If life were a bowl of cherries...

06/10/2008

She has to do something to keep herself calm

It should not affect me so much. It shouldn't. Or effect if that is the right one. It shouldn't... but it does.

 

That is all.

 

Nothing more and nothing less.

 

But when you don't have the time to crash, you do what you can to keep yourself moving.

 

Anything you can.

 

Such is the way.

 

It's a pity really

 

xXx 

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06/02/2008

Displacement

The trouble with displacement... is that is it only temporarily.

 

Say, for example, you choose to displace an emotion for an evening so you can enjoy yourself (however random you appear) then at some point that emotion will come back. Usually it comes back when the evening is over. When everyone else has gone. When it is just you and no one to see...

 

I can never work out if that is better or worse.

 

xXx 

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06/01/2008

Greetings

I bid you greetings

All you angry men
And outraged women
Who sit and stare - for hours on end -
At the news reels on your TV screen
Who scroll through pages of

INTERNET HEADLINES

Tut and shake your head
Or shake your fist
And swear about injustice

 

I bid you greetings

You! Who's blood boils
And who's muscle trembles
In contempt
At the Dictators, the TNCs, the Banks, the Presidents, the Priests and the Teachers

As you sit and stare
And wait for the next headline
As you sit and stare
Eagar for the next to fuel your mindless fury
As you sit and stare

As you sit

 

As you sit

 

AND DO NOTHING

 

You sit and stare

At the woman beaten blue by a teenage daughter
At the vicar up in court, or the poedophile for rape
At the athlete torn apart by a long forgotten mine
At the young girl in the brothel waiting for her client
At the father searching in the ruins of a blowout
For a wife, for a parent, for a child, for a cousin, for an uncle, for a grandson, for a friend... for anybody?

 

You sit and stare

At a natural disaster wreaking havoc on a city
And swear hatred at the leaders,
At their lack of human pity

 

You sit and stare

 

And do nothing.

 

In your youth
In your passion
In your strength
In your self

 

You who have the power to shake the mountains
Who have the might to tople the steeples
And tear down the palaces

You have the feet that could teach the world to dance
You have the hands that could heal the scars that still deform
You have the tongues that could bring wisdom
You have the minds that could imagine something better

 

Most of all you have the hearts
The anger
The passion
The blood and the guts


Most of all you have the heart
That could
Give you

Strength

 

To change things

 

But you don't
You sit and stare.
In your selfish, smugness and self-centred pious righteousness
You watch the world go to hell in a handcart
And shake your head
And shake your fist

 

Then turn the TV off

 

And go to bed.

 

 

At least those without the wit, or the compassion...
Without the heart or the soul to be angry...
At least they can sleep

 

Without their own hypocrisy tainting their dreams

 

I bid you greetings
And I bid you goodnight

 

You sicken me.

 

xXx 

 

 

18:10 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Poetry , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

Challenge

Don't judge me for the clothes I wear - they will be different tomorrow.

 

Don't judge me for the music I listen to - I can turn it off.

 

Don't judge me for the salary I earn - I work for what I can, same as you. 

 

Do not judge me for my education - The skills we aquire are nothing to how we apply them. 

 

Don't judge me for the company I keep - I might see something in them you don't.

 

Don't judge me for the leaders I obey - obeidience does not equate to respect.

 

Don't judge me for the lover's I chose - Who I love does not define me.

 

Don't judge me for the Gods I worship or the temple I use - For you know the truth no better than I.

 

Don't judge me for my intelligence - Knowledge can only ever lead us so far.

 

Don't judge me for my age - years bring as much folly as wisdom.

 

Don't judge me for my politics - you do not know my reasons.

 

Don't judge me by what I am called - there is nothing in a name.

 

 

 

Judge me by my actions; and see all the above fall into perspective.

 

And I shall judge you by yours.

 

xXx 

  

 

  

16:38 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

What is different

No longer do I sit at the end of your bed and talk long into the night. No longer do I ask your approval or seek to justify my choice by pointing out virtues and wisdom (?) and above all the potential they have for all that could be good. No longer do I try to twist their words and their actions into something - anything - I can respect.

 

No longer do you try to calm me; try to find ways to agree with my self-deception. This time is not like those times before. You've said so yourself.

 

This time. 

 

I don't need your approval. And for that very reason, I am fairly certain I have it. But I DONT NEED it. I have made my choice (if you can call it that) and I regret nothing. I don't need to justify. I don't need to explain. I don't need your reassurance and your blessing.

 

My life, my choice, my happiness. And for once I am happy. More than I can say.

 

But not so much that you can't catch a glimpse in my voice, or my face, or my words.... from time to time.

 

Does the security bring the happiness?

 

Does the happiness allow me to feel secure?

 

Does it matter?

 

If I can never explain. If there is no need to justify. If I feel no obligation to answer for myself or my choice, then the answer is probably not.

 

No longer do I sit at the end of your bed and talk long into the night, because there is nothing I can say. You can see far better what I would like to say, if you just spend just one day watching. 

 

And that is what is different this time.

 

xXx 

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05/31/2008

Going Away

There ae many ways to go away.

 

Some peope lose themselves in the dark passages of their minds. They re-visit old hours and past minutes, they works slowly though archives of emotion and experience, observing all and feeling none. And sometimes they get so lost the visions cease to make sense and they can wonder, lost, for hours on end in a labyrinth of their own designing.

 

For some it is different. They become children. Eagar, expectant, excitable. Each emotion they feel is displayed, so openly, and then cast aside as quickly as it was formed. Tactile and mobile. They do not sit, but turn and look and watch and touch and feel and question. There may be no purpose in any of this. But the distraction keeps them occupied; takes them back to a time when it was easier to let the clouds slide on by. For the moment, they are safe.

 

Some people dress up. New suit, better make up - you can see it all the time. The accesories are superfluous. What they actually do is build another person. This guise is not necessarily better or worse, or much different to their real self (if they are practised), it is simply an easier life to live. This new self processes things better, and anything that does not fit the processing can be forgotten or ignored.

 

Some people count things, or double two, or engross themselves in a logic or maths puzzel. Some people create an entire universe inside their head. Or bury their conciousness in the imaginations of other authors. 

 

Some people take drugs. Some people take up exctreme sports. Some people run. Some combine the two in parkour. Some people drink. Some people hurt themselves. Some people lose themselves in sex. Some people immerse themselves utterly in their own anger.

 

There are many ways to go away.

 

The question is not why. The question is not how. The quesiton is not where, or even for how long. 

 

The quesiton is how the hell do we bring them home?

 

xXx

 

 

 

20:36 Posted in Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

05/19/2008

Good

Good

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7407589.stm

 

That is all I can say at the moment... relief...

 

I am not so bothered about banning true 50/50 hybrids (as that would get messy in all sorts of tangible and ethical/philosophical ways), now we just have: saviour siblings, abortion and the role of fathers in IVF.

 

The first I am really not sure of... Killing life to save life is one thing and hard to justify, but I think it is equally hard to justify creating a life just to save another. But then again, there are so many unwanted children in the world that the fact they might only be wanted for the sake of another is hardly credible as an argument. I can understand why people would want these saviour siblings. But part of me also says that people should be born unique and *untampered with*... And that people should have the chance to find their own purpose, not have one handed to them on a plate. (There was an interesting book along a similar yet very different line: "The Girls" that told the story of two siamese twins and their dependence on each other.) I think ultimately in this case there should be no law against it. There is also the question of to what extent we will screen embryo's and how selective we become... Apparently "My sister's Keeper" raises this issue, but I have not read it.

 

Abortion date. At 8 weeks an embryo becomes a foetus. At 10 the vital organs (including brain) are fully formed and by 12 weeks the neuronal development is such that the foetus has reflexes and muscle control. By week 20 we have facial expression, fully functional cardiac and urinal cycles, semi-functional digestive tract (obviously this doesn't actually finish developing until the child has been weaned), motor control (thumb sucking and other cure things apparently) and the development of the senses - taste, smell etc. At the critical 24 weeks the foetus has a 44% chance of surviving outside the uterus, at 23 weeks this is reduced to 16%. By now the eyes are developed (still no pigment) and the foetus is responing to sounds of the outside world.

 

The question really is... what is the significance in this reduction. Yes, 200 000  abortions a year is too much. And yes, I do not find the idea in any way appealing. Apparently, 24 weeks was chosen when this was the age that the foetus could survive outside the uterus with support. Recent medical develoments have made in more likely for a foetus to survive a younger age and now the limit is supposedly 21 weeks. Question: Is it foetal viability if they require life support? Or the date of the earlier premature child that survived? Or the date when any foetus could theoretically survive unsupported outside the womb. (btw: I believe the data here, is *survive into adulthood without consequential complications*... but I wouldn't swear to it)

 

The choice of whether or not to abort is one of the hardest ones I can imagine any couple/woman having to make. However, if the choice is possible, if we are still going to let people decide in advance that their own/their child's quality of life will be too low to be worth the living of it... If we let people have that choice then part of me says that the woman needs as much time as we can give her to make her decision as evenly as possible with minimal trauma and mental upset. There is also the issue of the speed of the legal process. Then there is the issue of abortion for medical reasons - in particular the mothers. As I see it, I don't think that the reduction is significant in real way except to keep the law in line with it's original intention.

 

I think the question really is the significance of foetal viability?

 

Father's Role in IVF. I can not find out quite what is being debated here as people ae getting too hyped up over abortion (as ever) and their new pet favourite or "Frankenstien's Monster" (a.k.a. hybrids). I think the move is to say that father's are unnecessary and giving single women and lesbian couples equal opportunities for IVF treatments. I am not sure where I stand on this... instinct tells me I am against it. However, I know as well as the next person how many people fail to find their family in blood relatives and instead look for mothers, fathers, brothers, aunts, cousins... in the people around them. A father figure is essential, yes. Or several...

 

As I don't know what is actually being discussed... So I shall say that I think I support the role in sperm doner father's finding the identity of their child... But I think if this is the case then maybe they should be expected to play a part in the support of the child.

 

I shall now witter on various related topics. 

 

Ok... logically. I support the birth of children to single sex couples because I can not think of a reasonable argument against it. They offer more support and stability that single parent families and in my experience it is the complimenting of personalities and *roles* that makes a sucessful relaitonship. Whilst this may be more common (in my observation alone) in heterosexual couples I would never say it was impossible with single sex couples... and I am aware how the relative sample sizes will have colours my opinion. I would suggest that finding father figures in family friends etc, would be useful... but the same is true of many many families.

 

I am not sure if I could advocate the birth of a child to a single woman through IVF simply from a logistical perspective. Accidents happen so to speak, and people end up in single parent families with only one source of income and support. However, I don't know how much I could support the deliberate creation of a life with only one half of a family and equally only half the deserved support...

 

It is a hard one, and most of my views stem from my rather (odd maybe all things considered) strong opinions on family. And also balance within family, between the sexes, between personality... (losely) I think I believe, procreation was intended for man and woman who - ideally - between them can offer protection, education, support and fun through the combination of their own specific talents and traits. We all know that the actual occurance of this is rare - but the question is, to what extent are we willing to allow the deliberate breaking away from this ideal.

 

So I think I will stand - for the moment at least - with homosexual couples: yes... single parents... no.

 

It is interesting to note that some of the animal research into homosexuality has been a propensity for homosexual males to develop in a population where there are too many dominant males. These males act as ballast (so to speak), filling the role of an uncle, and supporting the community without actually reproducing. The suggestion is that in these circumstances, homosexuality is a means of controlling population growth.

 

Not sure what I believe about that, or how is affects the argument... but it is an interesting point.

 

xXx

 

PS: so much for organ practise.

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05/16/2008

Look back and see where you've come from

Not really sure why.

 

I'm not liking how much seems to have crashed it's way into the next 3 months. How much I don't seem to be able to get out of. Trying to tie together what I want to do, what I should do and what I must do. And the last category contains enough to fill most of my time whilst any spaces are suitably plugged by the penultimate category. 

 

It is very odd, the run down of the end of school: Had a lifeguarding meet yesterday which was highly entertaining (even if Watson did seem to vanish rapidly) and it was great to see everyone together. It is a rare and pleasent thing when you end up working in a group that clicks so well - an hours training (/helping with an assesment) followed by playing with the floats and big ball followed by tea and biscuits in the sports centre. Although I was a little tired after 90 minutes in the pool. Thinking of doing a lifeguarding trip punting in the summer... 

 

The same is true of Chemistry. Out teacher was stuck in traffic (Stupid new Guided Bus!!! 12 months of HORRENDOUS (even for Cambs) traffic) so we couldn't start the cake... but it was actually a surprisingly good lesson. None of us were in the mindset for practise papers so we just did a massive spider chart of Nitrogen Chemistry on the white board and then question and answer sessions from the random revision cards that were lying around. I will miss the dynamic in that class... teasing, jokes, some truly colossal red-herrings and people who actually put the work in enough of the time to make a difference. :D It's been a good year.

 

There is little I will actually miss from the Leys, but I think that those two will feature on the list. Also break times, just because you have the chance to wonder up to the kitchen, grab some food and just sit around chatting or reading the paper for half an hour with whoever turns up. I doubt I will really find that level of regular socialness unless I actually do go into teaching, which is not beyond the realms of possibility.

 

Irksome. I have spent much of my life dreaming of true solitude, or rather, the chance to go new places and discover new things. I've always longed for the chance to walk down a street where no one knows my name. I've striven for the chance to make it on my own, to stand on my own two feet, do my own thing and be acknowledged for the things I've done. I've wanted to find friends and around me but build my own life.        Finally, I now have that chance ....

 

 

 

 

And now I have finally learnt the difference true companionship / friendship can make.

I have found people that I not only would not mind sharing my adventures (sucesses and failures) with. People I want to show the things I discover. People I wouldn't mind having there to catch me when I stumble. For the first time I will not only appreciate the time I can spend with the people I admire and love, but I will also miss them when I don't have that. There are about 5 people on that list I think. That is seven people too many.

 

A valuable lesson to learn, maybe? .... Just not now????

 

And this just came on:

 

Everytime we say goodbye, I die a little,
Everytime we say goodbye, I wonder why? a little,
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know.
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change 
from major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye. 

When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change 
from major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

 

xXx 

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05/14/2008

Jane Austen

I have decided my life is Pride and Prejudice

 

• Crazy family: Check (although I am pleased to say that she is not constantly trying to match-make me)
  
• Life permeated by dry humour and social criitism: Check
  
• Mr Collins: Check (2 or 3 by my reckoning)
  
• Mr Wickham: Check (PLENTY of those, though none have run off with one of my sisters yet)
• Exasperated Father: Check (with me too much of the time, thanks for coming in yesterday!)
  
• Kind, well meaning and amusing extended family: Check
• Appreciation of the amusement to be found in the English Class System: Check
• Sisters: Check (although both Em and I are too like Eliza)
• Long chains of misunderstanding: Check
• Never enough money or hats: Check
• Lady Catherine de Burgh (sp): Check in OH! so many guises

I just have to wait for Colin Firth to walk around the corner in a rather transparent white shirt and my life will be complete. :P

xXx 

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05/09/2008

Its a new dawn... A new day...

And for those of you who read my facebook status, it isn't much better at all really.

 

I don't think I'll ever really question what I did. By the end of it I had no choice in the matter. A series of mistakes (from all parties) had pushed things to a more than unpleasent conclusion and as far as I can see - even in hindsight - I had very few choices left.

 

Hurting someone out of necessity prompts enough guilt. But that isn't the hard bit. The hard bit is that you can never be sure of your reasons; never be sure how much of what drove you was necessity and how much was just final retaliation at being pushed too far. Who can day how much was a desperate attempt to sort out the conequences of a mistake and how much was just hitting out and hitting hard.

 

It may have been necessity, but the necessity might well only have been an excuse in your mind.

 

And that bugs me somewhat.

 

Ignorance is no excuse, giving up is no excuse... necessity is a poor one.... cruelty and revenge is heartless.

 

I suppose the solution is:

• Would I now (in calmer and rational hindsight) do things differetly?            No.
  
• Did I hate them then or now?                                                            No.

And that, regretfully, must be my answer. The past haas been and gone and I hope this time around I learnt my lessons. It seems regrettably that some level of cruelty is part of life. And maybe the more significant part of it is how much it hurts us when we are forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Maybe what defines us is not what we do but the ultimate reasons behind it.

 

More importantly, maybe we are defined by how we react and respond to our own acts of cruelty - necessary or unnecessary. Do we feel guilt? Do we try to learn, to study where things became inevitable and strive to avoid a repetition. Do we deal with the fall out responsibly and rationally.

 

In a world where too often it seems that our choices aren't between black and white, but varying shades of grey and greyer... Maybe what we have to hold on to is our own integrity: our intentions, our compassion... and ultimately our strength and determination that by the end of it we will try to do right by those around us. 

 

And if the end result hurts us as much as it hurt them, and still you would not change what you chose... then it may well have been right, and you may well find the strength to live with yourself someday, and it may well work out for the better in the end (Only God could tell you that) ... But you will have learnt something.

 

And that is what life seems to be about for the most part. 

 

xXx 

07:25 Posted in Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

05/08/2008

And who knows where the time goes...

Who indeed.

 

• I have been reasonably productive today... sorted the board in my room that has been bugging me for at least a term - I took EVERYTHING down and now it all clean and, well not pretty, but at least I can look at it.
• I also organised my desk and put my notes in piles according to subject which I thought was excessively dedicated. Its really nice to be able to walk into my room again without cringing.
  
• I have sent off both sets of Music CW (recorded an average performance yesterday but apparently good enough).
  
• I did a UNIT 6 biology paper in 55 minutes (1h 10min exam) and I reckon I got about 80% - the extra 15 minutes should put be to a healthier mark.
• I went to a Gospel Choir Rehearsal and prodded the sopranos for being lazy and not making any noise... it was more the minimal effort I was complaining about not the actual noise.
• I had my first tutorial in over a month. :D Good to talk to Sue again.... interesting how much seemed important at the time, but doesn't get mentioned when you have the chance to say something. But that is another story. Oh! And all tutorials should happen in the sun. :D
• I had an organ lesson. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Piece Heroique :D It is such a beautiful piece. Most of it is not too hard either, just a few bars where you are playing 3 against 2 IN ONE HAND. Still very much fun. French music is goooood.
• I sat in the sun... found a most accommodating tree root actually.
• I went to theater crew and peeled gaffa tape off the stage - WHY does he have to buy the really cheap stuff?
• I had dinner

Oh and I told Deveson I was going to Edinburgh... He isn't happy. He thinks I'll regret it. i wonder how much that is just because *he* would regret it? I know I was good enough to get in, so it isn't a failure on my part... oh well.

 

Too many music rehearsals :(  But then again there is a mahuuuusive concert tomorrow night so I suppose that is fair. My lips will be killing me by then! ! ! ! All in the name of fun though. Meh, been having thoughts about oboe, interesting state of ambivalence really. I might tell you about it sometime.

 

 

But yes.... it's funny how quickly the time passes. How recently it seems I was revising for January modules. How recently I was at Sidmouth. How recently I was doing last years Cabaret.... Simultaneously, all those things feel like they belong to a different age, a different place, a different person.

 

I think it is that duality that is the confusing part. 

 

The last 2 months have passed in a blur... they really have. But equally it feels like an age since IVFDF and Celidhs and Ceroc / Jive in walking boots in the Student Union bar! Good times, good friends, good memories... soon to be repeated (Sidmouth :D)... so recent, yet so far away.

 

xXx

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05/01/2008

Few words... big thoughts

1. I like the Anglican Communion service.

 

Wonderful as it is to o things differently, much as I truly love the original and art / meditation / "free" services... there is something reassuring about tradration. It is not something to be relied upon, or taken as absolute. But sometimes you just need the familiarity of words you have said since birth - a little like sometimes you need to read a book you've read 100 times before, or listen to a song you know by heart, or sit on your favourite bench and pass the time of day. Today was one of those days I needed to feel at home... unfortunately I go to a Methodist School... so they messed all the words up anyway. But it was good to have communion again, it's been a while.

 

2. I miss labwork

 

The thing is that despite finding classroom science intrinsically dull, I really very much enjoyed lab work. And I was good at it. I still am if today's basic transformation is anything to go by. Although I DETEST the BioRad "School's Protocols" - It takes them 2 sides of A4 to say what I can sum up in 28 words! But I miss the level of concentration and organisation and dexterity that is needed foreven the most basic experiments. I really *must* go back to it sometime.

 

3. It's strange what makes you forgive people.

 

Many of you know that my Music teacher and I have not been on the best of terms lately. I have been failing to make his life easy from him and he has been making me cry (or hit things).... Deadlines, panic but mostly pride contributed to both side's rather rigid perspective. Yesterday evening my teacher was taking his dog for a walk. And his dog (who is very old, smelly and completely deaf) decided he had better ideas. Said dog chose to, instead of lagging 4 or 5 metres behind as per normal, run rings around his owner. So I had the delight of seeing my teachers (suit and all) flailing wildly, spinning on the spot, grabing handfuls of air as he struggled (for a good minute) to catch this semi-decrepid canine. It made me laugh. 

 

It also made me remember that everyone has their days when nothing goes right. And that when multiple people have those days (or weeks) simultaneously then the results are not proportional, they are exponential.

 

It made me forgive him

 

4. Sun is glorious, but rain is still soothing.

 

I went to sleep last night with the sound of the rain pouring off the guttering dumming it's own rhythm in my ears. Normally all I hear is the hiss of the heating and the infrequent mumblings of the lives of those around me as they too prepare for the night. The rain is something else. I'm not sure how much of it was the steady rhythm, how much the idea of washing everything that was "yesterday" away and how much of it was the anticipation of tomorrows rich green and lush scents, but the sound calmed me.

 

Which is impressive as I was quite restless last night.

 

5. I like, liking going home.

 

It's been a long time sicne I've wanted to go home. A long time since that has been a destination of choice as opposed to duty (there are obvious exceptions to this, but I am speaking from a general point of view). I really quite love the fact that home is becoming something to look forward to. It is a surreal sensation. ... However difficult things get blood runs thickly in my family - maybe that is where a lot of the problems stem from... I don't know.

 

I'm just enjoying the change in my perspective, refreshing... and comforting.

 

xXx 

 

 

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04/13/2008

Musings on a song

One of my favourite songs, holds too much dear to me, but such is the way with things that actually mean something. It is actually the theme song to "Angel" but I wont hold that against it :P written by Kim Richey - and I have to confess that that means nothing to me. But enough background.

 

A Place called home 

Well, it’s not hard to see
Anyone who looks at me
Knows I am just a rolling stone
Never landed any place to call my own
To call my own

 

"A rolling stone gathers no moss."

There are people I know who just arrive. They arrive on our doorsteps, walk into our schools, appear at our jobs, join our churchs, attend our pubs and clubs. They send their children to the same nurseries as we send ours. We meet them and befriend them and they become part of our lives. And then they leave. All that is really left is the dust disturbed where they moved over it, the small emptiness in our lives that is so quickly engulfed by the remainder. They are transcendent and we do not miss them. 




Well it seems like so long ago
But it really ain’t you know
I started off a crazy kid
Miracle I made it though
The things I did
The things I did

How often do you hear people exclaim, "I could never have done what you've managed," or "I would never have survived what you have."? But surely it is the things we live through - those miracles that we can nver quite explain - that shape who we are. If someone had been through the same as us then they would have been shaped in some way also, just as we adapted to survive. 

It is these "miracles" that give us stories to tell. They are experience, they offer insight and teach us wisdom to know where we can make a difference and when it is best to simply move on.

Some day I’ll go where
There ain’t no rain or snow
Till then I’ll travel alone
And I’ll make my bed
With the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

 
Maybe that is just it? The rain and snow keep falling. The miracle of making it back to the sun offset by the journey through hell that must preceed it. Why would ever drag someone you care for along with you on *that* journey? It may be better to watch the stars with a lover or friend... but is it worth seeing them walk along side and see the things that you do?

Is it worth the risk that you might turn back to help them when they stumble?



I had a chance to settle down
Get a job and live in town
Work in some old factory
I never liked the foreman
Standing over me
Over me 

 

And yet so many people choose that. To protect them from themselves and the danger they believe they could be were they left to their own devices. To keep them safe from what might happen were they actually to dare to think. Other's bend their back to another in the hopes of promotion and dream of the time when they themselves will be the overseer.

Most accept their position in return security. A safety net to catch them should the wire snap. A job. An income. A pension. Support for their family in times of hardship and trial. The ability to make a difference to the people they love.

No I rather walk a windy road
Rather know the things I know
See the world with my own eye
No regrets no looking back no good byes
No good byes



To feel the wind in you hair and the rain on your skin; hear the sigh of everything that manages to survive so easily without being told what to think - or better still not to think at all. To smell life in all its vigour uncorrupted by routine or regularity; nothing is more constant than change itself - so many strive to forget that. To taste beauty and see the glory of smallest defiances against the night, glowworms in the dark.

No ties to hold you back. Nothing to influence you decison. No people you can drag with you into turmoil. No one that will make you stop and take a second thought before you step out into the unknown. No people who depend on you... 

And no one for you to depend on either.

Someday I’ll go where there ain’t no rain nor snow
Til then I’ll travel alone
And I make my bed
With the stars above me head
And I dream of a place called home

And some day I’ll go where there ain’t no rain nor snow
Till then I’ll travel alone
And I make my bed
With the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home

Some day I’ll go where there ain’t no rain nor snow
Dream of a place called home

 

And despite our better judgement we still search. We still seek out that we claim we do not want, that which will only drag us down. The people who we will make exception for. The people with whome we could build a life that we are happy to live. And even is our very souls are nomandic and can not settle anywhere we still search for our counterparts... the people willing - no wanting - to walk... or run... ... or fly alongside us.

 

No one was made to be alone.

 

It just seems easier most of the time. 

 

And safer. 

 

xXx 

19:36 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Poetry , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

03/23/2008

Chapter 4 - which is far too full of love

I love it when it is so cold that it hurts my face, but everything feels so clear and so alive.

 

I love wearing warm jumpers and long socks and curling up with a good book.

 

I love going running in the rain and dancing in all the puddles.

 

I love knowing that I've done something well

 

I love finding out what is on the other side of the mountain.

 

I love the smell of my hands after a few hours working in the garden. 

 

I love telling the stories of the people depicted in paintings.

 

I love to watching the fire burn; or glowing embers.

 

I love feeling the wind against my skin.

 

I love waltzing around the kitchen.

 

I love sitting and tuning at a piano for hours and hours.

 

I love going out at night when the rest of the world is fast asleep. 

 

I love dressing up fancy for no good reason. 

 

I love making my friends laugh. 

 

I love finding pictures in the clouds.

 

I love kicking up the leaves.

 

I love...

xXx

02:13 Posted in Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

03/20/2008

Home...

Well I'm back. And whilst I got used to the cold up North (took a few hours!), my room is still freezing - it is 04:43 and my heating has been off for 4 days now with no people in the room! Consequently, I am now curled up in my duvet and very warm and snuggly dressing gown (one of my few PINK items of clothing, so to speak) wearing my favourite jumper (red with teddy bears on) and for some reason (unknown) writing a blog post instead of sleeping.

 

Hey ho - it is what I do.

 

Went on Uni visits... I'm sure I will talk about this more either here or with people in person.

 

I LOVED the city of Durham. I am GOING to live there at some point in my life - if only for a year or two. In fact I Love the north generally and would really like to move up there... Cambridge is beautiful... but it is so ... clean-cut? ... compared to Durham. Although I did find the two surprisingly similar in style and aura. 

I did not like the course... or rather, I didn't like the fact that they were ashamed of being academic about music.

 

Edinburgh City grew on me over the course of the day. At first it was just another city... (despite living in suburbs all my life I am most definitely *not* a city girl.) But over the course of the day I wondered around areas, found green, found little quirky shops that I loved, found a very good pizza place and most important of all found LOTS and LOTS of jazz, folk, salsa, shows, concerts, gigs, ceilidhs and music in general. It wasn't until the end of the day that I saw the sea... and that sealed it for me. I also love Edinburgh... Maybe not so much as Durham (It is still very much a city)... but I could easily love living there!  I will go back and visit again in the summer :D

The course is also fantastic. Academic but with some performing. And the university has a really very impressive collection of concert halls, organs and MANY MANY MANY early instruments :D :D :D :D :D :D :D lol.... I also liked the lecturer and the way the student showing us around was holding a cope of "Music and the Reformation in England" - a brilliant period to study the socio-histoical context of music! 

 

I am now going to have fun comparing to Cambridge... wish me luck!

 

*************

 

It is strange when you give your heart to something... particularly when you've spent so long swearing violently against it. 

 

I seem to be doing that far too much at the moment; I'm not sure how many hearts I have left. 

04:56 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Music , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this

03/17/2008

Insanity and Genius

Sorry... I've been watching films I shouldn't have again. This time it is the "Aviator" and "A Beautiful Mind". They always do silly things to my thinking. In fact I think last time I saw the former I swore I would never watch it again... so much for that. I held out easily when we didn't have the film, then someone received it for Christmas I believe and now here I am again. Silly really.

 

There is such a close tie between insanity and genius. Autism, schitzphrenia, bipolar, OCD, paranoia, ADHD... Think of all the renown thinkers, artists, mathematicians, scientists, musicians that you know of and tell me just how many of them were diagnosed with what is generally considered to be a brain defect - a mental incapacity of some form or another. 

 

Ok, so the brain has a limitted number of nerurones and it is very rare (quite possible impossible) to develop new neurones once the bran has matured - although this is not certain as far as I am aware. It thereby follows that genius is merely a rewiring of those neurones to observe and respons to the world differently. To be able to see a pattern in a list of numbers that no one else can identify. To be able to theorise and interpret data that everyone else will write off. To listen to a melody and immediately see before you 8 different ways to harmonise the same cadence and to know instinctively which is the best for what you want to achieve. To be able to capture raw emotion on canvas and recreate history with words. To be able to see the flaws in structural design without even caluclating the trig. To be able to imagine the unattainable, the to reach out and grasp it.

 

It is like seeing the world through prismatic lenses... each image is offset, just a little - no more than 4 or 5 degrees from the normal - but offset. Their vision of the world is not clouded or distorted in anyway, no rose-tinted glasses, just refracted one slight fraction around so they see what compeltely escapes anyone else. 

 

But with that altered perception, with that hightened awareness of life, with those rewired cerebral pathways comes a price. The more information that is processed, or lower the brains ability to filter out certain unwanted information, the greater the levels of perception - overload it you want to see it that way. The brain is forced to deal with this in one way or another, blurring the distinctions between realtity and the imagined. 

 

If you are accoustomed to seeing thing that no one else see's anyway (for instance someone who see's patterns that are invisible to the rest) then how do you convince your own brain that something is delusion when all the evidense (as far as your cells are aware) is to the contrary. If you have the ability to understand people and to empathise, and do not have the ability to filter emotion and restrict how it affects you, surely it would make sense to develop multiple personalities so that the overload of feeling can be manageed effectively. If you are contantly aware of everything around you; how it fits together, how colour compliment (or not), how the negative space fits with the objects in a room, how the light reflects outwards from numerous surfaces... then surely it is understandable to develop a need for perfection and order. 

 

Although what I've just said seems to point to distinct a "cause" and "effect" scenario... I don't think that this is the case. It is the fact that someone has a hightened or altered perception of this universe that allows them to ask the questions no body thinks of, see the answers that the world is blind to whlst simultaneously causing their brain to handle other information in a way which is completely alien to the rest of us. Delusional? Obsessive? Perfectionistic? Hyperactive? Socially inept? Insanity and genius do not so much come together... they are the two sides of one coin. 

 

And along side both comes complete social exile.

 

No one likes to feel stupid. No one likes to read as though they were a book. No one likes to hold conversation with someone who points out their failings loudly. No one likes to have missed the *obvious* answer. No one likes to be second best. No one likes to associate with the delusional. No one likes to live with the obsessive. No one likes to work with someone who has to have things *right*. No one likes to share answers with someone who will question their every word. No one likes to spend a day with someone unafraid to ask the awkward/difficult/poignant questions....

 

And when you're living in a world that no one else seems to see and moreover no one elsee wants to see... 

 

Well... I think we've all see what that leads to.

 

There *is* a reason why I don't watch those films... Except I know that I will always watch them. There is nothing more facinating that the human brain and social dynamics that are connected directly to how we each individually perceive the world. By what criteria do we judge insanity or genius or cruelty or ignorance or manipulation? Why do we categorise people and drug them to conform to out ways of thinking... When is this necesary? When is this wrong? What is malfunction of the brain and what is simply a way of dealing with an excess of inputs into on nervous system?

 

xXx 

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03/16/2008

Given by my sister.... and better said by someone else....

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her
by Christopher Brennan (1870-1932)

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

 

 

xXx 

14:26 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

03/13/2008

Storytelling and Bach

Most of us spend our lives telling stories. Whether these stories are worth hearing (or even telling) is a completely different and highly contentious matter. Sometimes the stories we tell are true, often elaborated and exaggerated, rarely completely fictitious but always personal on some level or other. I can never work out if we only ever tell stories that have meaning for us or that the act of telling a story makes it a part of us regardless of any previous emotional involvement. We use stories to teach, to ease social situations, to explain, to pass the time, to amuse, to frighten, to threaten and to comfort. They permeate every aspect of our lives.

 

But just because we live a life almost dependent on storytelling does not mean we aren't highly selective about the stories we tell. One of the first lessons a child learns at school (if not before) is the necessity to judge an audience and gauge a level of propriety before telling their story. It may take them the rest of their life to acquire this required skill if they manage it all (and most appear not to), but I would argue that the necessity is something that becomes apparent very early in life. 

 

I suppose that there are countless reasons for keeping a story to yourself. Many reasons which all, at some level or another, boil down to fear. Fear of hurting loved ones, fear of ridicule, fear of repercussions, fear of not being able to tell the story, fear that the story wont be appreciated. So many things can go wrong when we open our mouths. So many things *could* come out. So much damage *could* be done. Speaking is a risk. And yet we continue to tell our stories - judging the reward worth the danger. 

 

How much is it our need to tell stories that makes us human?

 

 

 

I am listening to the Matthaus-Passion at the moment. I can't decide which I prefer out of this work and the B minor mass. They are both stunning. I love listening to modern music (folk, rock, metal, jazz) that stirs up emotion: determination, anger, pride, sardonic amusement. I love listening to gargantuan romantic symphonies that pick up your soul and carry you somewhere completely other. I love listening to Floyd, Bowie (on occasion), Runrig, Show of Hands, Brahms, Rossini, Rachmaninov, Cage, Messian, Tavener, Stravinski.... I love the feeling of being completely caught up in a performance or composition - the way the audience hold their breathe through the piece whethr it is 5 minutes or 45. {Although I wish they would hold it 5 seconds longer at the end of a movement and wait for the last note to die.} 

 

There is something slightly different about the Baroque. It still takes you somewhere. But fo me it always seems less pushy or forceful in doing so. There is a cleaness in the part writing that is lost as soon as Beethoven and Wagner arrive. A purity in the harmony that vanishes with the turn of the 19th Century. And yet, there is none of the basic simplicity of the Classical era... none of the twee yet pretty classics that can be so easily summed up with the word "Mozart". There is something so delightful in the mathematical precision of the counterpoint - so many individual layers that tessellate so well. Dissonance that is prepared and resolved without fuss or glamour... 

 

This music rarely stirs up violent emotion. it does not generally move me to tears or fill me with energy. But I love to listen to it. It calms me I suppose; order and beauty complimenting each other so well. Emotional, yes, but it almost more personal in its understatement (compared to Romantic expression). Whatever has happened that day to anger or hurt me, I can (if I think of it) put on the Trio Sonatas, Pergolesi Stabat Mater, Mattheus-Passion, Allegri, a Byrd mass... and my heartbeat with regulate itself, my breathing fall in sync with the pulse of the music. And I sit and listen. Immerse myself. And after a few minutes - 3, 5, 30, 90? - I get up and continue with the day, my thoughts clearer and my emotions less clouded. 

 

xXx 

09:19 Posted in Music , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this

03/11/2008

Strange

I slept well last night.

 

Well no, it wasn't sleeping well last night at the beginning. Woke up at 6, dozed off again and woke up again at 7. Got up. And am about to go to brekfast for the first time this side of half term. It is a very strange feeling. Even though I am still pondering too much about things that I really shouldn't be thinking about, I am not as scared as I was. Whilst it is true that the past jumps out to get you, it is also true thatyou can spend your life afraid of shadows.

 

Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.

 

Hope?

 

Maybe we wont go that far yet. 

 

But today I might tell a story.

 

xXx 

07:37 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

02/23/2008

A world to believe in...

Everyone believes in something. That fact is inescapable. Whilst we may denounce religion, faith, law, scientific research, animal rights, human rights, politics and even our friends or family, everyone believes something. People believe in their friends, people believe in their job or abilities and people believe in their affluence, estate  and the power they hold. People believe they are right and they form opinions of the beliefs that other hold. Some people even believe in a God. In the worst scenario I suppose that a person could believe that nothing is worthy of trust. That is still a belief, albeit a desperate one.

 

Very few people believe in this world.  

 

A free media report a degenerating and desolate world. We hear stories of abduction, murder, rape, genocide, poverty, debt, pollution, exticition, terrorism, disease, faillure, famine, war, drugs, deceit... And then the situation becomes worse, and suddenly we hear nothing. Who knows what is going on in Burmah now? 

 

Hope seems to be a very personal thing. Does anyone dare hope for anything greater than a good home and secure livelyhood? People talk blithely of changing the world until quizzed, then they pour forth a host of reasons why the revolution must wait. First, they say, TNCs have to act, the government must pass more laws, celebrities need to take a stand. I have heard them call on the wealthy, the unemployed, the old, the young... in short everyone who is not them. Why does no one put their neck out saying, "I am here and I will stand for what is right, what is good,"? 

 

Count the number of people you know who believe that there is hope for this world as a whole. Count the number of people you know who believe that change will ever happen on a large scale. Let me know if you need two hands. 

 

How can we expect people to stand without hope?

 

I can't say that there is much I've hoped for at all in the past few months. I think that *getting by* has been the order of the day and much of the time I have ended up acting impulsively, going from pillar to post without any idea of where I am going or where I want to end up. As a result I've lost things and people I value, hurt those I care for and done a number of things I regret intensely. I understand why so many people find oblivion preferable - "drinking through the lies and broken promises".

 

Archbishop Rowan said something very curious today at his talk in Cambridge. In the Gospel of John, the first two things Jesus says are, "What do you want?" and "Come and see." He used this point in explaining what faith is and how people find it. He also said that it was a little like listening to Bach's St Matthew Passion... it could (is) be glorious, but to enjoy it fully you had to sit through the entire thing - no one ever advertises a "St Matthew Passion in 10 minutes". Neither is it always particularly easy to listen to.

 

As the Archibishops were talking this evening it was strange to watch everyone hanging onto thier every word. The building was packed, even strangers on the street were coming to the door and asking why "all of Cambridge are here tonight" ("It's like the blooming Tardis"). People laughed and they smiled, they clapped and then they were silent. Hard questions were asked and brutally honest answers given. The evening was packed with thoughts and ideas, intelligent answers that make no assumptions left much room for pondering - there was too much to take in in one evening. But I think near everyone walk away infected by the passion and realtistic hope that those two wise men embodied. No false promises or dreams of converting the universe, just a deep set hope in a world that we can believe in.

 

I now know why thousands flocked to hear Martin Luther King speak. Hope is infectious.  

 

And for the first time in a good many months I began to think about what I could do - what I hoped for. It is important to know what you want, and to take the time to find out. But that is only the start... the harder thing is to take the risk and to come and see where that desire and hope will lead you.

 

I don't know where I will go, or where I will end up. I don't know what I will do with the time I have. I don't expect to be great or influencial. Neither do I particularly want it. I want to live a life that I wont be ashamed of. I want to do what I can, where I can for the people I meet. I want to find some sense of peace and wholeness in myself, not split myself over 2 or 3 completely different lifestyles and struggle to find the balance between them. I want to believe in this world and the people in it; that there is "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow".

 

"She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs with no fear of the future. When she speaks her words are wise, and kindness is the rule when she gives instructions." Proverbs 31:25-26

 

That is what I want. And I think that is worth the pain and trauma of "coming to see".

 

xXx 

 

 

07:33 Posted in Faith , Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this

02/19/2008

Going forwards, looking back

Haunted is the only word I can use. Nothing sinister or evil, nothing of the forboding one might generally associate with the word, but haunted nonetheless. The only thing to fear is the ever-present risk of becoming lost in the warm delights of peace and nostalgia. And that is a powerful risk. Just a strain of music - a favourite song seldom played - or an idle conversation and the floodgates open leaving you overwhelmed by things long since lost. Haunted. 

 

Do you remember the walk up the hill, so tiring - even if you were lucky and had someone pushing you up? Do you remember racing up? Do you remember trying to dance bare-foot on gravel? Or the time when we ran to the bus-stop a pint in each hand (and a half for the sister) just so we could see a good friend off.

 

There we were: skirts over jeans over boots (or wellie); assorted tops, jumpers and coats enfolding our sholders - the epitomy of *odd* but oh, so in love with life. I remember I was ill that summer, but I don't remember anything else. Whatever ailed me has been lost in a haze of sun, light, music and above all... movement.

 

The polka in the concert - dodging sleeping babies.

 

Or stillness... Like when we walked to the beach the other side of the gardens. You tried to psycho-analyse me (who knows if you suceeded or not)... The horse was particularly amusing given later events, I have to say I think it was (from one angle) completely inaccurate - but maybe not. Do you remember just lying there? Or watching the waves?

 

Do you remember when you beat me skimming stones for the first (and only!) time? 

 

I still remember the journey home. The saddest memory perhapse, or maybe just the hardest... the most vivid of them all. Staring through the window as the sea vanishes behind us. Almost too tired to stay awake when we visit friends. The familiar sights and signs as we reach the East... 50 miles, 20 miles, 3 miles ... home.

 

It is hard to believe I almost didn't stay.

 

So there we are - haunted.  

 

xXx

 

(Note - the *we* or *you* refers to several people) 

 

22:15 Posted in Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

02/08/2008

Pondering

I suppose you can't deny your nature... however much you try. And I suppose also, that deep down, most of us know and understand that are freinds are who they are and we either love them for it or despite of it. (It is not unheard of to try and change a friend, but it is far more common to try and change a family member or partner.) Unfortunately knowing this does not make it any easier when the *nature* of one of your friends teases, hurts or mimics you - however unintentionally.

 

For instance, I just made my offer to KCL. And even though I am unlikely to go, I am more than a little extatic about getting a place. A lot more emphasis is put on actual performance that the other colleges I applied to and I was not that confident I would make it. I don't think anyone has surpised me in their response.

A: Takes the letter from me, reads, smiles and says, "That's all five then, Well done! ... nobody likes a geek", laughs and walks on

B: "Oh wow, that's amazing" - said hazily

C: "What was the offer"

D: Said in complete shock and surpise, "But we don't want you to go there."

 

All acted according to the set of principles and fundamental rules that make up their personality. None of them surprised me but they all effected me differently. A made me laugh and then I was smiling for the next 5 minutes (and still now remembering it). B's response was kind and caring but not particularly memorable. C's is practical and made me smile, more because I know I will be congratulated later when I see them. D made me cry (second time in two days but then again I'm tired).

 

I don't know what the moral of the story it? I don't even know if there is one... I suppose that you can't really expect people to change, and whilst they might curb some of their less pleasent aspects from time to time, usually they do not bother. D is capable of being incredibly kind and caring, and indeed of saying precisely the right thing at the right time. Yet today he decided to not. Either he felt it unnecessary, or he had a week that made thinking ahead to consequences a little difficult, or maybe he has not quite grasped the concept that I might ever have doubted I'd get in. Infact, the latter in the most likely.

 

Whilst I know all of this, and I know that the injury was anything but intentional. The comment still made me question whether I should have got in, or applied, or felt pleased that I had. It still made me wonder whether the only way I can make D happy is by complying comletely with thier idea of an ideal world. It made me feel rediculous for have said anything to start with. 

 

Now that is *my* nature. 

 

I suppose the questions that come out are...

• Can we ever know our own nature (as in the fundamental "rules" of behaviour and reponse that define our social interactions)?
• To what extent can we change it permementally?
• To what extent can others permamentally alter our behaviour and response patterns?
• To what extent are we able to control our normal behaviour patterns when circumstance demands

 

 

xXx

 

12:53 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

01/14/2008

Uses of humour

The Telegraph produced a rather curious article today

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio...

 

The idea of using ridicule and humour as a defense mechanism for times of conflct is not uncommon. Neither, if you think about it, is to use comedy as an attack and a weapon.

 

How many people do you know who, when faced with insult or trouble, treat the entire thing as one large joke? Looking around (particularly in England with the "Thou shalt not take thyself seriously (under ANY cirucmstances)" rule) it is easy to see how many people sit behind their comfoting wall of irony, sarcasm, wit and sattire as they move steadily from day to day. Even the worst traumas can be overcome with a few jokes and a laugh - at least to the people watching and that is all that really matters. Appearances are kept up and life kept going by daily injections of stand-up comedy.

 

Equally, how often so you see ridicule being used to bully and oppress people either in the playground (if you are at school), or the office (if you are at work) or in a family (if you are ... well...)? So often the person with the most power is the one who can simply make everyone else look weaker, and what better way to do this than by comedy, humour and "all in the name of fun". I have seen children cry over direct insult for hours, I have seen children fall utterly silent over ridicule for weeks, months and years. 

 

I am not trying to say use of humour is good or bad or safe or harmful. There is no way it can be caegorised so easily. It is however potent. It can hurt, it can heal, it can make people change how they think and how they act. It is a weapon... how can we use it? How should we use it? Where would it be most effective? Where is it most needed at the moment.

 

xXx

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09/29/2007

Morning thoughts

This not sleeping thing is getting to be a little irksome. Not at the time, quite frankly I love the night almost as much as I love the sea. Its very calming to see the estate minus hooded strangers smoking.... well, doesn't really matter what. Its still urban here, but I know its only a 15 minute run until I reach the millpond. I'd like to see if the swans are still there. 

 

They vanished when their nest and eggs were washed away quite a few years ago by floods. I think I cried then. I had spent  many evenings cycling over there to watch them build there nest together. The female was particularly amusing. Congratulating her mate with everthing he bought her, letting him place the stick - oh! so carefully. Then the moment he had gone for more building material she would move it. She must have known what she was doing for it was a very fine nest. But it was still sweet to watch her kindness and perhapse gratitude for her actions. 

 

Not seen them for a long time, maybe one or both died in the flood. There is always the old folk tale thast where one of a pair goes, the other shortly follows - even death. Ironically, the song that has just come on is "The Children of Lir". if you don't know that, I shall write it up another time. I promised I would get some sleep tonight and my drink is almost finished.

 

The rain has stopped again and everything smells that little bit fresher.

 

I havn't been this calm in a long time.

 

Maybe it will lead to better sleep.

 

xXx 

 

The piano keys are black and white, but they sound like a million colours in your mind

Katie Melua 

03:41 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

09/20/2007

Sleep

Oh childish sleep
How you taunt, with leaden weights, these eyes;
Your fair promises, false as Jacob and his sheepskin -
Deceptive - of rest to this
My weary soul

 

Oh fickle sleep
With Delilah's constancy you flit,
Oh! so graceful, between you lovers with
Caresses and wining smiles - will you not
Remedy my loneliness
This cold night?

 

Oh cruel sleep,
Denying your company, salatious visitations to all but
the most needy, leaving a scent - calling cared
Dropped carelessly on a
Cold pillow

 

Oh honest coffee!
A students delight, oft warm and kindly
Companion through the night -
Soft kisses, quench the sting of dear sleeps flight.

 

xXx 

 

 

13:00 Posted in Life , Poetry , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

09/19/2007

News and literature

After a protracted period of silence I feel strongly persuaded to present you with a plethora of progessions in my otherwise pedestrain life. :P (I realised after the second p that I could have some fun with this sentance and I will once again use the time-old excuse... its MY blog!)

 

Anyway... to those of you who do not already know, I am doing music at Uni!!  :D And over the moon. Seriously, my cheecks are complaining because I am grinning to much. Not only do I now have time to do the things I wish to do (like practise, or read, or draw or listen), but no! This is encouraged in me. Active development of skills outside the classroom is encouraged and praised. No longer do I have to feel guilty for practising for more than the allotted 45 minutes. I am free! And it is wonderful. 

 

And as for my degree... I can't wait. 

 

Along with this I have given up Further maths. This is a less joy-bringing development, I do enjoy maths and will be sorry so see it go (despite the extreme hang-hold it had on my time). However, I do not enjoy - and neither am I good at - so that is less of a loss. And as I need the time, am not certain of an A, and do not enjoy the course I woulkd have to take it seemed like the logical conclusion. I will pick maths up again when I have time and inclination (If this means never I will be dissapointed, but so be it). 

 

Music itself is going well. I still need to order reeds from Howarths, so that will happen tomorrow. Started playing piano again - a glorious piece of Schumann! Which I will do in a concert sometime. Might pester one of the teachers to give me playing advice, but it seems fairly self-explanitory. Organ is organ. Some brilliant hymns, and even better volentaries. The head decided to announce my scholarship in assembly, I don't know how I feel about that.  :S  oh... and how do I tell the difference between Sibeleus and Wagner? ("Sounds like toffee pudding" applies to both!)

 

Went to the English Society last night. Which I have a strange feeling I enjoyed more than the English Students there. The talk was basically on "what is literature" and the perspective was that literature is a piece of writing that intrinsically serves no purpose and that now (with the rise in consumerisation) we no longer have literature as all written word is a comodity. Here I must disagree with a several issues:

 

• Publised books have always been a comodity; nowadays that comodity is accecisble to all instead of just the wealthy.
• If literature serves no purpose then there can be no literature written in the past as all historical literature gives us significant insight into that culture and how social states functioned during that period. Literature also allows us to develop our understanding of people and how people see things - it is in essence one persons view on a scenario be it imaginary or the combination of a series of events theyhave experienced.
• All writing has a purpose as it is written (perhapse not conciously so). People write what they feel, how they think, what polotics they support and abhor, the qualities they admire or distain - all these factors come across through good literature as the author (in part) tries to communicate and promote their own beliefs. Few people positively advertise that which they dislike.
• True, part of the beauty of literature is that is is based in fantasy and does not point to specific instances in time and tangible objects or events (and in this sense it is nothingness and "useless") but this does not mean it serves no purpose. If we limit purpose to the epirical then we limit all sense of culture/unity/emotion/faith/belief and also all sense of identity and history. We can not bring out our sense of beloninging (to a family or a group) as an object to see when it is discussed (Guliver's Travels - the philosophers) and neither can we identify a specific purpose for literatue that is ubiquitous. This does not mean one does not exist.
• The moment we try to define literature, to categorise it, to class it and treat it as something which can be contained and measured then we loose sight of so much, you cannot qualify the emotive and the beautiful. Why is something beautiful? Because it fulfills the golden ratio? Or because we take pleasure in it? Because the colours do not comflict? Or because it reminds us of a time we were happy?
  

Sorry, that was an incredibly badly constructed set of arguments/thoughts. My head is still reeling slightly as it was a very in depth talk. You will not be surprised to hear that I said nothing during the questions time!

 

Anyway, I should go do something productive (shocking isn't it!)... probably organ! But there is another character pending in office blog... so I think I shall post another episode of that, hopefully a little more amusing than the last.

 

xXx 

14:23 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Literature , Music , News , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

09/03/2007

Last night at home...

... And just to be traditional, I am lying in bed, in the dark, typing this:

 

Musings for 2007 / 2008

 

This year is going to be good. I don't know how we came to that conclusion, but we have decided, it will be good. Yes, there will be rough patches, and patches that we really would rather didn't exist, but that does not effect the whole. :D We will be 18 (always useful), oldest in school (less lippy year 9s, although apparently the new year 9 is pants!), we will have everything to look forward to... and enough good friends to reminisce with.

 

One person is returning to school who I thought had left. I don't know how I feel about this, aprehensive, but we will see how things go. As long as they can contain themselves it will be fine, and I've still got my friends around so all is well. even so... :S

 

I moved everything in today and my new room is abosultely lovely. The view is lovely and it is once again quite large - I don't know how I managed that (incidentally it is also the same colout as my room at home). This year I have followed the "pack everything and then take the rest back home" theory, so atm the room is A TIP!!! But that will soon change. All the options have been signed for, and I have had my first cup of tea over piano practise, this year I am just going to leave a mug in the music school. :D - Oh and the new Granta house is amazing, still being finished, but so lovely, if you are around, you must come and have a look :D chic is the new word!

 

Oh and Rae and I have started our dance group, but it didn't work that well as we didn't have a floor! (Salsa on carpet does *not* work!) Good fun though. So much to do this year:

• Piano
• Dancing
• Oboe,
  
• Singing
• Organ
• Harlton
• Conducting
• cooking? - LOVELY NEW KITCHED
• travel
• parties
• shows/plays
• sailing

oh and maybe A Levels.... :S not sure. :P

 

Anyway, I have a lot in my head, but I dont think I can write it that well currently (need facial expression and gesture), so I shall go now.

 

Cya all

 

xXx 

 

 

 

22:28 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

08/19/2007

Ponders...

I've been trying to decide why I love dancing so much. Well actually, I've been watching Billy Eliot after a friend mentioned it and I realised 2 key facts: 1. I have not seen this film and 2. we posses this film and it was sitting on the shelf downstairs. Then deciding that this problem needed to be rectified I preceeded to spend the next hour and 45 minutes curled up out living room floor in front of the TV. It was a very good film. Hence the thoughts about dancing...

 

Anyway back to dancing. Some of my most vivd childhood memories are dressing up with my sister(s), putting on a Strict Tempo CD and dancing for hours, magical stories about princesses and dragons and balls and battlefields... everything a young girl with a (overly) vivid imagination can dream up whe presented with countless scarves and shawls and skirts and belts. We went to Arabia many times, and Sherwood, we danced with King Arthur and sometimes we were the beautiful ladies who danced on the front cover of the CD case...

 

At that time (and for years after - I remember still being teased in Year 8 at secondary school) I did ballet and for a long time I loved it. Well I started off loving it when it was easy and I was reasonably good, and then the dance started to require work and time I simply didn't have and ballet became a chore instead of a pleasure. It is only now, 5 or 6 years later, that I regret loosing the dance and miss the movement and the music that held it all together.

 

So what is it that makes dance so appealling? Except that it is truly beautiful? 

 

I don't think there is anything else. They say that girls always like beautiful things and I am no exception. I would also add that I do not believe men do not like beauty, they are simply less honest or open about it on some occasions. True, there is enough that is ugly in this world, enough that we would all rather forget or ignore...  

 

There is something about dance, whether it is the charming tublings of a young child or the exact precision and meticulous performance of a competion couple... It is all beautiful. Music. Movement. Strength. Subtlety. Grace. Power. The capacity of the human body for art is limitless.

 

The same principles apply to sailing (dancing on water), swimming (dancing in water), music (dancing for the ears), gardening (dancing with plants (slow does not mean ugly)) ... Different items move together to create something greater than themselves. And it is captivating.

 

So maybe it is not that I love dance, so much that I love beauty.

 

And when you start to look beauty is surprisingly easy to find. 

 

xXx

20:47 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

07/05/2007

Found this today

Bertrand Russell:

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

adapted

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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

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

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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 ,