Classic Me to Classical Music - The Short Journey to Being Boring

This blog could not get any more boring. For the most part I agree with that statement because my writing over the last year or so has taken a turn for, what one might call, the philosophical - or just downright rubbish. Long gone are the days when I would sit down twice a week and make a fool of myself for the entertainment of others. Admittedly that was not the aim of my writing, but in hindsight I can't help but feel that my weekly log of embarrassment brought smiles to more faces that I care to think. 

A View of Myself Through the Looking Glass

"I am what I am, and what I am is what I have made myself". Those profound words were typed out over four years ago by the same fingers that write this post tonight. The phrase made a reappearance in a rather narcissistic (and poorly written) post over on the younger brother of this blog, Ramblings of a Teenager, in 2011. 

The line popped back into my head when I was watching House earlier today, when one of the characters said that 'we are who we are'. I then set out on a mission to find the place that I first wrote those words to find out the context and mindset that they were developed in. Safe to say I was not ready for what I found.

Angel on the Train

I've been meaning to write this post for a while. At the same time, I think I've written this post time and again without knowing it. I'll keep it short because I'm pretty tired. I was on the train earlier coming back from 5s. The train is always busy on a Wednesday and getting on at the first stop after the two major stations invariably means that I have to stand. So there I stood, ankles aching and knees pulsing. Out of the corner of my eye (lies - she was right in front of me) was a beautiful girl - classically beautiful. To give you an idea, she looked like Michelle Monaghan (of 'Heartbreak Kid' with Ben Stiller). Shame she was sitting next to at dork who she appeared to be fond of.

Michelle Monaghan: classically beautiful.

This was the kind of guy who wears lanyards (note the plural) and tight jeans. In terms of his most distinguishing feature, he looked a little bit like I did when I was taking my first tentative steps in puberty: spotty with a bad hair style. OK, so the latter remains a common part of my appearance but this guy looked like he should have been in school uniform rather than skinny jeans and a Ralph Lauren jumper - yes, I'm pretty observant. I think you get the picture that I was feeling jealous for the duration (about 20 minutes) of my train journey with love's young dream. Jealously is a cruel mistress.

The reason why I opened this post by saying that I've been meaning to write this post for a while is not because I've seen this girl before. No, it's because I've often found myself in situations with an 'angel' but never found the need to write about it. To be honest I was looking for a post to write tonight because I've only written law stuff today - this girl (or at least my similar experiences) seemed like a good topic to go for.

We've all done it when we've been on a train or in a coffee shop. It's often good fun to take a few minutes out of your life to wonder what might be before realising that yours is the next stop and it's time to alight back to reality again.

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!

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

A Look at Love

Today I have been unsettled. I occasionally sit myself down to watch a film that I know is going to skew my head for a couple of hours and this post comes off the back of such a film. I'm a huge Ian McEwan fan - something that my Dad is mainly responsible for. A couple of his books are amongst my favourites - I even wrote my first critical analysis on his best book (in my humble opinion) 'Saturday'. This morning I decided that I would watch the adaptation of 'Enduring Love' starring Daniel Craig. Admittedly I've not actually read the novel but the DVD has been in the house for as long as I can remember and I finally decided that I would see what it was like. A deeply unsettling film about love and obsession, it has got me thinking about the question of love and what that actually means to me. A brief exploration into my head is sure to follow here - apologies are in the post.

Why the Sun is Bad For Your Eyes

Hurray! The good weather has decided to make a stop in Scotland for the first time this century and my goodness isn't everyone making the most of it? It has been nice to be able to step out of the door with 2 (or less!) layers on for once but a part of me thinks that some people have gone too far. The amount of flesh that I've seen over the last 3 or so days is unbelievable. And it's not just 'attractive' people that are at it either; everyone has decided to get their kit off for Mr Sunshine and quite frankly I'd rather they didn't. I knew everyone was going to come out when the weather got better but they are also getting out of their clothes and it's not cool - contrary to popular belief.

Settling

I used to think. To invert Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'If': 'if you can lose your head when all about you are keeping theirs' - that's just how I feel just now as I sit down to write this post. The stress levels are beginning to bubble and it won't be too long before they erupt (otherwise known as the exam diet) and everyone is suffering from the same fate - I'm certainly no different. I just feel that people around me are keeping their cool and I'm sitting doing nothing about the fact that I think I'm behind. I feel like I've settled for the 'I'll just get by' attitude which is something that I'm not known for. I need to start using my head again because it's pretty good whence I dust but the particles of misuse from it.