Life Affirming Moments

I've come to the conclusion that I can still blog and not let it affect uni work. As it stands tonight I've got 20 pages of reading for one subject and tonnes for the other but, with both seminars being tomorrow, I don't see myself getting it all done - but I'm going to have a go. The conclusion that I've come to is that I don't have to write loads every time I blog. It's stupid really that I didn't notice this before. Therefore, this is going to be a practice in concise blogging - not really what I'm known for eh?

In the last two days I've had to life affirming moments; or at least moments when I've felt happiest. Both have arisen out of making someone else happy or at least thankful that I was there for them. The first came yesterday in the last couple of hours of my shift at work. It was getting quiet but there was one group of people in the shop affecting any hopes of tranquility. They shouted their way around the shop and picked up a few dirty looks from myself and my tired colleagues. Anyway they got to the till making noise and a general nuisance of themselves - the woman of the group punched one of the 'youths' in the arm when I was serving them. I served them as quickly as my tired arms could and was happy to see the back of them - I wasn't the only one.

The couple behind were of Asian descent which wouldn't have really clocked with me unless the woman said to me what she did. Her opening line was 'what morons' - immediately we were on the same page. Then she told me that the group had been looking at her and her husband in a funny way all the way around the shop. Not expecting this, I reacted the best way I could and said I was sorry to hear that and agreed with her 'moron' comment. I decided not to dwell on it though because she was clearly upset and when I finished serving her I wished her and her husband a pleasant evening to which she smiled and gave a warm 'thank you' to me. I think (or at least hope) that I helped but they both seemed grateful to be treated the way that anyone should be - in short, it was the least I could do.

The other moment was this afternoon when I got off the train. I was feeling reasonably happy today in spite of the aforementioned workload in front of me but I was by no means chirpy. Anyway I got to the bottom of some stairs which an elderly lady was about to climb, laden with a heavy suitcase. I've seen so many people walk on past in that kind of situation so I thought I would break the mould and so I carried this lady's suitcase up the stairs for her. It was much appreciated and I got that same, warm 'thank you' that I got the night before from the lady in the shop.

The moral of the story is that the happiest I've felt recently it when I've helped someone and made them slightly happier as a result. These are small things but if everyone did something like that when the opportunity arose then we might all be happier for it.

Thanks for reading.

Martin

Offside Goals, Football Manager and Susanna Reid

I don't get to write an awful lot these days. Well, that's a lie because I write all the time - just not about stuff that most of my readers would have an interest in. I suppose that I could try it one day, writing some uni stuff here, just to see what the reaction would be. For example I'm just about to set out into the wonderful world of 'offside goals' in property law. To some that sounds interesting but only because it has footballing connotations. I can confirm it is interesting but I can also confirm that it has nothing to do with football. To put it another way: it's a rule about offiside goals that women that study law understand - the antithesis of the rule in the beautiful game you might say.

So with that in mind I feel that I should write about something that will appease the masses. The problem with that is that my life basically consists of university and taking time out to play/watch football - I've already covered those two topics in a single paragraph. My work here is done!

Liberating

So I'm sitting minding my own business, trying to get some reading done for another interesting week at university when the urge to procrastinate hits. An old tale, told by everyone in whatever life they have chosen for themselves. The only odd thing to come from this particular bout of procrastination is that it produced the a tiny spark of inspiration for writing again. I write a lot just now (5000 spilt today on the wonders of English property law) but nothing that would make people sit up and take noticed unless it was to get away from it. I'll stop going on about how life-changing this time-wasting was but the moral of this (preliminary) story is that procrasination doesn't have to be the bane of your life.

Vagina. There, I said it. Penis. Oh my goodness what is he doing? Well not very much actually apart from setting the tone for what might otherwise have been an awkward fumble through the taboo world of the names for body parts. I should let it be known that this isn't going to be a pornographic post. I don't fancy the idea of someone 'having a danger' (a term that some will be familiar with) or even the idea that someone's heart-rate will raise more than it needs to whilst reading - I'll do the writing, you just read along and we'll see if we're ready for 2nd and 3rd base when we're done...

Just Dropping In

I had to get a big stick (like a really big stick) to poke at my blog from a distance to make sure it was still alive. The signs weren't good: a few empty bottles of Scotch, a scattered box-set of 'House' and what seemed to be a half chewed packet of Haribo - it was a sorry sight and I cried profusely before arming myself with the aforementioned stick. It was surprised to see me at first and made to throw one of the scotch bottles at me but realised that it had no arms with which to do so and gave up on this futile effort. After clearing its head a little bit, it recognised me and came bounding over (after I had put in my password of course) with news that people have still been looking at my blog in my absence. Naturally it is hurt and it's going to take a lot of making up on my part but I guess that this, being my 40th post in ROATSomething, is a good place to start.

A Quick Word

A watched kettle never boils. I've not had my eyes on this blog for about 2 weeks (or at least it feels like that) and so there must be some kind of analogy to be had for the whole thing turning to steam in my absence. It's happened before as a lot of you will know but the reason why I noticed this time was because I didn't notice - yes, I'm running in circles tonight. I didn't really notice that I hadn't been blogging until a good friend of mine posted on his but I have my reasons.

The first is that I was working a lot last week: working, sleeping, drinking, working etc. Then there is the small matter of my honours years starting at university. It seems like the new academic year has come out of nowhere and here I sit after only two days with summer but a distant memory. I can't say I'm not happy to be back but I've read more in the last two days that I have in the whole summer - and I was reading a fair amount to pass the time!

So this was just a brief note to say that I am still alive and blogging (the poor sister show of 'Live and Kicking') and to get that terrible kettle boiling analogy out of my system before I use it somewhere that my words actually matter. You, my trusted and much adored readers, get the best of me - I promise.

I'm hoping to get a post out over the next few days in between university stuff but if I don't then I'm sure you'll have something better to read anyway. Someone jokingly (or at least they claimed to be joking...) said that they only read my blog over the summer because they were bored. I take no offence to this except for the fact I'm the one that makes the jokes around here!

I'll stop blabbing because I need sleep/stop staring at my laptop. Thanks for reading and hopefully something funny/interesting/embarrasing will happen to me which will be conveyed in the form of a blog post in the coming days.

Martin

Legacy? What Legacy?

So the summer of 2012 officially ended today. Well, we didn't really have a 'summer' in the traditional sense of the word but it certainly has been a few months that none of us will ever forget for one reason or another. This afternoon in London there was a parade for the British Olympians and Paralympians and it was a fitting end to a summer of drama, excitement and pride. As much as I enjoyed seeing all of the GB team in one place to celebrate everyone's success there was one word that annoyed me throughout the coverage: legacy.

The New Beginning Brought in by the Cathartic End

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I still go to university. It's been almost 4 months since I set down my pen for the last time in a 2nd year exam but it feels like even longer. At the time not a single part of me was disappointed to see the summer - I'm pretty sure I clicked my heels after that exam - but never did I think it would get to the stage where university felt like a memory rather than a reality. Thankfully that reality came running back to me today as I finally sat down to clear out my notes from last year - it was nice to see it again.

Everything that I did last year was brought home from my flat in Edinburgh in the summer and left in a drawer under my bed to be dealt with at a later date - I'm sure that's a familiar experience for a lot of you. I occasionally opened the drawer, looked at it and then quickly remembered that I had something much more important to be doing. Throughout the summer I thought that this was just a symptom of my prevalent summer laziness. Today, however, made me realise that there might have been another reason for the fact that this much needed clear-out remained in an almost permanent state of 'pending' in my head.

The Art of Drinking and Self-Alienation

We've all seen those 'don't let good times go bad' adverts which basically tell you not to binge drink and make an idiot out of yourself. I've decided that I might submit my own idea to the organisation that put out said adverts and this is what it would consist of: a short film of my day today and its many highlights (or 'lowlights' as they should probably be termed) culminating in me standing looking at myself in a mirror shaking my head. In short, today has been, hands down, the worst day of my summer and I've only got myself to blame. Yes, last night was quite fun but my 'post-fun' experience has been, let's say, less than palatable.

I always find it amusing when people say that they'll never drink again after a particularly heavy hangover. I've even said it myself in the past but I have long given up kidding myself that I will follow through on such a groundbreaking statement. Even this morning when I was standing in a cold shower having re-coated the toilet I wasn't even tempted into self-delusion. I will drink again and I'll probably drink more than I did yesterday but I won't enjoy it and here's why.

The Early Morning Reality of Dreams

Some of you may already know and some of you will fall off your seats when I tell you what I'm about to tell you. I think I've actually covered just about all of my readers in one sentence - not sure if that's good or bad. Anyway I've got a job ("Blog Readers Get Back on Seats After Nasty Shock") and I've been working away for about a week and a half now. One of the wonders of this job is that I've got 6am starts - note the sarcasm for future reference. If the truth is to be told, I've only had one of those shifts but I have had two other 6.30am starts - you're splitting hairs if you think there's a difference. My inaugural 6am start was in fact this very morning when I was up and about at about 5am with it still being dark outside and with the BBC World Service playing on BBC1. If I'm honest, I don't actually mind the early starts that much but something happened this morning/last night which annoyingly affected this morning's preparations.

We've all had dreams that, when we wake up, seem like they were as real as your first fart - or so I'm told anyway. Up until I started working, I didn't really dream all that much but in the last week a combination of early mornings and hard work has meant that I've slept like a log and I've had a dream just about every night since. Last night was no different but with me having to get up effectively half way through the night for work, this dream really did seem like it was real (basically because I was still half asleep in the shower and on route to work). But reality soon hit.

There are few things in life that are worse than having such a vivid dream only to realise that that was all it was. Reality bit hard this morning a few minutes from work with the promise of milk and frozen food replacing what was otherwise quite a pleasant existence - in my dream that is. I'll tell you about it eventually, I'm just delaying at the moment because I don't know how to describe it!

Right here it goes. It was a fairly standard dream: there were a lot of people that I know and I was there - the usual stuff. I'm sure that everyone important was there in some form but don't hate me if you weren't; my sub-conscious probably just doesn't like you. The reason why this dream hit me so hard was that someone was there (of the female variety) for whom I used to hold a lot of feelings. I've written about her in the past on Ramblings of a Teenager and I thought that was where she was to remain: in the past. Apparently not and so I woke up this morning convinced that everything in the dream (all clean, I promise) had actually happened and subsequently those feelings returned, albeit until I was putting ice-cream in the freezers.

I could approach this from a few different angles, each of which results in a different destination. Initially I thought that this might be a relapse but I've not spoken to her for about 3 years and I've seen her almost as little in that time - relapse is quickly ruled out thankfully. I could also look at it from the point of view that I might like to get in contact with her again but that's irrational - I'm learning! I should then` probably consider why I was dreaming about her at all because I've not thought about her in a long time and haven't even come across a 'story' on Facebook about her that would have really made me stop to think. The last, and most probable, reason for the dream deserves its own paragraph.

Those of you that have been reading Ramblings in the last couple of weeks like drug addicts looking for their next fix will know that I've been reading (and writing about) some hefty stuff recently - namely philosophy. I was actually at a lecture/interview with Alain de Botton at the weekend with my Dad at the Edinburgh International Book Festival but that's a post for another day. If you haven't been reading (why not!) then things went pretty deep last week - or at least as deep as I go.

Oh ye, that paragraph I was talking about - apologies for the important, yet lengthy, digression. My interpretation of the dream (hence the digression) and the way it got to me this morning is that I miss having a someone to pine after. The poem that I wrote about in 'A Look at Love' (which gets a lot more airtime that it really should) had a last line that says. "...is it love or teenage lust?". That very poem was written about my 'relationship' with the girl from last night's dream and the very reason why I wrote it was because it was just teenage lust - nice rhetorical question eh? The real question is this though: what would I not give for a little bit of that back?

It's funny how a little dream (which had many other elements to it by the way) can have such as effect on your head, especially on someone who considers himself half-decent at being stoical. I'm not going to let it get to me and I'll trot off to work tomorrow morning (slightly later start thankfully) thinking about something else. Having said that, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't mind dreaming about her again tonight.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

How to Take Inspiration From the Olympics

Last night's post is the last time I think I'll get 'deep' for a while. As much as I've enjoyed writing the last few posts, I feel that the style of them isn't really what most people want of an evening. With that in mind I set out on a quest of lightheartedness and jocularity and I hope you'll come along for the ride - that sounded like something from Disneyland; this isn't Disneyland.

It seems apt that I'm sitting down to write this post. I should say that I sit down to write all of my posts, just in case you had any images of me on my feet - sorry if that ruins your dreams. Anyway I'm very much in a sitting down position as I prepare, in my own inimitable way, to explain how to take inspiration from the Olympics. We've been told every day this week about the 'legacy' that the 2012 Games will have in Britain and how it's going to encourage people to get up and take part in sport. How does that legacy apply to the regular Joe though and how do we derive the necessary inspiration from Bolt and Co?