There's a poster at the Uni campus emblazoned with the words "Why Do We Fear?" which immediately put me in mind of our innate human nature wherein we are aware of our own mortality and try desperately to distract ourselves from the fact in our day to day lives. Eventually I concluded that the concept of fear simply boils down to just anticipation of a bleak or unwanted future in terms of the situations we may happen to face or those which happen to fall upon us through no choice of our own. However, it quickly occurred to me that the poster was really just put up to advertise a lecture to be given quite simply because it's Halloween.
As I type, I'm sitting in a cold house with the only heat in the room coming from my body itself and remnants of me using a hairdryer to quickly and effectively make a damp T-shirt suitable for wearing later on. I'm facing a Tesco Halloween make-up set of which I can guarantee that only the black, white and red blocks of the palette will be applied to my face and a vial of red food colouring which I intend to add to golden syrup to fashion an oozing, yet extremely edible, fake blood. Behind me are old clothes with which I've finally come to terms with the fact I don't wear any more and have set about ripping up. For tonight's drinking-excuse festivities, I've been informed to dress as a zombie.
The funny thing about University is that fancy dress evenings are a lot more strict than one would probably expect. All dressing up must be done to adhere to a specific theme whilst also proving wacky enough for the wearer to not present themselves in public in the same way on any normal day. This makes scouting around, spending money on clothes and accessories one would not normally wear on a daily basis necessary. Furthermore, after the night in question, the chances of such clothing props being used ever again slim to none.
It is at this point in the typing process that I find myself distracted by the TV and losing whatever train of thought I had with this thing for me to continue in such a way that the whole thing doesn't feel like I'm just grasping at straws or some other lazily constructed metaphor. I'm also in the middle of playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and am feeling a burning desire to ignore the rest of this and carry on with that again. In the same breath however, I don't possess nearly enough hypothetical money in-game than I have real money in reality so at least I feel like a king in this life as opposed to returning to a life of drudgery hacking away at things with a blade in a bid to find a girl in a pink dress who can't stay still long enough for me to find her.
Fortunately, the fancy dress themed evening of binge drinking and loud social merriment comes at little cost to me today further fuelled by the fact that I'll be vacating my current dwelling during the dark hours meaning that I won't have to suffer the clockwork knocking at the door of children in plastic masks holding out Asda carrier bags in the hope of experiencing the annual sugar rush. This didn't stop me from having to deal with some of the little tykes last night who seem to have decided that they don't like the way the Gregorian calendar is currently set up and figured All Hallow's Eve would be better suited to them a whole twenty-four hours earlier.
Once again, I come bumbling to no point whatsoever so in accordance with the reputation Halloween night has to uphold, I'll round off with some vaguely sounding scary words and frightening themes: ghoul, banshee, ectoplasmic, blood-curdling, fangs, the Monster Mash, daemons, fundamental extremism, Amy Winehouse.
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Hardly Earth-Shattering
At the risk of fading further into obscurity that even I don't recognise me any more, I've stopped putting things here. Mostly, the reason for this has been some kind of amalgamation of getting on with life too much, consuming varying amounts of alcohol, sleeping and generally being a bit of a lazy arse in regards to remembering the fact that I wanted to keep this space regularly updated in the hope that it would keep me writing.
Over the last week or so, though, I've unashamedly, or very ashamedly (I'm not quite sure how to feel about it to be honest), been coasting. My work towards the most important year of my University course has seemed fairly lacklustre. That is when I look at my own work. I've simultaneously managed to worry and possibly belittle others on my course by workshopping (i.e. editing) their work with an overly critical mind, an inflated sense of self and a red Biro. The point at which hypocrisy hits is when I struggle to come up with original work of my own for my peers to scribble over and point at.
In stark contrast, my efforts in short fiction were recently commended during the currently ongoing Manchester Literature Festival. The University puts together a compilation of short stories annually and it just so happens that something I did managed to make it into the top half of all of them, thus making it to print. It's hardly Earth-shattering but the event did kill an afternoon, get me moderately light-headed on a glass of red and result in minor embarrassment dealt in the form of my parents' attendance. As of the time of typing this, my father's phone contains a however-long video clip of me stumbling over a short extract in the vicinity of a microphone and my mother currently possesses around six copies of the limited print-run anthology bearing signatures of myself and, in some cases, several of the other participants at the event as if we're rockstars, so that she can pass them on to whatever friends or family members she can coax into feigning interest.
So if I haven't been working to the fullest of my potential, what the heck have I been doing all this time? Well, drinking seems to make up most of that response. Why, in fact, that aforementioned vino at the anthology launch proved to be something of a "gateway drink" into what ended up being an afternoon and evening in a student bar in the middle of Manchester, during which certain amounts of money were exchanged for cocktail pitchers and the occasional thimble-sized plastic beaker of Goldschläger (which, by the way, in proper German should be pronounced "gold-sh-lay-ger" as opposed to its more popular Anglicised form "gold-sh-lah-ger", that kind of thing pisses me off ever so, you know).
Even tonight, after I've done this and finally dressed properly, I'm supposed to be joining my studently comrades for a good ol' binging session which will undoubtedly render me catatonic until tomorrow's early afternoon, by which point I should, in theory, be attending a seminar I should've prepared well in advance for. And by the same time on Friday I'll need some kind of original work to exist, at least in some kind of draft form, ready for other people to judge my writing ability which, quite frankly, feels to have dwindled since I've not been typing anything here for weeks at a time. Once everything goes to crap and I've stopped clutching the sides of my skull in despair, I may feel up to drowning my sorrows once more with that fresh bottle of Honey-infused Jack Daniels I bought yesterday.
More to do than can ever be done. More to find than can ever be found. It's the circle, the circle of life.
Over the last week or so, though, I've unashamedly, or very ashamedly (I'm not quite sure how to feel about it to be honest), been coasting. My work towards the most important year of my University course has seemed fairly lacklustre. That is when I look at my own work. I've simultaneously managed to worry and possibly belittle others on my course by workshopping (i.e. editing) their work with an overly critical mind, an inflated sense of self and a red Biro. The point at which hypocrisy hits is when I struggle to come up with original work of my own for my peers to scribble over and point at.
In stark contrast, my efforts in short fiction were recently commended during the currently ongoing Manchester Literature Festival. The University puts together a compilation of short stories annually and it just so happens that something I did managed to make it into the top half of all of them, thus making it to print. It's hardly Earth-shattering but the event did kill an afternoon, get me moderately light-headed on a glass of red and result in minor embarrassment dealt in the form of my parents' attendance. As of the time of typing this, my father's phone contains a however-long video clip of me stumbling over a short extract in the vicinity of a microphone and my mother currently possesses around six copies of the limited print-run anthology bearing signatures of myself and, in some cases, several of the other participants at the event as if we're rockstars, so that she can pass them on to whatever friends or family members she can coax into feigning interest.
So if I haven't been working to the fullest of my potential, what the heck have I been doing all this time? Well, drinking seems to make up most of that response. Why, in fact, that aforementioned vino at the anthology launch proved to be something of a "gateway drink" into what ended up being an afternoon and evening in a student bar in the middle of Manchester, during which certain amounts of money were exchanged for cocktail pitchers and the occasional thimble-sized plastic beaker of Goldschläger (which, by the way, in proper German should be pronounced "gold-sh-lay-ger" as opposed to its more popular Anglicised form "gold-sh-lah-ger", that kind of thing pisses me off ever so, you know).
Even tonight, after I've done this and finally dressed properly, I'm supposed to be joining my studently comrades for a good ol' binging session which will undoubtedly render me catatonic until tomorrow's early afternoon, by which point I should, in theory, be attending a seminar I should've prepared well in advance for. And by the same time on Friday I'll need some kind of original work to exist, at least in some kind of draft form, ready for other people to judge my writing ability which, quite frankly, feels to have dwindled since I've not been typing anything here for weeks at a time. Once everything goes to crap and I've stopped clutching the sides of my skull in despair, I may feel up to drowning my sorrows once more with that fresh bottle of Honey-infused Jack Daniels I bought yesterday.
More to do than can ever be done. More to find than can ever be found. It's the circle, the circle of life.
Wednesday 3 October 2012
Somewhat Busy
Living without regular access to the internet is odd. This little portion of the web has been recently neglected as a result. Maybe it's only been a week, maybe it's been two, maybe it's been four years and I'm just still not ready to leave university behind all the while clasping my hands to my ears, shaking my head side to side and tunelessly chanting a constant "la la la" at real life because it doesn't actually exist yet. Oh yeah, also my eyes are closed during that bit too. However long it's been since I last used lettered keys to communicate with all those seven or so people that come here via a Facebook link, mis-typed Google search or spam email (probably, although I've not moved into the world of hacking yet, I'm not that techno-savvy), it feels like ages.
Anyway, I need to use email every now and then to facilitate my third year of degree study, which involves me bumming off the free WiFi on campus. Because of this, my Student Union surroundings with that scent of chips and gravy, occasional hubbub of idiot laughter and 4Music being streamed live on a projector sponsors my communications to classmates and random blog-stumblers alike. Why, even as I type, the voice of Peter Dickson is yelling at me buy things from KFC and now there's an extended featurette of Dappy from off of N-Dubz standing on a shallow bank fishing, I shit ye not.
So what's this one all about then? Something interesting must've happened in the last six years since I was last here, especially with it being the beginning of the university year. Well, yes, that's very true. Lot's of things have happened in the past decade, but as it happens now, I'm facing a somewhat busy afternoon and evening, a busy tomorrow, busy Friday, potentially busy Saturday, and a busy every single day for the next six months until I hand in final assignments. Add that to the fact that I really have to pee right now, I'll summarise the main points without too much elaborating. Heck, maybe they could pose as the bases of a few other blog posts later in the year when my brain dries up and my social life falls down a ravine into a pile of sewage or some other metaphor like that.
Lately, I've made new friends, watched TV, cooked food, spent an obscene amount of money on archery equipment, drank certain amounts of alcohol that cannot be described as copious and sung along with Coldplay from inside my iPod. Also I've walked a lot. A heck of a lot. Oh, plus I've had a distinct lack of doing work, hence why I'm now facing an awful lot of busy days and I still really badly need to pee, so bye.
Anyway, I need to use email every now and then to facilitate my third year of degree study, which involves me bumming off the free WiFi on campus. Because of this, my Student Union surroundings with that scent of chips and gravy, occasional hubbub of idiot laughter and 4Music being streamed live on a projector sponsors my communications to classmates and random blog-stumblers alike. Why, even as I type, the voice of Peter Dickson is yelling at me buy things from KFC and now there's an extended featurette of Dappy from off of N-Dubz standing on a shallow bank fishing, I shit ye not.
So what's this one all about then? Something interesting must've happened in the last six years since I was last here, especially with it being the beginning of the university year. Well, yes, that's very true. Lot's of things have happened in the past decade, but as it happens now, I'm facing a somewhat busy afternoon and evening, a busy tomorrow, busy Friday, potentially busy Saturday, and a busy every single day for the next six months until I hand in final assignments. Add that to the fact that I really have to pee right now, I'll summarise the main points without too much elaborating. Heck, maybe they could pose as the bases of a few other blog posts later in the year when my brain dries up and my social life falls down a ravine into a pile of sewage or some other metaphor like that.
Lately, I've made new friends, watched TV, cooked food, spent an obscene amount of money on archery equipment, drank certain amounts of alcohol that cannot be described as copious and sung along with Coldplay from inside my iPod. Also I've walked a lot. A heck of a lot. Oh, plus I've had a distinct lack of doing work, hence why I'm now facing an awful lot of busy days and I still really badly need to pee, so bye.
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