Slow and steady…

OK, so steady may not be the truth of my posting regularity, sporadic and hugely delayed is probably more realistic. As I can’t possibly be bothered to fill you in on the happenings of the last 7 months (though most who followed me previously have probably give up hope of me ever posting again), however I shall just keep you abreast of the occurrences of the last month or so.

As a couple of you may have heard, there is apparently something of a downturn in the economy, and people arre driving much slower to save fuel…oh and I lost my job too as a result *queue violins please*. So I am now on the job hunt, and aside from a small flurry of interviews in the fist 2 weeks of my redundancy, things have been rather quiet to now… So should any of you know of any marketing positions, either Social Media or more traditional digital/PR opportunities, then please do throw them my way

However, my new job hunting office resides at a lovely new granite breakfast bar in my next door neighbors house on a leather bar stool, and suffice to say it’s much more amenable than my bedroom…and their cute baby is also a bonus…*ahem*

So other than losing my job, things have been pretty steady, still training lots and back rowing again (which I shall post on separately) after many years off and loving it. Unfortunately haven’t had the chance to play any polo this season, nor indeed go and watch any due to financial consttraints.

However, the redundancy did give me the opportunity to spend a week in Sheffield which was awesome, and a pleasant change to my usual flying weekend visits where I have barely arrived before i have left!! I guess however there does come a point where you have so much time on your hands that one isn’t sure what to do, so one simply does nothing. There’s only so much time I can spend job hunting each day, so end up going training, or watching a film, or training, or going into Oxford, or training…

Aaaanyway, I would like to think that I am now back on my blog writing train after having given it a rest for a few months, and no doubt I shall remember something exciting (or at least something I think is exciting) and post in an entirely asynchronous manner…which I’m sure shall be a delightfully confusing effort to read!

Where do they go?

Well it’s apparently 11pm, but as the clocks have changed, my body thinks its 12pm yet still I’m fully awake making the most of what’s left of my weekend.

Where does the weekend go, finish work on a Friday, and in the blink of an eye it’s Sunday night. They seem to get faster and faster every week. I know I’m not alone here on this belief, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it….

However, I have had a really nice weekend, no real agenda for one, which makes a great change to usual weekends for me. Usually there’s a hundred and one things to do, a good 99 of which are generally worrying about work, with the remaining 2 being plans for Saturday and Sunday respectively. Yesterday, I had a haircut which was desperately needed (I went for the usual approach of having plenty off as I know not when I will have time for another…..maybe pre Christmas, who knows), I then wandered to Waitrose to but some fresh pastry goodness for breakfast, and that was pretty much it….until a friend invited me to theirs for the evening, so we went to the pub for a drink, then back home to go out for dinner with family and friends. Impromptu plans are always the best in my opinion. Then today, I spent most of the day with the same friend as last night, which was really cool, just bumming around, and then went out tonight. I’ve been feeling really pretty down recently, not my usual bubbly self, and yet somehow she always makes me feel better just being in her company! You may have guessed that this ‘friend’ is the same friend I have talked about in recent posts about being lost and confused etc…. BUT, you’ll be glad to know I’m not going into that tonight!! (Lucky you Colin & Siobhan…)

On my way home from my friends place this evening, I notice through the car windscreen how clear the night is. So I stopped in the middle of no-where, turned off the engine, and…..complete silence. Then looking to the sky, the winter darkness and clarity provided an awesome sight. I haven’t seen the stars so bright in so very long. I find looking at the night sky to be one of the single most humanizing actions possible. Not for awesomeness off it, but for the belittling feeling one gets, that everything each individual does is quite frankly so insignificant. The wars we fight on this little planet over ridiculous things, the things that get to us which are so pointless. With a simple look up, it all falls into insignificance. If like me you spend the majority of your time alone thinking and pondering and need to find some clarity, go find a solitary space on a clear night and just stare at the sky. I was lucky enough tonight to also see 2 shooting stars, so lets see if those wishes come true.

So as I lie here writing this, I try to consider that the working week ahead of me will be different to all the others, somehow better. But then this is how I always start my weeks, only to be disappointed by maybe 11am on a Monday morning, but we shall see….

I hope all of those who read this have had great weekends, and are ready to face another week, simply to get us to another weekend.

What do we chase, and why?

Many of us have undoubtedly got dreams, things which are waaaay out of reach right now, but remain a target for aspirations. But what about those things which remain just out of arms reach. They are not quite attainable, but they epitomize everything we want.

Be it money, love, or any number of things, I bet not one of you reading this can possibly say you have not wanted something so badly, yet found it to be just brushing at your finger tips before most often just distancing itself from you. I find myself here right now, something which was once a dream has come so close and so real, is within what I believed to be grasping distance, before being taken away, in just a split second.

Maybe it is easier to have dreams that are distant, we ourselves them remain distant of them. Elusive and awesome they shall remain forever for the majority of people, and for the few who make it, may they have everything they imagined from it.

I can not deny that I do have fear of things slipping away, but as a human, I can only continue to have my mind filled with hope for something, no matter how illogical, unlikely and unfortunate the timing may be. For the current circumstance, I have very good friends telling me that I should stop chasing the want, jut let it be. But no matter how right they are, or much I agree, I can not bring myself to let go. So I find myself here, lost in a myriad of questions with no answers, fear with no consolation and thought with no respite. To those whom fight, and to those whom feel defeated, chase your dreams, for some must be realized!

It’s been a while….

It really has been some time since I wrote anything here, so as a mark of my return, have something to make you laugh. This is the contents off an email that went around the office, and had I been alone, would have had me in stitches.

Office Dares

1 Point Dares

1. Ignore the first five people who say ‘good morning’ to you.

2. To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears
and grimace.

3. Leave your fly open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say,
“Sorry, I really prefer it this way”.

4. Walk sideways to the photocopier.

5. While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors
open.

6. When in elevator with one other person, tap them on the shoulder and
pretend it wasn’t you.

7. Finish all your sentences with “In accordance with the prophecy…”

8. Don’t use any punctuation.

9. Interrupt your conversation with someone by giving a huge dejected
sigh.

10. Use your highlighter pen on the computer screen.

5 Point Dares

1. Say to your boss, “I like your style”, wink, and shoot him with
double-barrelled fingers.

2. Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the
nozzle.

3. Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

4. Every time you get an email, shout ‘email’.

5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has got over
his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

6. Keep hole punching your finger. Each time you do, shout, “dagnamit,
it’s happened again!”. Then do it again.

7. Introduce yourself to a new colleague as “the office bicycle”. Then
wink and pout.

8. Call I.T. helpdesk and tell them that you can’t seem to access any
pornography web sites.

10 Point Dares

1. At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to
conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you
actually launch into it yourself).

2. Walk into a very busy person’s office and while they watch you with
growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.

3. For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as “Dave”.

4. Announce to everyone in a meeting that you “really have to go do a
number two”.

5. When you’ve picked up a call, before speaking finish off some fake
conversation with the words, ’she can abort it for all I care’.

6. After every sentence, say ‘Mon’ in a really bad Jamaican accent. As
in: “The report’s on your desk, Mon.” Keep this up for one hour.

7. In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and
mutter, “Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!”

8. At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, “As God is my
witness, I’ll never go hungry again!”

9. Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: “Do
you hear that?” “What?” “Never mind, it’s gone now.”

10. Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuit; smash
each biscuit with your fist.

11. During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the
door.

12. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

13. Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.

14. Sign or pp all letters with your initials and a swastika.

15. Dry hump the photocopier. When someone spots you, stop and cough
embarrassingly, then lean in to the machine and whisper loudly, “I’ll
see you tonight”.

Sometimes it all about the sympathy…

We all know at times we want others to feel like we do, the resentfulness of other being content. Misery loves company after all. However sometimes it’s easier to find that company in music. I have never been known for my extensive collection of upbeat tunes, but rather for the plethora of emotionally low music. Here’s a few of the current sympathy favorites.

Finlay Quaye – Dice

The Youth Group – Forever young

Dios Malos – You got me all wrong

Why?

A three letter word, they don’t come much shorter, but do they come more poignant? So what reason has this word come to the fore?

Well I was asking myself why! Why do I write a blog, why do I write my diary. It’s an activity many do, in varying ways, but each has their own reasoning, no two the same in my eyes.

After some thought I decided that I write a blog not to inform others, rather than to inform myself. I had a chat tonight with a very close friend abut me and others, and one thing that came up is how do we see ourselves, do any of us know who we are. Following on from this I have had some time to think. I don’t know who I am, but then I don’t believe anyone really does. Every day changes us, and every incident has some effect on us however small, and there is no way that anyone can assimilate their emotions and actions fast enough to always know who they are.

I use my blog to answer questions, but they are questions I pose, not others. There is advice in this world which we can take guidance from, but nothing is the same for everyone. We can look to friends, family and acquaintances, but the only person who can truly answer ones own questions is ones self! By writing I find freedom, the ultimate freedom being writing by hand in my diary. Much like a stream of emotion from ones hand, the ink flows as pain from the body, each word easing the worry within. The sentences don’t even have to make sense to someone else, the same point may be made more than once but in a different manner, but to this end, the personally written word has for centuries provided an outlet of the body.

I am currently having some tough times emotionally, and I have never found it of more use to write things down by hand, a ritual that has been lost over the years. My problems are not even bad, they are in fact happy, but a certain amount of uncertainty and concern mixed with my usual does of paranoia leads me to worry and hence the need for an outlet.

I invite you to write by hand when you feel a need to share, try sharing with yourself, and you may be amazed at the answers you actually already have but haven’t yet found a way to release!

The why, the who what, and the where and the how!

Ok, so it’s a terrible lyric set, but at times all these questions come flooding to us. It is not often that I am lost for words, nor a means to articulate how I feel, but I’m feeling at a loss now!

In recent weeks I have grown increasingly close to an old friend, with emotions and feelings in a new position to what they used to be. Unfortunate timing has meant that for now nothing can happen, even though emotion alone would dictate otherwise. It’s an strange position to be in, and as previously commented here, I am intrigued by the eternal battle of heart and mind. And here I am, stuck in the middle of just such a battle, where logic and sense argue contrary to feelings of the heart. We agreed not to rule anything out for the future, as feelings are shared, but right now it just simply wouldn’t be a good idea.

I’m sure one day this will all be easy, the right person, the right time… Yet at the moment I just seem to keep getting it wrong. Thankfully I’m the kind of person to take the good out of these situations. Here I know there is prospect for the future, that not all hope is lost. However, this time the dissapointment feels very different, I don’t know how or why, it just does. Maybe it was the speed at ahich it all happened, maybe it was the hope I held and how I built it up in my head?!?!

So what should we do I ask? Do we as vulnerable humans look to the future with scepticism, closing those open arms a little and raising some shields? By blocking out potenial harm, are we also putting up barracades to opportunity and chance?

I tell friends all the time after bad periods of their lives to embrace the future and take learnings from the past, but maybe the more periods of unrest and unease we go through, the greater the barriers from these experiences become, thwarting our potential for the future!

Another picture set: The Road Bike

Defined, hindered, inspired? Where does you past put you today?

Talking to a friend tonight, she told me of her brother, and how he has England trials for hockey. I was so happy for her, and him, but she said “…of course you wouldn’t care being a GB rower and all…”. However, this really struck a chord with me, and almost snapped me out of disillusion. I did once row for Great Britain, and spent almost a decade getting there, for a 3 year campaign where I won a gold and a silver. The greatest years of my life, potentially the most successful I shall ever be. And this is the problem, this all finished at the end of 2002, and I can’t move on. I know full well that I am no longer a GB rower, but I hold onto this dream so tight, believing that it was only last week that it was ripped from me through injury.

So where from here? I can’t seem to shift the feeling that maybe I shall never be that much of a success ever again, nothing will ever push me to the edge of life, to the point of crying and suffering through my own will. No matter how good I am on the bike, how good I am in the pool, nothing compares to the success on the water.

I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of this post was, maybe to give me a proverbial slap across the face, maybe to tell me to find something new to be great at. All I know is, 6 years after it all finished, I would do absolutely anything to have it back again, to stand on an international podium and be celebrated by my peers! I need a new direction, a new goal, a new passion, the challenge is finding it!

And now for something completely different!!

Having just read a blog about the hatred by so many of the “popped collar” of polo shirt and standard shirts, I am writing a retaliation. Not that I would ever “pop” my colar of course……..yeah, ok I may have been known to do this from time to time……ok fine….most days!!

But heres a collection of Poppped collar information for the noobs of the snob & frat dress sense!!

Firstly let me direct you to the urban dictionary definition(s):

“Many Americans are confused concerning the real definition of a “popped collar”. In short, a collar has been popped when the wearer flips it up, so that it no longer rests on one’s shoulders. It frames the face, and hides much of the neck. Many “poppers” nonchalantly flip their collars up, allowing the adjunct flap of fabric to slouch as it pleases, to create a vibe of effortless hipness. Some fastidiously iron said accessory, opting for a slick, polished look. Some favor the Twilight Zone style, fluffing their coat collars in a mysterious manner. The extremely confident poppers layer shirts, and simultaneously pop multiple collars. Polo or button-down shirts are the most popular media for poppage.“

And for those needing more clarity have a look through these, some…ok all, are not supporting my case, but even I can laugh at some people…and dogs of course!!

Also, for a night in the life of a popped collar check this out, it’s really very amusing…I promise: Internal Monologue of a Polo Shirt About to Have Its Collar Popped

And just to finish off the argument, here’s my weakest piece of ammunition!