
These friendships are links to a past that will soon seem long gone, and though some relationships will swerve from the main road of life straight into the oak tree of arguments and personality change, this does not mean we should abandon all effort, or even slacken in out efforts to keep in touch with current friends. Often the difficulty of keeping in contact with friends who are slipping from my life gets the better of me, but all I need do is to think of the good that comes of strong old friendships. Friends are one of most important things in a person's life, and they should be preserved at most costs.
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Royal Leamington Spa
I travelled to Edinburgh by bus for new year's eve, highly uncomfotable but cheap and it took around 9 1/2 hours. I used this time while sat by myself on the bus (by looking moody and spreading my slim frame out I secured two seats to myself) and contemplate the deeper things in life. Here is one thought that came to me:Towns have names for a reason. For example Newcastle upon Tyne - A new castle situated upon the river Tyne; Oxford - A ford at which Oxen cross; Cambridge - Bridge over the river Cam, Bournemouth - The mouth of the river Bourne (technically 3 miles from that point but....) etc etc etc....This is all very well and good but I live (while at university anyhow) in Royal Leamington Spa. Now most parts of this I can work out.
It is Royal because Queen Victoria visited it a while back and liked it so much that she gave it royal status.
Spa because it is, well, a spa town, where there is a natural spring which people used to bathe in and take water from (preferably not at the same time).
Ton is an abreviation of the word town
Ing is an appendage used in English to indicate a present participle, hence play becomes playing, drink - drinking, sleep -sleeping etc etc ad taedium.
Leam however has no meaning that I can think of. As the name stands Royal Leamington Spa is a royal spa town where the people's favourite past time, or maybe occupation, is to leam. However despite spending a fair time on my bus trek wracking my brains I could not come up with what it meant, though I did have some ideas that amused me!
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What to do?
Once again I find myself in a quandry of my own construction. Due to my resolute reluctance to move on, an attempt to eventually be retro and primarily a large portion of laziness, I have failed to change my phone handset in the last three years. This on the whole, does not bother me. I am not a person who needs the latest model in everything (or for that matter most things to anything). I have no yearning for picture messaging, video calls or downloadable porn clips (though I do see the benefit). There is however one problem, it only has 99 spaces for people's numbers.
Now I'm not saying I'm a hugely popular guy with too many friends etc...as that would be a heap of bovine manure. However I do own (if that's what you do with them) more numbers than my phone can handle, and due to my general lack of organisational skill and will power I haven't transcribed them in a book or such like. This has turned out to be a particular problem (again) as of 20 mins ago when I recieved a text from someone known only as 'J' who has informed me that 'Charlotte' is coming to stay next wednesday and could I organise a night out in Leamington.
This has me confused on various fronts.
(1) Who is J?
(2) Who is Charlotte, do I know her or only of her?
(3) Why in hell would she want to come to Leamington?
(4) Why is it that I am
designated organiser of said night out?Yet think as I might, I cannot
make head nor tail of this problem.
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Birthday...still
She is still 19 and again she is drunk. HUrrrah!!!
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With friends like these
It's a habit I have, or maybe not so much a habit of as a talent. I have a tendency of getting myself well and truly stuck between warring friends and couples. Of late this has been a fairly quiet front in my battle against life. My mates and their respective boyfriends/girlfriends are all getting along surprisingly well and my friends are all holding together fairly well. That is, until tonight.
I have one friend who has recently acquired a new boyfriend, as a result of which she has spent little time with us, the rest of her friends. A common and not highly unpredictable scenario. One of these friends, however has taken umbridge, and is generally not in a great mood about this situation. Tonight was a sort of head to head between the two about this. I have an essay to write, but having not seen (the first) much this term, I thought I'd take a break from my work to go out for a few pints before returning to finish the essay. Instead I got dragged into a series of explanations about why one girl is right and the other wrong.
It is sad to see friends fall out, but to then be dragged in as the impartial person who is expected to be partial by both sides, though flattering in a slightly twisted manner, is not exactly ideal, and does not make for a great night out. What it does make for is much diplomatic talk, heavy drinking to cover the stress of the situation, and inablity to write a decent essay.
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Hmph
There are times when I do despair and wonder if I will ever get myself a decent love live. Last night holds a perfect example of the way it works in my little world.
I was out in Mirage (the local skank pit that attempts to pass itself off as a club) with my housemates, their girl friends and various other friends. So as to make the evening a little more enjoyable a fair amount of alcohol had been consumed and it had got to the point that we were all out on the dancefloor, shaking our bodies in a manner that we laughably refer to as dancing.
At one point while dancing I felt a hand on my back, so i moved out the way assuming the person was trying to get through. Following a brief glance, saw that it was an attractive blond in a fairly short skirt. The girl moved off. At this point one of my housemates' girlfriends creased up with laughter. I was confused, and it was only after having composed herself for the third time that she was able to explain that the blond had attempted to pinch my arse but I had moved at the last second, so she missed. She then noticed my housemate's girlfriend watching her and beat a hasty retreat.
This incident in itself doesn't bother me too much, though at the time I was midly annoyed. It does, however, seem to epitomise my love life in general. Nothing ever happens, and then when something looks like it might, I inadvertently go and screw everything up, much to the amusment of others. Am I cursed?
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Saturday night
It's nice how things can work out. Last night was meant to be a quiet one. Not much going on. Probably a bit of food and then most likely an early night. In the eventuality a few friends came round with a five litre bottle of red wine and we watched TV for a fair while. At 10 we were persuaded by a friend to head on out to the pub, but given that closing time was at 11 I assumed that a quiet night was still likely to be had. What I didn't account for was that the pub had a late license, and that following a few hours in the pub we would be invited to a house party.
In the end instead of a few beers in front of the telly; my housemate - Ally - and I (the other two housemates being busy celebrating their respective one year anniversaries with their respective girlfriends) ended up getting completely battered, making interesting, witty, highbrow (or so it seemed at the time) conversation with complete strangers.
A highly fun night was had all round.
This morning was less fun.
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Waking Thoughts
There's a noise...I know that noise...I hate that noise. Strain to break the solder that holds my lids together. Light big shape is the window, dark big mass is the rest of the room. At least I know where I am.
Raise my my arm and shake it around a bit it in what is the early morning equivalent of mad flailing. Must make the noise stop. Ah, I've hit something....but the noise is still going and now I'm wet and cold. That would have been my glass of water then.... crap. More shaking. Noise gone...good. Why noise? Shit!!! Half an hour till my lecture, and it's a 20 minute bus ride to get there.
Stumble in and out of shower. Cold cold cold!!! Breakfast? No, no time. Got to get going. Housemate is leaving too, good, means company for bus ride. Open door, argh!...Jesus Joseph and Mary it is FREEZING. Oooh, snow on the ground, pretty. Right, must start walking and fast. Come on Anoop (housemate) or we'll be late. Am waking up a bit now, cold air helps and....the sky's nice today.
Why am I looking at the sky? And more to the point why am I lying down with Anoop standing over me doubled up with laughter? Ice...damned ice. Hurt pride, hurt arse. Get up gather tattered remenants of self-respect. Lucky nobody else was around. Ah...there are more friends over there, more company for bus. And there's the sky again. Damn ice. And so Wednesday begins.
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Stationary Perspective
A rushing blur of hats coats and scarves. Exerpts of conversation snatch at my ears leaving me hungry for more. The wind picks up and drives through my coat, slashing at my skin buried beneath layers of cotton and wool, making me shiver. Around me the world revolves; cars speed past throwing up water from the treads of their tyres; couples walk gloved hand in gloved hand, snuggling together to conserve body heat. People lost in their thoughts, their music or their lovers' eyes pay scant attention to all else around them. I am a detached observer, watching the world turn but not taking part. I notice everyone and everything, while everything and everyone do not notice me.
Yet I am not the only person. Every other person that has passed me in the last ten minutes has been doing much the same thing. Moving on their own axis while the world goes on regardless around them. We forget some times that we are not the only centre of the world, that our perspective is not the only one, there are billions out there. We would do well to see them.
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21
I am to be 21...and in a couple of days time. It is approaching fast, far too fast for my liking. I've never been a good one for growing old. Ever since the grand old age of 12 I have struggled with the concept of getting older, and since then depsite changing in many ways, my attitude has not.
Like a tsunami, a small wave at first, travelling quickly but unthreateningly, suddenly close to the time and location it raises itself up out of the sea. An inpenetrable wall of water arrives out of nowhere dwarfing you and your the world as you perceived it......ok maybe I'm being a little melodramatic, but the point is, I see this as a big thing for me.
I don't pretend that this day will in itself hold a big change in my life. I don't expect to grow up and mature sucessfully in the space of 24 hours. Nor do I hope for any miraculous alterations in the form of girlfriends, better grades or lottery wins. However psycologically this birthday will hold a hell of a lot of stock.
21 is the very final boundary you can put to your life as a 'child'...more accuratley it is when you truely become an adult. From this point on, the next big age threshold is 30, a good nine years off. However I argue it, there is no way I will be able to argue to a child of any sort that I am not a grown up, even if I am a fairly puerile one.
I don't want to grow old and responsible. It implies jobs, mortgages, wives and a wealth of other factors which scare the living crap out of me. I'm still only just about growing accustomed to being in my late teens let alone my early 20s.
Birthdays should be abolished.
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Poke me.
Last night I witnessed something new. I saw a petite, rather attractive, young Malaysian girl go from sober to drunk in under 10 minutes. One minute she was discussing the strengths of philosophy as a subject; 7 minutes, and two thirds of a glass of a fairly innocuous cocktail, later and she was bursting into fits of giggles at anything anybody said, and in fact a fair few times even when nothing was being said at all. I don't think I've seen anybody get that drunk, that fast, ever in my life. It was really a sight to see.
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idle thoughts
I am a store of useless knowledge and am hungry for more. Though I cannot even get near explaining the finer points of my course here at university (or for that matter a good deal of the broader ones); I can give you the explanation behind the phrase "Speak of the devil", I can tell you that while it took the potato 150 years to reach China after its first appearance on the shores of western Europe - it took syphilis only 6 months, Ican tell you that mice DO NOT like the smell and taste of peppermint, and I could probably (given a couple of minutes) rap you "Scatman's World" the 1995 hit by Scatman John for which some reason beyond my comprehension I knew off by heart when I was 13 years old
(Disclaimer - I have not heard and in fact have avoided that song since then).
The reason I bring this up is I?m looking to add to my store of useless knowledge. Deadlines for applications for summer internships have been flying past me like shit off a shovel (which given the analogy is probably why I?ve missed so many of them), and I?m currently in the process of filling in application forms for the few that remain. As a result I am bored beyond what is humane. My mind has been wandering and came across a few points which I was wondering if anyone knew the answer to.
Does anybody know how cow tipping originated? I cannot conceive of how the first person to do it, actually came across the idea.
Is the phrase "in one fell swoop" correct, and if so what does fell mean?? I know what the phrase means, but have never heard 'fell' in that context.
Why the Latin in Latin America? What has South America got to do with the language of the Roman Republic?
When and why did the ages 18 and 21 take on so much significance as the upper boundaries of childhood and lowerboundaries of adulthood?
Oh....and what the hell is mascara all about? I've never got that, I mean who looks at people's eyelashes?
Answers on a postcard....
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Valentine's Day
Valentine's day. Bah humbug. Seeing as I've been labelled the serial whinger, I?d hate to disappoint... so here goes.
Being perennially single (if you hadn't already guessed) I have a running resentment of today. And to pre-empt all of those who would accuse me of being bitter..... I'll say now - I'm am bitter, twisted and jaded and make no apologies. However I do think that even if I was happily embroiled in a relationship I would resent today. On Valentine's Day, people take time out to lavish love, gifts and food on their other half. I find this inherently wrong.
I believe is a two pronged attack. On the one hand it is a rutheless marketing ploy to get people to spend more on useless gimicks than they usually would ever dream of, while on the other hand it trys to thoroughly depress single people. Surely if you are in love, you are in love 24/7. Surely Valentine's day, an arbitrary day in February celebrating the death of a defiant Roman priest, should be no different from any other. If you are in love you should be making some sort of effort all the time, not just on some random day in late winter. Valentine's day is a con job, attempting to squeeze as much money out of lovesick saps with the most spurious of pretences.
Also it is a cruel cruel torture device to point out to single people just how lonely they are (just in case they had forgotten and were begininning to enjoy themselves having casual no-strings sex). Couples can go out for dinner any time, they can smooch and go doe-eyed any day of the week (and as is the case with my housemates and partners they very often do). They don't need an excuse to be sickeningly happy together so damn it why give them one!?! It's an invention of a warped mind who's only joy in life was to bring pain and sadness to single people. Bastard.
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Tidy desk, tiny mind
An untidy desk refelcts an untidy mind.
This is the mantra that some petty anal office storm troopers recite to justify pristine working areas. My mother operates under the same premise, and from the age of about 13 I've been fighting a drawn out campaign of pitch battles with her over it. This is because I am what they call in the trade: a mucky pup, a layabout, a good-for-nothing...if you will, a slob. While my dearest mother cannot stand even the slightest bit of mess.
To be fair I'm being a bit harsh on myself. I am not a slob, and I do like my house to be kept more or less in order and more or less clean; my desk and my room however, I do not. I am untidy, scrappy and messy, though not unclean. More often than not, my room resembles the floor of an Oxfam warehouse following the coincidentally freakish onset of an earthquake, a carpet bombing, a tornado and an annoying band of pikey teenagers from Leamington Spa with nothing better to do than swear, look surly and cause mess. For obvious reasons this causes my mother some grief.
However, though i believe that the state of your room and desk is a reflection on the way your mind works; I do not believe that an untidy desk and room, means naturally that your mind is disorganised. I know where most things are located, in fact it is only when they are 'tidied up' and 'organised' that I get disorientated and lost in a whirl of shining surfaces and empty floors. It is simply i different way of working. Though my thoughts, clothes, books and ideas are not sorted in an immediately obvious logical manner, does not mean they are not sorted. Just because I do not conform to an immediately acessable manner of storing data does not make me any less intelligent or logical. I just go about it in a different manner.
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Just do it
Damn it. Rachel beat me to it. I was all vitrioled up to have a good rant about the protesting impotency of the British populous today, and the small one breezes in and does it first.
I guess all I can do is throw in a couple of additional observations and comments. First up it's not only that people have to register if they want to strike. They have to register if they want to protest. From a policing point of view this makes a lot of sense. From a protesting point of view it reduces the whole affair to farce. In the anti-war demos of last year, hundreds upon thousands of people piled into London's streets and marched. They had nice shiny placards, shouted lots and followed the pre-agreed police route.
And they achieved nothing.
Now I'm not suggesting a swing toward the mindless violence of the so-called 'Anarchists' (i bet very few of them even know what anarchism is all about) of the May Day riots. That has its place in public protest, but only at the extreme end of the spectrum when all else is failing and the government needs to fall to bring justice to the majority of the people, not exactly a situation that seems in existence at the moment.
However if a difference needs to be mad, protest has to be carried out in a more effective form than walking around on a sunny day along the assigned route shouting stuff. Civil disobedience in a non-violent manner is the key.
All needs be done is look at this group of fathers who have been restricted access to their children. They have held four protests so far, with individuals dressed as superheroes climbing atop cranes and motorway signs. So far they have not done a vast amount, but have got a lot of publicity and are likely to get their opinion heard. In London nowadays there's almost a march a weekend. Do people honestly think that politicians will look out the window, see yet another group of people marching and suddenly decide to change their minds?
If a difference to politics really needs to be made, and all other routes are exhausted, people should be willing to make a stand for what they care about. This means going further than taking a day off work to go march.
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Pointless futile killing
Like rAchel I am an historian (and as an aside why is it 'an historian' while it is 'a euphamism'?), or rather a history student, here at Warwick. However I am not quite as intellectually endowed as our esteemed hostess. I don't have the ability to spin words into a crystalline web of sparkling poetry in the way that she can. Nor can I grasp abstract notions concepts to nearly the same extent as her. I have an ephemeral understanding of these notions, but that is as far as it goes, partly through choice, partly through ability.
I see myself as more of a 'practical' historian. More about facts, figures, events and people; than ideas, concepts, notions and perceptions. Both sides play an equally important part in the make up of our understanding of the past as well as the world around us....mine just means you can try and ignore the cyclical debates of what is 'national identity'/ 'the public sphere'/ 'enlightenment'/ 'revolution', and does it actually exist?
Over the last two years I've had an unsettling tendency to head toward essay questions concerning death: famine, poverty, global injustice, massacre, rape, genoide. While researching these essays I get low, depressed and generally impotently frustrated at the world and the higher deity for allowing all this to happen. I really work myself up into a lather over the whole thing. Yet I keep coming back for more.
Anyways... this is all just a pointless preamble.
All this is about is a small quotation regarding the Partition of India and Pakistan, my latest essay subject. I was pretty ignorant of any sort of evil being perpetrated at this event until I started researching the essay.
'As Independence Day dawned on the Pubjab, a few hundred exhausted and sickende British civilian and military officers ....gazed upon the ruin of their hopes, and above the cries of the maimed, the homeless and the bereaved, heard only the vilifying voices of the politicians who had brought about this chaos'
In this period anywhere between between 200,000 and 2 million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus were systematically killed by one of the other religious groups. Killing begat killing in vicious cycle of fear and revenge. How have we managed to create a world like this, and how are we all still alive?
And don't even get me started on Rwanda, Armenia, Nanking and the rest......
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The Mood
It's just something about the time of year. I used to think it was as simple as Seasonal Affective Disorder, a general lack of sunlight triggering the onset of a general disaffected mood. Yet this does not hold true. In midwinter, when it is cold, wet and sunlight hours are at their shortest, I am fine. However for some reason come mid-january, a mood takes hold that is hard to define, and even harder to shake. It clings to me like gaseous expulsion and does not depart till mid-march at the earliest.
It's not exactly a mood in itself, more a welter of emotions tugging at the frayed rug ends of my conscience. A mixture of intense apathy, sexual frustration, loneliness, an impotent desire to recreate the world in a better mould and a hunger for goal undefined and unattainable, all swirl together in the cocktail bowl of my mind.
I used to attribute this to specific things, last year was an ongoing unrequited crush, the year before the loss of a good friendship, the year before that...etc etc. Yet this year I have no good excuse to fall back on. I didn't even notice it myself, it was only last night when one of my housemates and his girlfriend drunkenly told me they had been worried about me as I had seemed out of sorts, that I was able to see that the 'mood' had creapt up on me and smacked me round the back of the head with a 2x4, before moving in and setting up camp.
I don't know what causes the 'mood', or why it and its soul destroying apathy does what it does, but it is here and is not going anywhere at least until mid-march.
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Averages
What is it to be average? I don't know. Very few people, if anybody, is average. Assuming you take the mean or median to be average, it is pretty damn hard to get anywhere near being average as a person. You may be the mean or median in your class given maths grades, you may be the mean or median in your wage bracket, in terms of fitness, language ability or waist size. But at the end of the day you'll only be average in that one thing. Overall you'll be ahead or behind the rest of the pack and measures aren't resricted to things as banal as that. Their scope ranges from anything that you would consider important, as a measure of you as person, to many things that you wouldn't.
And yet, throughout my life I've seen myself as an 'average guy'. A bit on the shy side, average intelligence, no more no less, slightly less than average looks, average height and strength, greater than average (for a guy) cooking ability, greater than average fitness, significantly less than average sporting ability but a greater than average desire to take part that counterbalances it....all in all a small variation either side of the 'average' line that puts me more or less slap bang in the centre.
But this is far from the case. Nobody is average, nobody is normal. It is all a myth; a creation of the imagination, of society, of something beyond the control and beyond the grasp of the individual. I feel average when I compare myself to my contemporaries and the people I see around me. But I go to Malaysia and I am far greater than the average height. I look to Africa and I have a stupid amount more than the average money in the bank for someone my age (not to mention someone twice my age). I look to Uzbekistan and I am far in advance of the average amount of education.
I may think I am very normal, average, another person filling the white noise that is the background of Britain. Yet I am so much more. If anything I value myself too highly. By placing myself at either the mean or the median I am ignoring the existence of so many other people who are most in need of attention. I am not average nor am I normal. Nobody is.
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Embarrassment
A useful tactic for me to employ would be to refrain from talking to girls about whom I have impure thoughts, when I am drunk to the point of memory loss. This tactic would be especially useful when said girl has a rather large boyfriend type.
I don't fancy this girl, just find her rather easy on the eye. I thought last night was fine, but in talking to the aforementioned girl today she was teasing me about what I said to her last night. I don't know what it is that I said, but if it was anything like my unspoken train of thought it would be something to do with my appreciation of her breasts (which are wonderful).
I should make a resolution either to never get that drunk again or never talk to girls whose bodies I have designs on. Both options are not exactly attractive nor are they likely. Hence I have a problem.
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The Deadly Man-Flu
I've been a little snowed under of late. This situation is entirely of my own making due to my strict adherence to Mark Twain's advice to 'never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow'. As a result, as term came to a close I found my confronted with a considerable amount of work.
It being the end of term however, there was the smell of celebration in the air. Despite my heartfelt protestations several nights in a row, my friends marched me with my arm twisted firmly into a half-nelson to the two clubs of the metropolis that is Leamington Spa, as well as a house party or three. At these venues they forced me to consume copious amounts of alcohol with them and risk making improper suggestions to attractive friends. Wednesday is a good illustration.
This worked ok for a while. I conformed to the hackneyed ideal and worked hard/played hard. However, being the lazy mug that I am, my stamina didn't hold up. I finished my work on Thursday, just as a sore throat started coming on. Foolishly I thought it could be cured by a mixture of beer, wine and a visit to nearest club where I could embarrassingly shake my limbs (read dance) in the vain hope of attracting and bedding some young female so drunk or stupid as to be fooled by my display. I surfaced the next day in an empty bed (not for the first time) with the deadly man-flu.
It felt like someone had taken a stainless steel scourer to my osophagous, while sealing my sinuses with a groundbreaking amalgam of concrete and gelatine. My limbs ached and I had a horrible taste in my mouth. Throughout my life women have disparaged men for their inability to handle the common cold. It is has taken me a good 4 days to fight my way back form death's door with a combination of sleep, vit-c and paracetemol. I suggest that we (men) simply suffer from a different form of viral infection which is much more severe, perhaps even potentially lethal. We deserve more sympathy.
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Trains
Charles I, a stuttering king who gravitated towards personal rule at a time when parliament was coming to the fore. This attitude combined with England's unsettled political background at the time, created many problems for the man and lead to his death.
Somehow I've got to turn that into around 5,000 words.
Reading about this subject is like watching a train crash. You know exactly what's going to happen, you can see this man working himself stubbornly towards his own death and all you can do is look as he speeds towards his fate. But it's not quite as interesting as all that.
Instead of watching just the train crash you have to sit through reel upon reel of cctv footage of the traintracks and the the train involved. You have to examine the traindriver's uneventful life for three months before he even sets foot in the train: his diet, his fitness regime and his dandruff. You have to examine the train itself from top to bottom, every damn rivet and screw, and analyse the history of the carpet in the first class cabin. Once that's all done you have to explore in minute detail the reasoning behind the train timetable, as well as the local histories (going back 50 years) of all the back-of-beyond agricultural villages that the train passed through that day. Then and only then can you look at the train crash. And for your efforts you have to write 5,000 words about the whole thing. Thank god I'm off to France next week with my housemates for a bit of a holiday.
All this talk of trains reminds me of a joke...
An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman are walking through a wood and they come across some tracks. They stop to examine them.
"I think they're deer tracks" the englishman states.
"Fool, do you know nothing, they're obviously wolf tracks"
the Scotsman replies.
"Well you're both wrong" says the Irishman, "I've lived
in the countryside all my life and I'm sure they're badger tracks."
They were still arguing 10 minutes later when the train hit them.
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Hey Ya
Lying on my bed the other day, I traced the ceiling cracks with my pupils and let my mind drift in and out of the patchwork of images that make up my (laughably inaccurately named) train of thought. As I contemplated the viral shape of a discoloured stain caused by a burst pipe some years back, my ears latched onto what was coming from my radio. It was someone or other doing an accoustic cover of 'Hey Ya' by Outkast. Previously I had seen this song as a happpy, addictive, feel-good song which however much you want to dislike it, you can't quite bring yourself to.
However, tuning into the words as they were sung clearly and slowly across the airwaves of Britain and sadder side of the song was revealed to me:
My baby don't mess around.
Because she loves me so.
And this I know for sure.
Uh, But does she really wanna.
But can't stand to see me
Walk out the door..
Don't try to fight the feelin'
'Cause the thought alone is killing me right now.
Uh, Thank God for mom and dad
For sticking two together
'Cause we don't know how.
UH!
[Chorus]
Hey Ya.
Hey Ya.
You think you've got it
Ohh, you think you've got it
But got it just don't get it
Til' there's nothing at all.
We get together
Ohh, we get together
But seperate's always better when there's feelings involved.
If what they say is "Nothing is forever".
Then what makes, then what makes, then what makes
then what makes, then what makes Love the exception?
So why you, why you, why you, why you, why you
Are we so in denial?
When we know we're not happy here.
These are not the words of a happy, feel-good song. Now every time I listen to it, I'm filled with a slight sense of loss that the words convey. I feel soiled for ever having found it happy in the first place. Oh well, sod it, I'm off to France.
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nutty tart
inspired by rachel's previous ramblings and a newspaper article, today I'll be chatting about gender.
men are really fucked up guys, like, seriously. Once it was all clear cut, men were dominating bastards, women were supressed, objectified, victimised. Yes, it was afwul! Yes, we have progressed! But by diggety, a lot of men are now unsure of their place in society. It was a small point in the newspaper, and not really justified, but i found the idea interesting that, now women are just as eligable to work as men, the following is now possible, "the home unit is now mother and child, the father being replaced by the state."
Women dont *need* men to take care of them or provide for them. They get their own money and their own benefits. But where does that leave us? Personally, in a relationship I have enough faith that things will work mutally, but i feel sorry for the men who have no idea what they're suppoed to be doing. All range of statistics from male anorexia to depression to concern over image have increased dramatically for men. Not that this is unfair because female anorexia and the concern over image that male objectification brings have always been high. But now, as well as females suffering from the male gaze, men are suffering from the female...dissatisfaction?
Ay! These are interesting times.
What saddens me is that, the women who were once oppressed (in the western world. im well aware women are systematically victimised still in many countries) and who fought the oppression, winning the right to vote, the equal wage, the maternity leave and so forth, are all now dead. This is a statement that may get me shot, but all hardcore feminists of today *arent/werent* victimised nearly half as much as they were and so should shut up (much like Germaine Greer has astutely decided to do). What we need is for the gender that now seems to be calling the shots to change their attitude.
otherwise the balance will forever be switching sides.
It was a year or so that Iraq was under American rule. And already it is suggested that horrible memory of Saddams regime is dulling, being replaced with the American occupation. How easy the force of 'liberation' becomes the oppression if unchecked.
Name me any rebellion where the rebellion has been successful *and* the successful side has taken measures to ensure the previous regime never comes to power again(I mean reeaal measures. Not just signing a paper and saying thats it). Will women ensure that men do not become oppressed? Or insecure? Or redundant? Or in a few years time will men have to turn the tables again.
My advice kids, is not to worry. Don't treat your husbands, wives or mice bad, because there's no reason to. Aim to be equal and fair in all of your personal relationships, and that's a start.
especially with the fieldmice.
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