Monthly Archives: March 2014

Culture Vulture

Posted in Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time) by

Posted on July 9, 2012

The last thing I want to become – well, not quite the last thing but something I wouldn’t be keen on – is to become a culture snob. Like, the type who thinks that there is an objective standard for the creative arts and that there is no room for argument or challenge, ie., THEY are the elite and you can only hope to be a poor imitation of the values which they pertain to embody.

Yet a sense of culture enhances the sense of standards and values and can be, well, very valuable in being a thoughtful and discerning global citizen. I guess, in a way, this is a somewhat long-winded way of introducing my personal quest to keep my brain alive in the immediate post-graduation stretch of time still lying before me. I’m going for a carpe diem (seize the day) approach, an equivalent of spinning a globe and seeing what country you land on.

Today I went, rather out of my way, to an art gallery in another city for the sole purpose of viewing and appreciating one artist; one Edvard Munch, creator of the iconic painting “The Scream”, amongst many other symbolist and impressionist works which indeed portray a rather wider spectrum of emotion.

I was all set to open my mind to an area of art previously overlooked by myself, but fell almost immediately at the first hurdle. That, alas, was the presence of Other People.

I guess I was hoping, on a late Monday morning, I would have the place pretty much to myself (ignoring the slight embarrassment of knocking around a gallery instead of working on a weekday in the first place…), or at the very least, enough room and space between myself and Other People to be able to mull over this diminutive collection in relative peace.

But I found myself honing the technique of “speed-appreciating” – admiring something quickly, a split-second of reflection then moving swiftly on. Granted this was not my preferred method of art-appreciation, but it was never long before one or more people huddled round a picture so tightly that you are at risk of invading their personal space in order to get a look in. I’m quite miffed that the closest I got to the original copy of “The Scream” was peering over the shoulder of a rather tall person. It was almost enough to make me want to act out the painting…

But the art itself was… eye-opening. It has awakened an interest in Nordic and Scandinavian culture which was already lurking under the surface, but didn’t quite know what to focus on. The work was, for want of a better word, relatable. Works like “The Dance of Life” contrasted with darker images such as “The Lonely Ones”, and other depictions of anxiety and isolation, which Munch in fact experienced much of during his lifetime. The particular employment of strokes and shading gave a personality to each painting, and it definitely made me want to look into it some more. Overall, very brief but quite interesting.

Finally; no I would not like you, upon my buying a ticket, to immediately attempt to “upgrade” me to a family season ticket, given that it’s just me here for the day, and I would to be asked to make a donation to be added onto the ticket priceI do not appreciate the built-in guilt trip this request contains and I will make a donation, but in my own way and in my own time.

It’s almost enough to put me off the whole “culture” thing, which is a shame.

 

In Absentia

Posted in General musings by

Posted on June 27, 2012

I have been away from this site for a while, having had nothing much new to report as happening recently.

Although I am about to graduate with an honours degree, I have suffered a considerable knock to my confidence in myself as an academic person, having received a dismal mark for my dissertation. This most likely went some way to lowering my overall grade point average, and despite assurances that I shouldn’t care as long as I have my degree (which of course is true) I can’t help but feel as if one of the few avenues of career direction has been considerably narrowed down.

On the other hand, I’m quite relieved to leave behind a part of my life which has involved constant mental struggle and the basing of my thoughts, ideas and self-esteem entirely on the mark of my latest essay. Although in many ways a true calling in my life, my time at university has been a dramatically life-altering experience.

Many of the best and worst times of my life were contained within this period of time, and I had pinned so much hope on my ability to get there in the first place that, when it did go wrong, it was a living nightmare.

But now it is time to pick up the pieces, take note of what I have learnt – and possibly forgotten – and keep pushing on, even if I can’t see exactly where I’m going.

 

Wild Camping. And The Dreaded Midge.

Posted in The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on June 6, 2012

After the visit to the ghost town, we saddled up and hopped on the ferry to Tarbert, another seaside village, and after a last-minute change of plan brought on by the lack of public transport which we didn’t find out about till then, decided to embark upon the Kintyre Way, with a view to camping somewhere in the middle and continuing on to Arran the next day.

The trek was strenuous but made up for by the views we could see at the summit, but the romantic idea of wild camping I had in mind before the trip was almost immediately quashed by the descent of, literally, millions of midges whenever we needed to stop for the briefest amount of time.

Now midges are as inevitable a fact of life in Scotland during the summertime as rain is at, well, any time. But nothing could have prepared me for the kamikaze-like ferocity with which we were attacked by these miniscule insects; it was one of those things which, sadly, one has to experience first-hand in order to get a true impression.

We trekked as far as the daylight would allow before settling on a reasonable looking spot, and no sooner had we begun to set up camp than the midges scented our living bodies and moved in for the kill, resulting in a very speedy operation and a swift retreat into the tent; not to re-emerge till the next morning. Even then we had only enough time to spray, pack up and get the hell as far away from the midges as possible.

We made a brisk move towards the ferry, heading in towards Arran. By that point we were ready to call the whole trip a failure from the get-go and limp on home, but the lure of a nice-looking campsite in the sunshine was enough to keep us on for another night, so we duly set up camp there. This was a somewhat more pleasant experience, walking around a place which already had a special association, doing a spot of hillwalking, and taking pictures of the odd deer which would stray into the campsite.

But I still felt I had missed out on something; the joy of climbing up a mountainside and setting up temporary home surrounded by nothing but nature. Needless to say, we both survived our trip more or less in one piece, but hopefully one day, we’ll be able to get the “whole experience” of camping.

Until then, I’ll just try to write about that sort of thing as best I can.

A Coastal Ghost Town

Posted in The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on June 6, 2012

It’s been an eventful few days, following a mostly uneventful few weeks, punctuating the newly adopted graduate life.

My fiance and I had been talking about giving wild camping a go for quite a while. Having myself never actually wild camped before (my tent-living experiences being limited to my parents’ back garden and, much later, a muddy field full of drunk loud people), the prospect of sleeping under a starry night sky (his experience) was romantic sounding enough to sell me.

I will post more about the camping later on, but first – we packed up the stuff, perhaps overpacked which I usually tend to do, and began the journey with a couple of his mates on a drive to Polphail, a long-abandoned town in a western Scottish peninsula. It was a sunny day and there was a very pretty view of the sea and the various isles in the distance, in stark contrast to this place.

Wandering around the ruins (being careful where to step with rubble, manholes and unstable roofing everywhere) was quite a gloomy experience. Houses and public buildings which were never even used or lived in, left for decades to do nothing but fall apart and decay. A relic of the past, maybe, but one which never really existed in the first place.

Graffiti indicated a recent presence, perhaps attempting to reclaim the place as a make-shift outdoor art gallery, but even then an air of pessimism ran through the overall “theme”.

We had never seen anything quite like it, and the slabs of grey, choked with overgrowing foliage, certainly had about it a touch of melancholy. Soon it was time to get out of there and commence the camping trip, as the call of nature grew more by the minute. But that in itself was to be a challenge…

School’s Out. For A While.

Posted in General musings, Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time) by

Posted on May 19, 2012

The last exam is over and I have now officially finished with university. I thought it would feel quite a lot different  but it’s going to take a while to get rid of the nagging feeling that I should be doing something intellectual all the time. Of course I still want to keep up the “way” of writing but, for once, it will really ease the pressure on me not to have to write for approval and to forever struggle to get a grip on the academia ladder’s next rung.

I had the rather unexpected good fortune, on a night out celebrating my sister’s birthday (and my new freedom), to meet one Peter Mullan, the locally living actor turned director, who took the time to listen with admirable patience to my writing woes, and to give some rather sound advice. One thing I have always allowed to turn me off writing, or anything that I like doing, is the criticism and/or disapproval of other people – being able to reply quite dependably upon rejection can’t really be a good thing – but it’s also the case that life cannot be all about sucking up to said people. I wouldn’t feel too good about myself if I knew that’s the only reason I got to where I might end up someday.

I want to be able to say, at the risk of injecting a risky amount of cheese, “I did it my way”.

I guess it’s come to that point in life when, after all the grinding away at something with more often than not an uncertain outcome, it’s time to put that aside and start doing a bit of living day to day. Or minute to minute even.

A Bit Of Reflection

Posted in General musings, Mini existential crisis mode by

Posted on May 12, 2012

Four years ago today – almost to the hour – I reached the end of a long downward spiral which unfolded during my first year of uni. After an initially promising start, I endured a traumatic experience which propelled an already-budding eating disorder from mild to severe – going from mild to severe bulimia, with a direct transition into anorexia (only resorted to in a last-ditch effort to “cure” the bulimia) which, in turn, took on a life of its own. As these things tend to do. Eventually, I checked into a clinic in order to temporarily hand over the controls to a third party, as I had clearly demonstrated I wasn’t capable of doing so anymore. A place which I had never previously given a second thought to, simply as a place of luxury where those in “high society” would go for a quick holiday, refreshed and ready to taint themselves with debauchery all over again, until their next check-in.

For me, it was either that or go somewhere hundreds of miles away, and that was something I couldn’t deal with. So it wasn’t so much the “luxury option” as the “only bearable option” at the time.

My entire memory of that time in my life is quite hazy, characterised by even more peculiar than usual thoughts and decisions and obsessions, all pursued in the futile attempt at taking back the reigns in my failed attempt at a new life. It even reached a point where – for reasons still not entirely clear to me now – I didn’t feel like I deserved to be “me” anymore, the “me” who made all the mistakes which led to me getting into that state in the first place.  It took an extremely long time to return to the things I once loved from then on.

I’m not sure I’m able to, at the moment, give a full auto-bigraphical account of the time but in short, after a testy bout of physical and mental re-feeding, I began to slowly piece my personality back together, having become a weird sort of drone obeying strict and incomprehensible self-made laws of living, and I began to fight back for a pitiful shred of self-control which I mistook for a sense of autonomy. However, before I could tackle this properly, I was ejected prematurely – good old health insurance – and ended up in a limbo consisting of “just holding on”, which would last into the foreseeable future.

Many things have changed since then, apart from making an almost accidental physical recovery. I moved back to my hometown, moved away again, had my “first time” (I think you know what I mean), came back to my hometown, restarted uni, got a dog called Charlie, my Gran passed away, I went on a few mini-breaks, I got inked for the first time, I got together with a long-term friend who would become my fiancé, discovered a fondness for cycling in the countryside, went away some more, started eating more…

Even a year ago today, I remember thinking about all the above which had happened in the few years since that rather strange day. I still had, and have, much of the same issues with my mind and my body and overall sense of self-assurance. Replacing one problem with another has been a lifelong tendency of mine, and that doesn’t look set to change.

The cause of all that has happened is probably more important to realise than the actual stuff that has taken place since then. But I owe it to myself and to those in my life to try and find a better way to make the most of life I have remaining.

It will be interesting to see what will happen in another year’s time.

That Which Is Forthcoming…

Posted in General musings, Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time) by

Posted on April 27, 2012

So this is what being a graduate is going to be like…

A whole lotta: applying for all the jobs and positions going, waiting for replies that rarely come, feeling like I should be doing something more productive but, more often than not, not really seeing the point of setting foot outside. Because, it seems, that unless I am seen to be in company, it seems that I am not entirely welcome. Being ignored completely in a cafe – then being asked to shift seats more than once because I was *gasp* A-Lone, and probably wouldn’t mind being squished in between people, the corners of whose newspapers would be close enough to poke me in the face.

The inspiring, but equally depressing, Virginia Woolf novella/essay, “A Room of One’s Own”, inevitably springs to mind; inspiring because it articulately depicts the plight of many in an example of a great literary essay; depressing, not least of all because, although to have a room of one’s own is, historically, a relatively new luxury for many, it seems that even today once you step out the front door everyone wants a piece of you – and maybe it’s just me, but it can get a bit draining. But then you would probably ask why don’t I put this time I do have alone to good use, try and produce something worthwhile maybe..? Well I do try, but at some point one needs a bit of inspiration from a source elsewhere.

Therein lies the dilemma, how to stay sane in a world gradually making less and less sense. Yeah, unless absolutely necessary, for the foreseeable future staying in might be “the way” to go.

Pre- vs. Post- Modern Culture

Posted in Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time), Wibbling by

Posted on April 21, 2012

Oscar Wilde is truly awesome. Why can’t we have more people with the steady flow of wit and sharp observation of contemporary culture today?

I even wrote a poem on the subject as a tribute.

 

(Inspired during a trip to Dublin)

“An Apology to Mr Wilde”

Greetings Mr Wilde,

I believe you were expecting me

To drop by – or quite the opposite.

I can only say sorry

Things happen (the temptation to indulge my curiosity)

As they do in your town.

Your place of residence is open

To scholars and selected people only.

But I would like to give it a try.

I would rather listen to a word or phrase

Of your devising, than a whole conversation full of plagiarised pop culture

(if that is the right term for the mediocrity which is popular today).

But you were “not in”. Not to a passer-by like me anyway.

But an excuse – a good one, a better one.

I have none. I rarely have the words to say

Which capture the essence of what I really must say

Before the moment also passes by…

I will try again another time certainly.

Soon.

Promise.

Gym Bunny

Posted in Wibbling by

Posted on April 21, 2012

I gave the gym another try today. I’m not long back and already I feel all the better for going. That feeling would probably be all the more justified if I weren’t nursing a Brother’s Pear Cider as I write this but hey!

Fitness is one of those concepts which doesn’t seem so scary in its pure word-form. “Fitness” – perhaps not the most exciting word but relatively innocuous, not likely to strike fear and loathing into the average gym-trying person.

However it is the context in which it is most frequently used which is likely to steer me reliably away from it. It inevitably brings to mind those glorious specimens who have achieved this Fitness standard, and who make it their personal mission to permeate the public with this epiphany they have chanced upon, worked towards, and now have the flawless and flab-free physique as proof of their endurance. However there are days – not an overwhelming number but enough to notably tarnish my fitness “reputation” – when I am convinced that “fun-run” has to be ultimate example of an oxy-moron…

“You Are Now Certified To Be…”

Posted in General musings, Wibbling by

Posted on April 21, 2012

I got my TEFL certificate the other day. Proof of my having spent 60 hours (*cough* ahem *more like three*) learning how to become the exemplary good teacher and bestow my limited worldly wisdom to an as-yet-anonymous, and potentially quite intimidating, classroom full of foreign schoolchildren. Or adults, even.

Admittedly, much of it is learning by rote the best methods of teaching, which in itself is an important lesson for would-be teachers who would otherwise, albeit with the best intentions in their newfound calling, manage to scar the poor kiddies – or “adulties”, even – for life. Or at least put them off learning the English or indeed any other language.

Also admittedly, there is something of a slight sense of hypocrisy in upholding the importance and value of every language in the “global village” which the world is fast becoming, and then teaching the people who are charged to your temporary care, that actually, English is the way to go. That is, if you want to be acknowledged professionally, or at least have to deal with the vast number of tourists who refuse to shift from their own nicely bastardised version to learn a few helpful words or phrases of your own obscure language.

But it helps a lot of people, admittedly. And it’s not to say that they can’t ditch their home language and culture. It just means that they can speak English to your face, and laugh at you with their comrades in Japanese, or something.