Sorry to disappoint but no blog today on account of feeling very ill and tired. About to turn my laptop off and go to sleep, as I feel like a solid few hours is the best thing for it. Apologies and hopefully I will be reasonable enough to edit this tomorrow and make a proper one.
October 4th 2011: War Is Never A Picnic.
While I’ve been trying to get back into a historical frame of mind I’ve been back on the reading. You know my style of writing is easily influenced by what I read, and seem to improve my register if I read a lot in a short period of time. I find myself making complex choices easier in regards to what I write. Put simply it improves me no end. So while I was thinking of preparing to study again it made sense to try to learn to read for pleasure again. And if it turns out that I can manage that on my subject matter well.. A bonus surely.
So I read some filler. Textbook style stuff, I won’t list what it was because it was overview stuff. Nothing major, your Wikipedia fayre. And then I decided to branch out to two books in particular. When I studied Vietnam in depth I watched the film We Were Soldiers. Now usually I don’t take the Hollywood route. It’s not really something I take pleasure in, seeing real events merged with “poetic license”. But as far as that film goes, it’s very true to what I’d read about, the exploits of Hal Moore. Such a strong man, given some reasonable credibility by Mel Gibson taking the role seriously and actually giving the man the respect he deserves. The book is good, the film is really rather true to it. Does it justice.
The other is a book my Mum got me, which until I had a proper look at didn’t do much for me. I thought it was fiction with the title it had and wartime fiction isn’t what I am into really. But I was deadly wrong – the book is titled The Man who Broke into Auschwitz so my scepticism I feel was justified. But no, one of the best accounts of the horror and brutality of the Second World War I’ve ever read, and I’ve not finished it yet. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail as I plan to write up on it tomorrow when I’ve finished it but it’s a biographical novel by a member of the 2nd Rifle Battalion, a man by the name of Denis Avey. Denis lived and fought through the entirety of the war, enlisting in September 1939 and escaping Auschwitz in April 1945. He fought in the desert, the Africa campaigns and was on the frontline when the Italian Tenth Army was in retreat after the fall of Tobruk. He and two thousand others, with superior knowledge of desert survival and the surroundings outwitted and outmatched a unit nearly fifty times the size of the force he was with. They took nearly two hundred thousand POW’s. But that’s less than a third of the story. The real stuff comes later. I’ll be reading the rest on my day off tomorrow.
Feels good to be doing something to stimulate my brain though. Worthwhile.
October 3rd 2011: Artful Blodger.. Blogger.
I’ve taken the time out from my hectic schedule – yeah I can’t believe I’m saying that with a straight face either, to peruse some fellow blogwriters whom I won’t name, as there’s not really much point just being an advertiser when I’m sure they’re doing quite alright on their own. And it’s really hit me how much blog writing can be considered a bit artistic in part, because I’ve never seen people be so creative with their writing before.
I’ve never fiction and non-fiction blended so beautifully as I have seen in the past day or two. Some people manage to add their own creative writing seamlessly into their work – ignoring fan fiction, but how people are just managing to combine their own writing into their blogging and diary entries shows me just how poor mine is to compare with. And I’ve tried to avoid the trap of comparing because I just write in a different manner completely to them anyways. Mine is supposed to be more personal, but it’s really remarkable how many gifted and talented people there are these days, pouring themselves out onto the internet. It’s no wonder a lot of book deals are being signed on the back of serious blogging as well as manuscripts these days.
Instead of taking mine as poor though, I’m going to try to learn from what I’ve seen to try to improve as a writer though. I don’t think I write poorly, just from what I’ve seen I could do with upping my game a bit. And it’s nothing to do with layouts or design or any of that business because I’ve seen some very good ones yes, but I’ve never gone for anything over barebones. I’m not really into any of that. At least on the writing side I think I can make smaller adjustments, just tweaks here and there. Not so much grammatical as I think I write in a way that is quick and snappy, but there’s room for improvement in other areas. I’ve never been fantastic at constructive criticism, but I’m happy to take it.
But then I think to myself, this has only ever been a temporary blog. It’s going to last precisely 365 days and then that’s it, I’ll leave it up but no more updates. Is it worth me making wholesale changes when I’ve nearly hit 100 already? However I may decide to write another blog, one that I frequent less often but with larger posts to compensate for the gaps in between – a bit like a resumption of my old LiveJournal but moving on from those days. While I liked LJ and the people I met on there, it didn’t really feel like a journal to me, I found it more like a low intensity social networking site really. But I know a lot of people who use it properly too, and those should continue of course.
And then there was the fact I was doing this as a tester to see if I could do a proper one a day blog and join that community. What happened to that idea? Well.. The truth of the matter is whilst I enjoy doing this now, blogging once a day for.. Well for as long as it goes on for has lost it’s appeal somewhat. I really have enjoyed it so far but there’s days when I just have nothing to say, and I’d rather have all killer, no filler. Quality over quantity. It’s taught me that I’m more of a all-at-once, rather than consistent. It’s been fun so far.
October 2nd 2011: Similarities
When I was growing up, I wasn’t really what you’d consider a loner but I wasn’t dreadfully popular. I had a really close circle if a bit small, of friends who I would talk to, hang around with. I still talk to a fair few of them today and I’m still very close with a couple of them. It’s weird to me though, that these people and they know who they are stuck around when, I changed more than anything else. See when I was at school I didn’t really have a set personality. It’s true what they say, about how that age is impressionable.
I can say that I went through about 15 different phases when I was at high school. I was very very easy to manipulate. I don’t really know why I was like that.. Maybe simply being young, maybe everyone is actually like that. Maybe it’s just a feeling of wanting to fit in with someone or something like most people that age go through, but it did help me become strong enough to be proud to be my own person now. So I suppose at least some positivity came from it, small mercies I suppose. So why did they stick around? Is it because they changed with me, or does it have to do with how I changed – i.e. I became more likeable.. Or perhaps I’m still one strong personality at my core?
All I know is, I used to feel very alone, and depressed because I felt like nobody knew the real me. Maybe one or two people in my immediate family understood what I liked and what I was about, that I liked football and video games, but that I also liked classical music and anime sometime too. That I wasn’t really a one dimensional character. To be honest I don’t want to come across as the stereotype that no one understood me, and that my life was miserable blah blah blah. Because it just wasn’t. I had an average time growing up through my teens, some good times, some bad times. Doesn’t everyone?
The great thing about coming through that time in your life, and becoming more open and confident is that you realise when you meet new people that they’ve felt the same, had similar experiences. You realise all the segregation and seperation you feel from others is in your head – it was never there, it’s teen paranoia. Because you’re still at an age where your brain is developing but yet you’re lucid and intelligent enough to notice the world around you. It’s a crazy time, but you’re better when you get through it. Most of all those that stuck around and indeed continue to stick around must have noticed I’m a happier person. And they’re good people, I love them to bits. 
October 1st 2011: Oktoberfest
Finally in October now! Although the weather we’ve had would make you think otherwise I’m sure.. It’s been unusually warm for the time of year, that goes without saying. But with a new month comes a month less until I get to move on, and new challenges to face. New goals to accomplish. Driving is still the big one, of course.
But with that I’ve plenty of lessons booked up and I’m erring closer to making the call to book that pesky test. It’s pretty much the only thing holding me up as I get to hand in my notice for my job soon. Ah yes, some unsuspecting unlucky soul gets to take my place and work my unsociable hours! And I’ll feel nothing but sympathy for them.. Well I say that, I’m pretty sure it’ll be an afterthought to be honest. Something to forget about when I’m on the plane. But see with leaving work I’ve still got a lot to sort out, like my leaving do for example. I’ve been at my job steady for about five and a half years now. I’ve become part of the furniture I think.. If I was staying in England I think that I’d still have tried to move on by now anyways, I need a refreshing change on the employment front.
But things are moving at last. I’m getting somewhere. I’m going to try to enjoy my last few weeks here, whether that just be seeing friends I won’t see for a long time, or just relaxing at home with the family. The monetary pressure is off a bit so I don’t feel I have to work all the hours in the world, and I feel like I can spend more time doing what I need to to get there asap. I just need to focus on driving and having a nice time while I’m here.
I’ve renewed optimism for what lies ahead. I think it might be because it’s nice weather, making actual progress regardless of the pace or a combination of the two. And knowing I don’t have to slog away for the next few weeks is actually motivating me to work reasonably hard when I’m at work. A strange twist in logic, I’m sure you’ll agree but, there you go. I’m in a really good mood for a change. No doubt something will come along to spoil it but why dwell on that for now. Enjoy the good times and let them roll as they say.
Oh and a full weekend off. Been over two months since I could say that! Lovely.
September 30th 2011: Philosophies
The older I get the more I notice people’s behaviour and body language. I like to people watch sometimes. Not because I’m a weird crazy stalker, just because I like to pick up on people’s actions, and reactions. And I’ve noticed more and more, that people are just plain unhappy. It’s easy to detect so much apathy when it’s clearly all around you.
So many people walk around hunched, slumped, more of a trundle than anything else. People still rush about trying to get wherever they need to but you don’t see anyone smiling anymore. I try to be an upbeat and happy person mostly but it saps away when all you see around you is depression. And that’s not a word I like to use lightly but yes, I reckon a lot of people around here are depressed. I don’t know what’s causing it. I don’t think that problems with the wider economy are hurting the common man as much as just feeling helpless. Struggling to get a job. Struggling to keep a job. Struggling to stay afloat and with higher bills and less cash coming in. It’s such a hard time to be living in for someone my age, someone a little bit younger.. for anyone.
There’s places where such issues don’t exist – Australia being one of them. While the global economy continues to stagnate, they boomed. I don’t know all the details and I don’t claim to be an expert but it’s a simple fact that the pound, which at one stage was worth nearly $3 AUD is down to less than a dollar and a half. Which shows how far they’ve come and how far we’ve fallen. And I think it’s got a lot to do with having less leisure time. We just have to work so much more for in some cases less than we had before – it’s enough to drain anyone. I can see why people sometimes wake up and just ask themselves why do they bother. I’ve done it myself.
I think it might be also a case of just getting older. Life is so much simpler when you’re young and carefree. It’s not exactly rocket science to figure that out though. I mean when you’re younger all you want to do is get older with some naive notion that you’ll be taken more seriously, that you’ll have more money and the world will be a less restrictive place. And then you turn 18 and suddenly responsibility is heaped upon you like a ten tonne mountain, and you have bills to pay, endless hassle.. everything becomes complicated. You realise that the folly of youth is that you’re not out being young and actually enjoying it. And you’d kill to be able to get back out there and be a kid again, instead of hating the 9-to5 rut that you’re stuck in. What can you do?
September 29th 2011: Not Quite A Final Fantasy.
When I was a kid those that read this or know me know I was an avid gamer and still am. I still got out but I was quite happily perched amongst my PlayStation when as per usual Manchester was bucketing down of an evening. And I used to play an eclectic mix of games, ranging from your typical boy-type shooters and sports and then I’d have my RPG side. And Final Fantasy was my poison. Strictly speaking Squaresoft games were, as my favourite of the era was actually Chrono Trigger, which plays as well today as when it did when released in 1995.
My adoption of the FF series was as a result of my brothers’ kidney stones. Yeah, not a sentence you read everyday is it! When he was seriously ill, he moved back home as he lived on his own and we wanted to look after him. I think I was about 8 or 9 at the time, and we’d often be visiting him in hospital, because the pain was ridiculous and it was better he was there if nothing else. When he was well enough to leave it made sense that he could move back home while he recuperated. With that he brought his PC up and a copy of a new game he’d bought. Final Fantasy VII. Now I’ll be honest. I didn’t have a clue.
For TWO YEARS I didn’t have a clue, it looked like weird stuff from where I was looking. I just didn’t really understand how it worked. But he really seemed to enjoy playing it (at least I think he did) and I used to like watching if nothing else. I was just happy to have my big brother out of hospital. And then VIII came out. I’d had no idea about any of the ones that came before VII but I thought I’d give VIII a go. And when I understood how it worked I really liked it. I liked it a lot. I liked that I didn’t need to dedicate all my time to it and how long it was – but that it required some reactions from me from time to time. I’ve always thought a good RPG doesn’t need a great story so much as a good way of telling it. And I was really enjoying it. I must have played and finished it a good seven or eight times now.
And it moved on from there really. As I carried on my gaming education I found out all about the older ones on older cartridge-based machines, and CT, Legend of Mana and so on. I got to play them as it turned out. And even now, the newer ones, I buy and I play. Which leads me to the reason I’m boring you to tears – I’m finally giving lucky number 13 a fair crack of the whip. See I was a big fan of 12 when it came out on the PlayStation 2 and I lost a good portion of college through it but I couldn’t warm to 13. I lost a lot of faith when Square merged with Enix and I thought the fare they’d produced (With notable exceptions) was a bit poor. Taking into account how delayed it had been and all the other games coming out as part of its’ series I wasn’t keen.
But I’m being harsh. So I bought it in Feb. And played it for an hour and didn’t go back to it. And now I am. So hopefully I’ll stick at it a bit longer!
September 28th 2011: Occupado.
From time to time, we all have bad days. It can be anything that causes it. Something trivial to burning the toast for your breakfast, a setup for the rest of a bad day or it can be something major such as a accident or fall, or an incident at work maybe. It’s not rocket science, I’m not going to pretend you’re all dumb, you know what I mean. Today for me was a bad day. Most of my ways of communicating with Cilla which is, to be brutal hard at the best of times were out of action so we haven’t spoken much. To tell the truth because of this we’ve not spoken much over the last few days in comparison to what is normal for us.. But anyway. Driving was my slowest progression for a while. It wasn’t that I made any mistakes, just that I didn’t really do anything I hadn’t done before.
And I’ve just paid for ten more lessons. I need them if it’s going to be slow. But the good thing is I’ve got them all booked in for this week and next so nothing to worry about.. See I used to dwell on disappointments and panic. It didn’t help being depressed because I’d get disappointed easily and I’d make myself feel worse and worse. It was a vicious circle, and a hard one to break. Although I’ll admit I felt better when I hit a low – coming out of it would always make me feel so much better. The only way I could describe it would the waveline on a heart monitor. A steady line followed by a dip, and then a massive surge upwards and then back to normal again just like a heartbeat.
I think the only difference from now and then is my coping approach. Because I’ll be honest, if I think something is going wrong or not brilliantly to how it should be and it affects the move it affects me a lot more than if just something normal goes wrong. But I think that’s how it should be – I’m pushing myself to get everything right so I can’t make any mistakes. Time is of the essence and I need to make the most of it – so I’m taking away all the negative energy that I don’t need, the kind that saps away all your get-up-and-go and doing something useful with it instead. I think it’s a lot better than living my life swallowing anti depressants and basically feeling numb. And it’s no slight on those that take them as I was one of them for a long time and only until recently too. It’s just I feel a bit better, I’m not needing them like I used to. So that’s a good thing, right?
Goodnight.
September 27th 2011: Creativity On Strike
Sometimes, I just don’t have the effort within me to write posts. I have total block. And here’s where blogging gets a bit cloying because I feel guilty that I just don’t have a lot to say. When this happens I usually try to find something topical to come up with, some witty or satirical response to a news story. But to tell the truth I’m not really in the mood. And if I read back it’s going to bug me that this is all I can write but, I’d rather write something of quality than reams of rubbish.
I just hope that this doesn’t happen too much over the next 9 months, as I’m not quite a third of the way in. If nothing else it might be worth trying to come up with a backup plan to write a post so that I don’t feel rough about leaving only a couple of hundred words. I don’t want to feel like I’m just padding it out with over exuberant language that if you read it normally, is just pointless and over the top. I still want to be able to look back and feel that I made an effort with every post.
And I need to remember that I blog for me mainly – I’m glad that I have a solid readership and that they enjoy what I write but that was never my intention. I can’t write it that way, for an audience. That’s not this blogs’ purpose. It was a test to see if I could write a solid little excerpt, a snapshot of my existence in a few hundred words daily. This I hope is a minor blip. There’s been days when I’ve written little, but that’s not through having nothing to say – tiredness usually. This is the first occasion where genuinely not much is happening. So there you are. Hopefully a 24 creativity bug.
September 26th 2011: Toiling.
The major downside to signing your life away to work is that you never really get to do what you want. It’s a pretty hefty sacrifice to make, and lots of people never find the right work/life balance. You either have too much time but no cash to go out with or do anything with, or you have a fair whack coming in, but you work so much you never have the energy or the effort needed to pick yourself up and get out there. Or even to go and buy a game maybe.. Even playing one. It happens. It’s happening to me.
But see I can’t complain too much, because I’ve chosen to. Cilla for instance has it considerably worse than myself. She’s working pretty much every day there is to save up for me coming over there, and she treats herself every so often which I am fully supportive of.. But then the motivation goes. It’s tiring. She has a rough deal, I’m appreciative of what she does. In the same vein I’m working sometimes over 40 a week, then include driving lessons before my shifts. It takes it’s toll after a while, that’s inevitable. And it’s not so much physical – usually I’m quite chipper and awake when I finish, much to the surprise of the people around me and erm.. myself. But it’s mental fatigue.
What keeps me going is the cash side of things and knowing that I’ve only a few more weeks of putting so much effort in. I mean we’re nearly at target and I’m only a few weeks off going. Pretty sure I’ve about five weeks left in work or so, so it’s a case of getting the money in while I can. The thing is, I may not start work over there immediately too, so for a little bit it’s going to feel like a proper holiday. New locations, money to spend, nice weather and above all being with my ladyfriend once more. I’m going to have a bit of a break and then earn a lot more for doing, I think, a lot less.
What’s even more stupid though, is that when push comes to shove I like it. I like the stress, I like the anger. I might even come to miss it, and that’s because I appreciate my time off or what I do on my time off more. I’m liking seeing my bank balance on the up too, rather than plunged almost catastrophically into the red. I like that I’m ready to accept help more when it’s being offered, like Cilla with the finance. Even though up top I’m a little worn out, it’s all good.
