Part of a machine

Since leaving university in May this year, I've done extremely little with my life. I work at Asda doing night shifts, and life is pretty boring. I rarely get to see people as I'm asleep during the day; when everyone else is meeting up for fun activities, I'm stacking juice. I pretty much live for the short breaks from work, when I get to leave the small bubble I live in and visit Cassie. Without the prospect of those breaks I don't know how I'd have coped this summer.

My life is a short cycle set on repeat, I wake up, go to the gym some days, eat food, read books then go to work. Repeat. I'm not even managing to save a lot at the moment, which is odd considering how little I really do. Worst of all, it would seem I'm stuck in this perpetual loop until at least Christmas.

The more I think about it, the less I know what I want to do with my life. I keep telling myself to put off looking for a career as I don't know what to do, but that's not a particularly great plan all told. I think I'm just apprehensive about starting something, about entering the real adult world. The thought of moving away from home permanently and getting a job and a house, starting a new life in many ways, is daunting.

I think I'll move my blog to wordpress soon, blogger seems too childish and reminds me too much of my naive younger self. I want to learn to code and to write my own website, but until then I shall have to make do with a different blog hoster.

Updates to follow.

The future

My university life has been a blur of missed lectures, rushed deadlines, meeting new people and overall good times. Now comes the question, what next?

The sad realisation is that I have all of 3-4 weeks left of actual lectures. Then I have one exam and my university career is over. Fuck.

I don't have a plan. I never have a plan. At the moment I'm just going to be heading home come June 2nd and working at Asda. It goes without saying that I have no intentions of staying there for long, but that requires some sort of planning and foresight from me, skills I lack. 

I want to do a lot of things, but I lack conviction. Tim and I have joked repeatedly that we're going to move to New York by 2014, then live there for an indeterminable amount of time. I can't help but fear this is just going to be a pipe dream. I would absolutely love to do it, I've only visited the city once but it enthrals me. However, I cannot see a way of it happening. I have no idea what sort of job I would apply for there or how hard it is to get visas etc. Overall, a pretty distant fantasy.

That's all I've got though. In the long term I would seriously consider going into teaching, as long as it was at a college or 6th form level. I need a gap though, something that will last at least 5 years, but no longer than 10. If I like the career I'm on I can stick to it. If not I can become a teacher. But what the hell do I do for those 5 years?  

I've never learnt to be proactive and do things myself, I always wait for the push from whatever educational authority I'm currently within. However currently, all I get is the odd email which I never bother to read, they rarely seem to apply to me. 

I've sort of decided to work at Asda for the summer at least, maybe even into the autumn. It's a guaranteed job and will get me some money; I'm still entertaining the idea of travelling after all. 

Come 2014 I want to be on my way to something better. Scrap that. I NEED to be on my way, or the last 3 years have been a waste.

On a side note, read 'Apathy and other small victories' by Paul Neilan. It's a little quirky, but has some genuinely hilarious moments.

Link: http://goo.gl/eW965

Book Challenge Update

In my previous post, I set myself a challenge to read a whole lot of books. On reflection, I've decided I did not put enough effort into finding a good list. The list I originally chose was selected by the British public in 2003. It is therefore heavily influenced by what was popular at the time. Lord of the Rings being number 1 proves my point, as although they are terrific books, I doubt they would have been number 1 if the films hadn't have come out around that time.

I'll continue with my current list for now, but it will probably change soon. If anyone finds a good list of 100 books to read, let me know!

In other news I have a night job at Asda now.

Whoop.

It pays well though, so sacrifices must be made.


I'm beginning to miss the university life at the moment. The weather is terrible and I don't really have a lot to do right now. What with no car, half my friends being away and the rest living too far to walk to, I've been rather reclusive recently.

I want to make the most of this summer; I want to catch up with people I haven't spoken to properly since college as well as all the usual crowd. Yet ironically, the thing I'm currently most looking forward to is the arrival of uni friends in two weeks time.

A personal Challenge.

I bought a Kindle at the beginning of this year; not out of any real need, in fact I had only even read a couple of books in a little over a year since starting university! However, I talked myself into getting one as I often do with many things I don't really need.

6 months on and I've tried to expand my reading beyond my usual genres. I read the widely acclaimed Hunger Games trilogy (an excellent read in my opinion), I recently finished the original Bourne trilogy by Robert Ludlum and I even read a bit of Oscar Wilde to try and culture myself a little.

I still don't feel like I've fully utilised my Kindle though. That's why I'm going to set myself a sort of Challenge.

Having stumbled upon a BBC article from 2003 concerning the nation's favourite books (found here) I immediately decided to read them all.

30 seconds later having read through the list partway I decided that to read all of them was a stupid idea. I mean, really, Tracy Beaker? No.

Instead I will try my best to read all the books that do not seem too childish or are primarily aimed at those suited for bearing children. Having said that, I shan't (initially at least) shirk away from all the novels that seem a tad girly. I'm more than willing to give Pride and Prejudice at least a try. It is a classic after all.

As a child I read a great deal. The only issue was that they were generally the same books. I never liked to buy new books I knew nothing about so I stuck with what I knew. I can honestly say I know for certain that I have read the first 3 Harry Potter books a minimum of 30 times each. The later 4 around 15 times a piece. That may seem ridiculous, but it wasn't even confined to Harry Potter. The edges of the early Artemis Fowl books are severely worn by multiple readings. Even when I started to read more adult books, such as David Gemmell's works, I re read again and again.

I recently began a list of all the books I've ever read. To date (having just finished The Bourne Ultimatum 3 hours ago) I have read exactly 50 books. These books being ones I classify as proper novels and of which I can remember the story well (The Very Hungry Caterpillar for example, does not make the cut). Yet if instead of re reading the same books I had read something new, I think I could easily be in the 3 or 4 hundreds.

On reflection, my habit of re reading books was a terrible waste of my time. Time that could have been spent exploring something new.

My challenge does not have a specific end date, but I don't want it to be something that I forget about or don't commit to either. I want to feel like I'm making progress through the list. I'm going to stick strictly to the list, only breakig the order of it as a result of reading the next book in a series or trilogy.

So to begin, The Lord Of The Rings. I've owned this book for almost exactly 11 years now (basically I bought it when the films came out like everyone else) and never got around to reading it. Which is terrible really considering I've probably read through the 7 different Harry Potter books a collective 100 times or more.

Here's an interesting fact, The Lord Of The Rings is often mistaken for a trilogy. It is in fact a single novel consisting of 6 books.

Time to begin the longest novel I've ever read then.

1 Concerning Hobbits

This book is largely concerned with Hobbits...

Annoyingly better.

I recently read through a friends blog which is infinitesimally better than mine and became very disappointed in myself for having such a terrible blog with such sporadic and meaningless posts which are of little to no interest to anyone. Damn you Sam Pickering! What with your well thought out posts that have clearly taken you a lot of time and effort to produce in all their gloriously perfect syntax and grammar...

So I must therefore strive to better myself. Of course the only reason I'm writing this is because I have an essay to hand in, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea!

So hopefully sometime this week I'll find the time to write something a bit better than the regular drivel, after I've finished my 2000 word essay for tomorrow, played a football match, finished my GIS, done some environmental management group work, done some New York group work, gone to some lectures, sorted out things I need for New York and generally eating and sleeping etc...

You must follow the creed.

The procrastination got so bad last week I even procrastinated on this, my procrastination blog.

I was going to write this blog about how much simpler life would be if I became an assassin in the 11th century having spent far too much time recently playing Assassins Creed. However, there was an article in the newspaper the other day about a guy who got refused entry to America simply because of a misread comment he posted on Twitter before flying to the states. What with me going to New York soon I thought it best not to go and inform the internet and potential authorities of my plans...

Perhaps I've already said too much....hopefully not.

It's been a slow start to the semester in terms of learning. The only thing I really remember from my lecture so far is that all crisps expire on a Saturday (not joking, go and check). I'll start my reading soon and I guess that might give me more of an insight into what I'm actually doing this term.

Since getting back to uni I've spent far too much money creating what is effectively my dream entertainment system. All going well it'll get paid for come summer, as long as I don't splurge on something else anyway. I can still just about justify it by arguing the new set up will increase my productivity, although it seems unlikely.

I got rid of Facebook too, for the time being at least. It's more of a trial run I guess to see if I actually do more work without it. If I do become more productive I don't know how long I can stay away. All my football matches, training and socials are organised on Facebook and so are a lot of other things. I don't miss it for the constant updates of peoples lives, but I do find it more difficult to find out when everything's happening.

Oh and I scored a goal in a proper match yesterday. A rather fortunate and very close range goal, but a goal nonetheless.

Change of tack.

Every year for the last few new years I've decided to try and change my habits. I've decided this is the year that will actually (maybe) happen.

I don't want the new blog to be too narcissistic and emo this time. Maybe a mix between geog and tech related items I've found.

You never know, it might help me learn something if I take the time to write it down! Like some sort of crazy online revision/procrastination tool…