Is She?

My break is almost over. It's been three weeks to the day since my dissertation deadline passed and I haven't touched university work since - it's been great. In that time I've had a relaxing week away beside the sea, resolved to make a decent go of improving my German in the summer and rediscovered my interest in poetry. I started writing poetry towards the end of high school and was quite productive between then and the middle of second year at university when it just disappeared from my life. Until this afternoon I hadn't penned a single stanza for two years. 

It felt good to be creative with something again and to get my hands dirty with structure and story telling. Today I remembered how much I love writing poetry and I thought I would share that with you in this post. Underneath I've included an audio of me reciting the poem which I've called 'Is she?'. Hope you enjoy it. 

A day pined for, a day now gone.

A hop, a grape and repeat –

as long as I stand, hit me neat.

Stunned. Stranger yet familiar;

familiar but I’m strange

like that.

I admit: I see you in her, and her in you.

Make it stop, help me start:

another round?

And around we go. Sit and watch and talk and

I will show,

show nothing new, not to you.

For you know my type:

light and loud, heavy and

Quiet.

Is she? I don’t even know her name.

Cheers,

Martin

My Favourite Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia gets bad press. From day one at university we were told, in no uncertain terms, that it is the devil's source and should not be used in any academic work. Consequently, when you tell someone that you found your information (whether that be about how many goals Liam Fox scored for Livingston or the names of the Queen's corgis) on Wikipedia, they scoff. Granted, I'm sure that, overall, Wikipedia comes quite short of being 100% accurate, but you would be lying if you said you don't use it at least a hand-full of times a week.

Once you get past the prejudice against the great online encyclopedia, you can start to enjoy it. Away from the likes of BuzzFeed and Facebook, there is a world of knowledge out there waiting to fill the hours you should be using for other things - knowledge gathering procrastination, you might call it. Anyway, this morning I searched for something I've been meaning to for a while and found what I can comfortably term my favourite page on Wikipedia. Guess I should tell you about it then?

Dissertation Reflections

Dissertation and idleness. Those are the two extremes on what has very much been a sliding scale of emotions and productivity for me over the last couple of months. Before the idleness, however, came the 'Big D' and I think that enough time has elapsed for me to be able to properly reflect on it.

It was a curious experience for me. The biggest hurdle was getting over the disappointment of not enjoying my dissertation as much as I thought I would. When I set out to 're-think liability for defective products' back at the start of fourth year, I had the genuine belief that I could make a valuable contribution to the product liability debate. I set myself up for a fall.