You thought I was gone again, didn't you? You thought 'Martin has said he's going to start blogging again but he won't follow through on it', didn't you? Sorry, I hate people telling me what I'm thinking as well. Nevertheless I'm almost convinced that those thoughts crossed your mind when you read my post a couple of weeks ago - and rightly so.
Anyway I'm here again, even if just to prove a point. There is tonnes to be written about, but I'll limit myself to just a couple of musings tonight. Together those musings should form a ramble, and at my hand that ramble should constitute the ramblings of a twenty-something. If that doesn't fit the brief then I don't know what will.
There's really only one place to start: Valentine's Day. Those of you who read this blog back when I was more prolific will remember that one of the main events of the year was my Valentine's Day bashing post - or the 'Commercialised Day of the Love-Giving Obligation' as I termed it at one point. The earlier versions of this rant - which is ultimately what they all were - showed me to be quite a lonely chap with a chip on my shoulder, while last year's post was an no holds barred polemic.
Those of you who did read my most recent post will know that something pretty big has changed in that department, and will therefore not be surprised to hear I had a slightly different experience this year. From Soreen loaf and cold coffee to one of the most fun nights I've had in a long, long time - minds out of the gutter please - it's been some transformation. For Valentine's Day, my wonderful girlfriend organised a surprise trip on the ghost tour bus around Edinburgh - something a little different.
Aside from the tour being funny in and of itself, the hour and a half we spent on the bus was was riddled with a series of unfortunate yet hilarious events provided by the night-folk of this wonderful city. Between the two Welsh rugby fans (not so) sneakily joining us in a graveyard and the unwelcome riders in the form of young whippersnappers and drunk Americans, I don't think the two of us stopped laughing for the whole tour. As we mused afterwards, it was a night which summed us up perfectly. Instead of doing what most other couples did on the 14th, we did it our way - and it was perfect. No more cold coffee for me.
I anticipate a number of 'I knew that was going to happen as well' comments, so maybe I best move on to the other thing that I wanted to talk about tonight: reading. I've finally come to the conclusion that I don't read enough - of anything. I keep a pile of books beside my bed but when I slide under the covers after a long day at uni I just can't bring myself to pick any of them up. I also don't read enough news and informative stuff. The nature of the profession I'm in requires me to be up to speed on a lot of things, but I just don't do it enough just now.
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| The pile of books beside my bed that never seems to change. |
So what am I going to do about it? I'm now past the stage where the answer to that question can't be 'nothing'. A must is to increase the volume of news and analysis that I read - I can't get away without doing that anymore.
As for the reading for pleasure stuff, I've been resolving to do something about that for so long now that I'm even boring myself. I said at the start of the year that I would read more but that hasn't transpired. I have finished a book this year but I want to read a lot more. Reading used to be something that I loved to do and so I'm hoping, whether by design or otherwise, to get back into it properly again soon.
I predict a 'we have heard this all before Martin'. Maybe I should have had a guest writer for tonight?
So that's where I am (somewhat mundanely) at just now. Despite feeling quite drained at the moment I'm pretty satisfied how things are going. I only have five more weeks of uni classes and things are starting to get going for the build up to my new job in the summer. Exciting and scary times ahead, but that's another post for another day.
Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll be back again soon bring some more old stories out of the archives.
Martin
