If life were a bowl of cherries...

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05/28/2007

Update

What have I been up to... In no particular Order:

• Baking bread
• Revising - Music and Biology
  
• Failing music tests... well a high B, but not happy with it
• Running... 3-4 miles into town and then cycled back. No stops. I didn't think I was physically capable of that!!
• Listening to Music
• Reading watching the English
  
• Cycling until Emma's back tyre went flat and we had to sit in the middle Melbourne to wait for my Dad to arrive
• Looking at jobs, gap year andoutdoor sports qualifications
  

They are right... Facebook is going to make us all fail our exams.

Im torn in three now:

Music: Organ, Choirs, creativity, relaxing, somthing beautiful, teaching... Needs a lot of work but it isn't impossible f I work especially as I now basically down to 2 instruments after the summer (Organ and Oboe). I love music and it is essential to relax etc. but unless I go to teaching or professional the most I'll be doing is Organ plus the odd jazz/pub gig singing and maybe the odd orchestra. Basically fun stuff... Church organ post would be nice though - it's good to feel you can do something for your church

Science: The feeling of discovering something *new*, excitement, novelty, intelectual, conversation. Working with people with similar interests and feeling like I'm doing something. The practical and constant alertness aspect is also good. It's a challenge and it's fun. 

Outdoors:               Nothing                  better than standing at the top of a mountain and looking out, or skimming the water at 10 knots... that feeling of freedom and liberty that you get no where else... The one thing that *always* makes me happier. I have jsut started to realise I am actually capable of doing this and there is nothing stopping me once I have the instructor qualifications. And currently I really really do want to.

But I don't know... Atm I think I am going to get the qualifications I can, Work in a school for a gap year as a music/sport/science person (whichever they want or all three), take a degree in science... and then see which offers a job first. Or which one ends up letting me travel the most and get outdoors and on water the most. I don't like have such a wide ranging general direction to be headed it unnerves me. Anything could happen... simultaneously stimulating, scary and exciting. I'm not used to it, everything used to be so clear. All I have to hang on to is that whatever happens there will be a job and a life at the end of it. 

Doesn't make sitting in classrooms working and easier when you know you could get a job without the irritation! 

xXx 

21:20 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Science , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

05/11/2007

Departmental

I could see she had something on her mind... so could everyone else I think - well almost everyone else. As usual the boss managed to walk in jovial and blind as ever, and opened the days proceedings with insults, ridicule and a healthy dash of chauvinism. The "precious" thing visibly flinched at his banter, maybe a little more than something then.

gfd

Bert caught my eye as she walked in. Well I think he did, he has an irksome habbit of that. I can never be quite sure what he means, whether he is in jest or ernest, whether an action was intentional or purely coincidental. I suppose it may be a bit of both, but that just seems like a cop out answer. He might have been trying to warn me or he might not, either way he completely failed to prepare me for what happened next.

gfd

Can I suggest any motives behind his actions? Yes. Can I prove any of my theories? No. It is entirely possible that for some reason Bert decided that today was the day when one too many people had walked into the room and dumped all of their files, papers, stationary, coffee and clothing onto his desk. It might have been the case that for once he had just decided to loose it. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was fed up (nothing new there). But it isn't every day you see a grown man throw a full scale temper tantrum.

gfd

It was actually fairly systematic. He moved along from the door to his computer steadily weeding out everything he couldn't recognise as his. By weeding out I mean throwing across the room. Rhi's laptop was fortunately elsewhere, but the case and it's contents found their way to the door (and all her files soon followed). The pile of papers ended up by the far window - I swear you couldn't throw paper that far without making an aeroplane first. The jacket flew quite gracefully into Jamie's face and to put the icing on the cake (which incidentally was not touched despite belonging to me) the hole punch was thrown rather heavily against the wall. The tuneful accompaniment to this outburst was a steady crescendo of noise punctuated by explitives and the occasional thud as more objects hit the floor.

gfd

I have to confess I was laughing too hard at the colour of his face (redenning in proportion to his volume) to pay much attention to his words. Rhi managed to top everything off. Breaking out of her reverie for a few minutes she took it upon herself to "help". I almost doubled over as she picked up the first of his pens and handed it to him with a smile. Confused he took it and put it back where it had been, so she picked up the next. The process continued until he slammed the final item down back onto his desk with a stamp

gfd

Of course that would be when the boss walked back into the room.

gfd

Trying to empathise with d'Enovers is something I avidly avoid, but it's not difficult to imagine his thoughts as he tried to step over the pile of junk in the doorway. I don't quite know what shocked him more. The five beetroot faces expressing varying degrees of mania? The barricade? The tidy desk? Or the thousand or so small paper circles about 5mm in diameter which were now strewn across the floor.

"T'was Perkin's," Bert finally managed to mumble through gritted teeth - he didn't dare to turn around. Rhi's wordless outrage contradicted this and I have to say that both looked as guilty (and contrite) as the other. We were all still giggling, but the good 80cm distance from the crime scene immediately put us out of questioning.

"So this is when the MD walked in yes? Conference Room... NOW Perkins!" No surprises then that d'Enovers would simply ignore the entire thing. What repsonsability is it of his if his minions decide to play war with the office?

Rhi left - suddenly very calm in a way that reminded me ominously of "The Green Mile". I didn't know she was that scared about the whole presentation thing or I would have offered more help. But then again I don't know a lot of things.

Bert returned to his desktop as though nothing had happened. And I found myself wondering once again how much more than me he knows. And how much he hides. Why today would he go to such extreme measures to clear his desk (knowing full well that at 8:30am sharp my coffee will be back in it's standard position at his left elbow)?

Or why today would he go to such extreme measures to make a colleugue smile?

gfd

I was still wondering when Rhi returned and left again - followed by his wishes of good luck.

Some people just know things and to be honest, after today, maybe I'm glad I don't.

xXx

21:05 Posted in Office Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

At the lab

And I'm back again... with a paper to read for July 1st and a list of techniques I need to revise and memorise for the same date. And I'm loving it. Pure science. Pictures and proteins and cells and more than anything else *thinking*. Looking at something and saying "well ok... this does this... but how does it... and can it..." :D Nothing is final and it's brilliant. 

Working with Sasha this time around which will be good... and at a reasonable level. The aim is to extend on what I did last time. So here it is: This time what I do needs to work. Last time most of my stuff did work so this should not pose much of a problem - (note the famous last words!). I can't believe I am saying I am looking forward to a time when getting up each morning is not a chore but something worth doing, and when sleep comes easily because I've actually spent the day working! ! !  But it is true.

I have also decided something. Freedom suits me. Whether is is literally getting on a train and going somewhere, freedom to think as I wish, freedom from a relationship or freedom from myself... it suits me and I like it. Feel free to disagree with me... that is your very special privilege which I wouldn't dream of denying you.

Question: Are we a nation of unemployed graduates and not enough plumber and electricians? Where does the requirement to have "a degree" stem from? Does replacing old vocational courses with "Agricultural Studies" (gardening) or "Surfing Studies" (duh!) or "Resistant Material Practical Engineering" (Carpentry/Joinery/metalwork!) serve any purpose? Why do we recommend academia for all, instead of encouraging potential and aptitude specific to each person?

Any ideas? 

xXx

14:20 Posted in Life , Science , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this

05/09/2007

Of Music and Madness

I have been thinking....

I have decided I should probably cease this activity.

I have decided this isn't going to happen so whats's the point worrying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am happy. This is significant progress on my part and consequentally I would like all the people around me to be happy for me (I am selfish like that). This whim of mine is being rather confounded by the fact that serveral of my friends have decided that I can not *possibly* be happy after the events of the past few weeks and there for I must be bi-polar instead (a.k.a. Manic Depression). Whilst I would like to thank them for their concern... This is not reassuring.

Rewards going out for people wh can suggest suitable methods of dealing with my music teacher... The fact that all my energies are currently being directed into being angry at him has no bearing whatsoever on my generally calmer and more relaxed state of mind. *innocence* Actually, I have to say I do not hate him. I merely find him and his more than necessarily childish demenour intensly irritating. This has the rather unusual result that despite holding decent and entertaining conversation with him, I still leave each lesson wanting either to kill something or to curl up and cry...

I suppose that is the effect of someone poking fun at the aspects of your self, skill or life that you are most insecure about... It *is* (unfortunately) funny... but just too much for the current time. *sign* c'est la vie.

On a brighter note... I have an excellent set for my Grade 8 singing which is approaching all too quickly. I have my first lesson with Anne Page tonight. :D And I have done some biology revision (AT LAST).

Random comments....

"You look nice in that... My God your boobs look good" ("only you ____ only you")
"You look happy... what's wrong... are you in love?" ("no out of it")

Right, now too long for a post...

I'd like to write a gallant rhyme
A set of lines, in standard time
But as it's getting close to five
I'll spare you all till another time.

xXx

15:30 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Fun , Funny , Life , School | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

05/08/2007

But I'll be shaking with laughter one of these days

It's amazing how fast things change...

(I would also note it is amazing how long it has been since I last updated this blog... so to all of those who have missed e so much (*rolls eyes*), apologies.)

Now that formality is over... it is amazing how quickly things change. How one person or one relationship can be completely reversed over a few (very long) months. All of it is so hard to take in. I can see the reality and it feels like a dream. I can see her laugh and I don't believe it. I see the honesty in her smile and I am speechless. I am still scared. But that is life. Always new and different. Always changing

Well love's been the teacher
The saviour
And the knife

I went to Bristol at the weekend. It was beautiful (not the city so much as the journey to and from I have to admit). Golden skies across the West Country all the way there made even the power stations and warehouses look glorious. And on the way back from London to Cambridge the sun setting behind storm clouds and a rainbow that stood out in the sky more vivid than anything I can recall. 

I want to see more of that... New places, new people. There was one man sitting next to me on the Bristol-London route who managed to drink 12 Carlsberg in one journey according to the other sitting opposite me... and he played monopoly very badly afterwards, but could still walk straight. Then there was the graduate reading Bored of the Rings, only he wasn't really, it was just an excuse to be able to sit and think - although why he needed an excuse on the train I don't know, so maybe it was just an attempt at a distraction. I liked his eyes. Although I liked the little girl more, she kept making faces at me, so I made some back and she giggled then wondered off to get some food from the pram.

He thinks of her often
Like whens hes watching the swallows nest
And when the moon rises
As bright as her eyes
He loves her the best

When the owls start callling
And there's snow on the barn
He thinks of the last time she lay in his arm
A little adveture wouldnt do any harm

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ?

I suppose a part of us always wants to have someone to share things with. Someone we can run up to grinning and run off a list of the days joys and celebrations. Equally we all in part want to hear that from the people we love. Just a small window into their day. Hapiness is better shared. I envy the people who find that easily. 

xXx 

16:15 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this