The Beauty of the Past

This post is five years in the making. To be completely accurate, it is five years and nine days in the making. On December 23rd 2008 I opened a Notepad file on my laptop and started to write about my day. The event that set me off was the messy capitulation of a high school romance; a break-up that I oddly owe so very much to, in hindsight. Every day from that moment on I would write an entry, some longer than others, in what would be called 'Diary of a Boy'. Between that youthfully painful day and the 27th of May last year I typed thousands upon thousands of words, as I mapped out four and a half very important years of my life.

Just One Emotion at the End of Another Exam Diet

It's been a tough couple of months for one reason or another. Well actually it was really only one reason: exams. On Friday I sat the last of three massive exams - probably the most important I've ever done - and one emotion really marked the occasion a lot more than I thought it would: a real sense of emptiness. When I look back on the last few weeks in particular I start to question whether I've ever really wanted my exams to be over just because they were a nuisance or they were getting in the way of watching crap on the TV. When it comes down to it, the thing that I wanted the most was for them to be done well, rather than just done. Maybe that explains my feeling of emptiness.

Some Recent Thoughts

I've forgotten how to write. Okay, so that is not strictly true but it has been a long time since I slipped on my blogging gloves and got down to some good ol' ramblin'. I would be lying if I said my lack of blogging recently has left a gaping hole in my life because I've been so busy with university that at times the whole thing seemed like a distant memory. Then someone asked me why I hadn't posted for a while and realised that I might quite like to spend half an hour tapping out some recent thoughts for you to chew over. So here they are: some recent thoughts.

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.

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?

Success in all the Right Places

It's taken me about a week to get around to writing this post but I knew as soon as my last exam result was out that it was going to happen. Why the delay then? Well firstly I thought I should let the dust settle after what had been an arduous period of waiting for everyone. Secondly I didn't want to come across as being someone who brags about their results as soon as they got them through. Yes, you got it, I'm going to spout for 5 or more paragraphs about how happy I am with my results and be under no illusion that I couldn't be prouder of myself just now. Gloating? Probably to an extent but everyone that I study with has had some time to digest their results so why shouldn't I get to talk about mine?

Back to the Start

I thought that I would be able to save myself until the end of next week before I dusted down my blog again but I can't keep myself away. I've been typing notes for the best part of 10 hours today and yet my fingers still want more. My back might well say 'no', but my fingers say 'go' - who am I to ignore fingers that can think and talk for themselves? They've got me into plenty of trouble in the past so I've learned to embrace them and go with the flow - there's little point in fighting the feeling any longer. So with that gripping (yes, I just punned) story under my belt I guess it's time to crack on with something substantial. I'm not 100% sure where this post is going to go (which tends to happen when my brain is mush) but I like the feeling of writing something that isn't for revision purposes. However, knowing me, by the end of this post I will have told you all you need to know about the Scots law of leases - I'll try my damnedest not to though!

Still Alive

Knock, knock! Anyone out there!? You'll all be glad to know that I'm still here and I've not lost the ability to blog - who groaned at the back of the room there? After over 2 weeks of radio silence I return briefly this evening to make you smile (hopefully) and to make myself feel good about writing again. I'm not going to lie, these last few weeks have been pretty heavy going. I've done almost nothing but revise, a big part of which has been typing notes. I'm now well into the tens of thousands in terms of words typed for notes and not a word has been spilt since on anything jocular or with any of the usual innuendo or irony that I love to see dripping from my writing like too much chocolate sauce on your ice-cream. I've missed this thing more than ever over these last few weeks because of the (more often than not) dense amount of work that I've got to do for my exams. In short, it's nice to be back!