Category Archives: General musings

On Joining A Meetup Group. And Climbing A Mountain.

Posted in General musings, The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on August 1, 2012

Since last writing, I’ve been *trying* to write, amongst other things suddenly available to me but requiring quite a bit of motivation. The one thing of note which I’ve done recently is climb Goat Fell, the highest peak in the isle of Arran.

My fiance had already done it once, and recommended my doing it too. I was somewhat apprehensive; not just of the actual bit involving mountain climbing but that our last expedition (the camping) ended up being a disastrous anecdote that we *may* be able to laugh about some day.

But if there’s something an able-bodied person with time to spare should do at least once in their life, it’s climb a mountain.

So we did, and it was quite an experience. Excruciatingly hard work throughout, lots of scrabbling, and literal *climbing*, up a mostly rock-strewn mountainside. But somehow we made it to the top, and have the photos to prove it, though I’m rather reluctant to show them as it shows me looking quite terrible. Maybe another time

The view from the top could have been better too. It clouded over just before and just after reaching the summit, and duly cleared back up on the way back down. I’m sure the view would have been awesome. But that we did it is the main thing…

Furthermore, I’m trying to expand my social circle, and the best way I can see, at the moment, is joining one of those online meetup groups which seem to be popping up everywhere. In typical style, amongst others, I joined one for writing.

I nearly didn’t go along to the first meeting. It seems that an all too frequent recurrence in my life is approaching the herd/pack/clan when they appear to have the perfect number already without me, thanks very much, and in fact my sudden intrusion would risk disrupting this perfect social balance.

Ignoring these urges to back away, I introduced myself, sat down, and just… joined in. As if I had been a member as long as everyone else.

It could have been a lot worse. I felt that merely treating it like a university seminar class, where everyone is there to discuss the specific topic in question, significantly helped my feeling like I might in fact belong there.

I won’t go into tedious detail of writers’ group stuff, as not everyone, I’m sure, is into that kind of thing. Feedback was duly passed around everyone’s work – including mine – which it is crucial to try not to take too personally. I braced myself for the worst, and took it all in the spirit it was intended in.

I couldn’t bring myself to participate in the feedback fully, but that will be my aim for next time. I would genuinely want to help others out where I can.

If I can pass on what I learned at uni onto others (apart from winging and fluffing my way through public speaking) then that would be nice.

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.

 

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.

“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.