In your head

For the first time in quite a while, I shared my bed with a couple of guests the night before last. In fact, have I ever shared my bed before? Well yes is the answer, and everytime it has been with something small, fluffy and cuddly. The last two nights I have been sleeping with the affectionately named 'Strawberry' and Sweety. Seeing as Katherine is away, I have been put in charge of looking after her most treasured cuddly toys, and considering the amount of TLC they are used to, leaving them in a cupboard is not enough. Sure there was a bit of a fight over the covers, and yes, it was a bit of a squeeze, but in the end it all worked out fine.

I decided to test the sound on this pc yesterday by playing a song. Unfortunately i picked the most catchy song ever written which has been going round and round and round my head for over a day now! Garrrr, it's quite teeny-boppy-emo so you'll probably enjoy it!

Have a listen (and a watch)
http://www.pcplanets.com/videos-17752-Zombie.shtml

True Love

Read this: http://www.teamhoyt.com/
And watch this:

Just to make sure I don't go a full month

without blogging.

I have been very busy of late. Mostly planning for the 24-7 prayer event we're running at the moment. Hence I have not blogged for ages. So to tell you about my last month, i wrote a poem.

There was once a family from 'gate
Not one of whom was called Kate,
They went to the lakes,
Ate copious numbers of cakes,
And all put on a little weight.

Now one of this family 6-strong,
Had a girlfriend who tagged along,
When all of the others went home,
They stayed on for a bit of a roam,
and walked nearly as far as Hong Kong

Well ok, maybe not quite that far,
But they did venture to Wastwat-arr
There they did eat, drink and hike,
including great Scafell Pike,
Before driving home in Her car.

Now before this great tale had begun,
There was a long weekend of great fun,
This time Tim was the 'guest',
As they set off on a quest,
To Filey to sit in the sun.

Other places were visited too,
Including a theme park that's also a zoo,
Not forgetting Beamish,
where if your squeamish,
the dentist's definitely not for you.

Once home, two weeks gone now,
i kept myself busy somehow
letters and phonecalls galore,
emails, meetings and more
not even a single row!

And so as the rhyme gets worse,
I leave you with this final verse,
Tata, good day,
I'll be on my way,
As 'What a waste of time' you curse.

Summer Days

Nearly a month since I last blogged-so what's new? Well I've gained a sister-in-law! Apart from that, very little is new.

So instead of wittering on about my life, i'll hand over this space to a good friend of mine.

Trapped

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

Charles Bukowski

The Ending to Harry Potter!!!

Right, heres the news. Joanne is having a few problems finishing the book, and so came to me for a few ideas. I've narrowed it down to 3 possible endings, so here goes. Maybe if you could just vote on your favourite and i'll let her know what you guys think before the weekend.
Cheers

Ending 1...

‘…Harry glanced behind him; Snape and Voldemort were catching up. He kept running as fast as he could, pushing his way through the busy London rush hour crowd. He got to a small alleyway between two office blocks, and ran inside, and hid behind a green wheelie bin. He sat and watched all the muggles going by, completely oblivious to what was going on around them. After a few minutes, he figured he must have lost them. He got up, but at that moment there was a flash and two black figures appeared in front of him. Snape and Voldemort both raised there wands at him, ‘So, it ends here Harry’, Voldemort snarled. ‘Cruciatus’ he yelled, and Harry was filled with an immense pain. It was like every muscle in his body was shrieking at him in agony. He howled in pain, as the noise and pain inside his head grew louder…there was a ringing…a loud ringing in his ear…BANG. Barry Rotter smacked his alarm clock and it promptly stopped. Barry sat up, still trying to catch his breath. The alarm clock said 7.25am Monday 16^th September. With a huge sigh of relief, Barry realised there was no such thing as Voldemort, Hogwarts, not even Ron or Hermione. He smiled to himself as he examined his scar-free forehead-it had all been a dream.’

Ending 2...

‘Harry reached into his pocket desperately trying to find his wand. He fumbled around, where was it, it was always inside his left pocket. Then he remembered, in the carriage, he had taken his wand out of his pocket as it was poking him in the side. With a despairing sigh he looked up at Voldemort who was now approaching him down the long flight of stairs. On either side of the staircase, a black empty chasm lay waiting. In one last desperate effort, he ran at Voldemort and tried to wrestle him to the ground. Just as he reached Voldemort, with a flash of his wand, he disappeared, and Harry went flying off the side of the staircase into the black abyss. Reappearing on the small platform on which Ginny was stood, Voldemort turned to her with an evil smile on his face. Ginny was still staring at the blackness, which had engulfed Harry. It was over, all her worst fears had been realised. There was no hope. She sunk to the ground in tears, as Voldemort lifted his wand and the last thing she heard as she closed her eyes was ‘Avada Kedavra’’

Ending 3...

‘ Voldemort spoke in a cold crisp voice ‘You heard the prophecy, none can live while the other survives…Let’s see who wins, between the Dark Lord, and the young boy, Harry Potter!’ All the death eaters stood around, sniggered and whispered to each other. Neville, Ginny and Ron stood behind Harry tembling. Harry stepped forward, and held his wand up, pointing it at Voldemort. Before he could utter a spell, Voldemort took out his wand and shouted ‘Avada Kedavra’ A bolt of light seemed to emit from the wand and hit Harry right in the chest, he fell to the ground and did not move again. ‘Nooooooooo’ Ginny yelled, as Harry’s body slumped to the ground. Voldemort cackled ‘That’s it children, shows over, now it’s your turn’. ‘Not so fast’ yelled Neville as he stepped forward and brandished his wand. Voldemort looked incredulously at Neville ‘What do you think you can do against the Dark Lord’. Neville shouted ‘Avada Kedavra’ and Voldemort collapsed in a heap. Dying on the ground, he whispered ‘But…Harry…the prophecy’ Neville replied ‘That’s where you were wrong. The prophecy was about me. As you know, I too was born on the same day, and I too, have parents who 3 times escaped Voldemort.’ ‘But what about the scar?’ Ginny said, looking puzzled. She continued ‘The scar was where Voldemort marked Harry, and the prophecy mentions it. Where’s your scar?’. Neville turned and grinned at her, and with a twinkle in his eye replied ‘That…I will have to show you later!'

Altitude Sickness

Or maybe it was just the drink...

Last night i spent the evening in the highest inn in the UK. Tan Hill Inn stands 1732ft above sea level, and holds the Guinness World Record for being the highest licensed pub in the UK. Interestingly, the owner of the pub also holds a Guinness World Record for having the loudest scream ever recorded-about 130 decibels i believe.

Anyways, as my good friend Matthew Porter is getting married this Saturday, it was his stag thingy, so we went up yesterday, spent the evening in the pub then went for a long walk today. Twas good fun. Quality food, quality ale and quality service-and nice comfy beds! There was hardly anybody staying there, so after our meal at about 9ish we went through the the lounge area that had guitars, banjos, a drum, and....an accordion!!! So we sat around playing over a few pints-my best contribution was coming in on every D chord on the accordion, as it was the only chord I could cope with. Ooh then the bar man bought down a harmonica, so that was fun.

Then once we were all sick of our talentless noise we moved back through to the bar, and chatted to the lonely Bar man (Andy). We stayed chatting in the bar 'til about 1.30, (Last orders and licensing laws don't mean much that far from civilisation). We even pulled our own pints (Very exciting!). Then in the morning we had cooked breakfast and left.

Am back home now, feeling very low (altitude-wise). Now I have to go and plan the next phase of my social life-oh the trials of popularity.

Back Home

I am now...all be it a little later than expected, home. Ahhh it's good to be home, however the prospect of 3 months here doing very little does not excite me much, so I'm off to try and find a job! Here's how bored I got last night.

201-Can you hear the screaming?

It has come to my attention that I have now passed the 200 mark-In fact this is blog no. 201. This being significant because it is the number of the room directly above room 101, where it is virtually impossible to sleep at night because of all the screaming from the people below. The same would apply for room 102, were there not a stairwell between 101 and 102.

Anyway, on this momentous occasion, just a few friendly facts and figures to add to the enjoyment of this wonderful moment.

Did you know...
1) This blog has been going for just over 1 1/2 years. In that time, the Earth has orbited the sun roughly 9.453 times
2) The title of this blog has never begun with U. Furthermore if you put all the first letters together, they spell the opening section of a very well known book.
3) To date, 354 different people have read this blog, that's more than one every 2 days!
4) Every single blog has been written whilst wiggling my toes
5) Each blog has been as utterly ridiculous as this one! (With a few exceptions!)

Right, must go and do a bit of nothing before I become too busy

Security

Nothing can ever be safe. There is nowhere we can run or hide, nothing we can do to ultimately ensure safety. When I was a child, I thought that when I was older, I’d just live in a house with huge lasers and sensors to find and kill any spiders or other bugs that came into the house; that way I’d be fine! I’d be safe from the things I didn’t like. The sad truth is that we can never achieve safety. How many films involve people trying to run to safety but being followed or pursued? Today I watched the Bodyguard, which is kind of along those lines; others include Bourne Identity and loads more I have forgotten the names of (one with Harrison Ford springs to mind…). Anyway the point is that I think one of the scariest things in life is that no matter what we do, we can never be truly safe.

All the money in the world can’t prevent tragedy. Having millions of bodyguards doesn’t make you invincible. How is it possible to have security when nothing can be safe? Simple. By not placing our security in such things. Why place security, value and worth in things which we could lose tomorrow? It’s really easy to feel secure because of friends, relationships, possessions, money, abilities, self-image, and perhaps it’s even easier to feel insecure about all of the above. Ultimately these things are all expendable and could disappear at any minute, as could we.

I want to be like Horatio Spafford (great name!). He was a Chicago Lawyer in the 1860s. In 1870 his only son died at the age of four from scarlet fever. In 1871, all of his investments and life savings were destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire. In 1873, the family planned a holiday in Europe. Horatio was delayed by some business, so his wife and four daughters set off first, to be joined later by Horatio. On November 22^nd 1873, the ship carrying the five women crashed and sank, killing 226 people, including his four daughters. When his wife reached England, she sent this telegram ‘SAVED ALONE, WHAT SHOULD I DO?’. As soon as was possible, Horatio boarded a ship to sail to England to be with his wife. As the ship passed the spot where the shipwreck had occurred, he wrote this song-‘It is Well with My Soul’

I wonder, if I too went through what the Spafford family did, would I be able to sing, let alone write that song. I wonder what it actually means to find security in something outside of the known. Is there a way we can have a security that can never be taken away?

I think the answer is yes.

Summertime!

Ahhh, I love the feeling of having accomplished nothing all day! I have had that fantastic feeling for 3 days now. With exams all done, it's time to kick up my feet and enjoy 3 weeks of frisbee, sitting outside, eating, drinking, sleeping and not much more! The weather has actually been sunny too, which is a rareity in these parts.

Ditt is also up, though Andy couldn't make it (Be here next week Andy or suffer!!!). Well I'd love to stay and chat, but i have to go and do absolutely nothing.

The last 10 days

Argh 10 days since I last blogged-not good. I do have half an excuse. The past week and a bit have been fairly hectic, with exams and revision and other commitments, and the next few days are no exception. One exam to go though, then nothing for 3 weeks! Yippee!

I am very much looking forward to being able to chill out and relax for 3 weeks, read some books, do some exciting stuff, and tidy my room of course! And the excitment starts this Friday! Ditt, and Planet of Sound, Friday evening, and then on Saturday, Andy...yes ANDY is coming up to stay!!! It's nearly a year since I last saw him, crazy. So yes, exciting times ahead, as for now, well today I am litter-picking from 1-4, then helping out at a youth cafe from 7-10 which should be good, but it does mean I have to get my head down and work this morning. Roll on Thursday!

Ciao

Garrr

Forms and exams are not my friends.

Let's take them one at a time. Forms. Somewhere in the middle of somewhere there is somewhere where someone somehow decides how to write forms. If anyone knows the whereabouts of that person, please tell me, or shoot them yourself. I think i have a fairly good idea how to find them though. I have a sneaky suspicion that If i browsed the Yellow Pages under 'Incompetent Businesses', somewhere between the Wembley contractors and the Postal Service i would find 'Incompetent Recruitment'. Never heard of them? I'm surprised, they tend to find staff regularly for the FA, ECB and NPower call centres amongst many others.

Anyway one of their main recruitment drives is the employing of totally and utterly useless and braindead people (If they can even be called that) to write forms. Now there seems to be a relationship between the importance and the incompetence. Usually if it is of little importance, there is only minor incompetence, and any that is present is of little consequence. However given the big forms, such as Student Loan forms, the incompetence is greatly increased. Examples? Well, firstly the fact that you have to fill one out every single year. Secondly, providing the most ambiguous questions ever written with answers that do not cover every possibility. Then there is the issue of not sending you to section 5, but not not sending you to question 5-shall i go?Shall i not? Arrghh!

Then I try and post the form. Now up until recently the postal service managed to contain its apparent incompetence by producing a fairly simple guidance system-no more I tell you. Between trying to work out whether the paper was 320 or 330mm long, guessing the weight?!? and working out how i wanted to send it, I somehow managed to ascertain that unless it was shaped like a origami swan, and between 32.5 and 34.3 grams it should cost me roughly 43p, provided of course it was under 5mm thick, and brown. Great-I'll just get my stamps-no wait...My stamps don't have the price on them-USEFUL-veeerrrry useful. So i stuck two on for good measure-licked, sticked and hoped like mad it'll get there.

And now onto my next topic exams. Not much to moan about here. But while I'm on a roll, the Dairylea award for cow of the month goes to the girl who stuck her hand up and moaned that her table was a little wonky-get over it! Every table in the place is wonky! Anyways, more a berating of myself here. I am going through a spell of no motivation at all. It'd better change soon or I'll be somewhere hanging around Desmond's arse in a few weeks (2:2 for those who haven't met Oli)

Ah well off to bed now. Long day tomorrow-well actually pretty much the same length as today...ahhh the predictability of life hey.

And so it begins...

1 years work

   £3000 of tuition
      3 terms
         1200 hours of work (?!?)
            15 lecturers
               and now
            6 exams
         16 hours
      32 questions
   2/9 of a degree
1 more year gone

Latest Building Project

You may be excited about the new buildings at the Science Site, but here's something to really get you going! Due to very kind donations, we are on target to complete the new toilet roll bouncy ball/powerball?!? chute before the end of term. Surveyors have carried out detailed measurements, and now resources are being collected. Currently there are 23 tubes, each 5 toilet rolls long, however with an estimated 43 tubes required there is still a long way to go. If supply continues at the current rate, building work should be completed within 8 weeks, however a few laxitives here and there, and possibly generous donations from other residences should see us to the target-however do not get complacent! Keep going to the toilet! The chute will stretch from number 5 to number 1 Cross View Terrace. Below is an artists impression of what part of the new development will look like
.

Creeping towards exams

The dawn of exams approaches. The dark night of laziness and apathy is fading away as the sun of the exam period peeps over the horizon. It's time to wake up and start work! And like any morning, I don't really want to. It's not that I don't like exams, I can see their use, I just lack enthusiasm for them at times! I have spent the last week revising and regretting I wasn't.

It's crazy, how can anyone do enough revision? I guess the answer is that no one can. However long you spend on work, you could always work longer. So how long should I spend revising? I guess it's all a matter of rationality and perspective. I am here to work, to get a degree and so it would be wasteful of me not to use my time here studying hard and trying hard in all I do. But at the end of the day, there is more to life. Even if i fail every single module, it's not ACTUALLY the end of the world.

' If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same'

Of things real and imaginary

You may, if you are an avid reader of this blog (rules out the majority!) , have noticed that I often start Titles with 'Of'. I thought i ought to explain myself. The reason is that I am taking inspiration from The Silmarillian (Or however it is spelt). I know this may sound like an oxymoron, and it is true that 'Of' was the grand sum of inspiration or in fact anything I got from the book.

Anyway, this blog is dedicated to things that exist, and things that don't. A narrow topic I'm sure you'll agree.

Let's start with imaginary things. Numbers. 'i' in fact. At which point most of you are going 'huh?'. But yes, imaginary numbers are whizzing through my brain at the moment, and I am desperately trying to revise Complex Analysis which I HATE. Garr silly numbers that don't actually exist.

On the brighter side of non-existence, my Battrick team are having an extraordinary run of form which has seem them gain promotion and do well in the early stages of the 20-20 cup! hurrah! (I'm not sad). This means for the first time ever, next season Pigeons XI will be in a higher division than Thid Floor Ponderers.

Ok this one is a weak link. We watched a film tonight, called 'American Splendor' which was about a guy who had a comic based on him (which he wrote). It was a weird film where nothing much happened but it was amazing! Loved it! So there's the seamless link between real and imaginary, and very like a mirror, in which a real picture is reflected, here, having studied the reflection, we now study the image.

Cricket World Cup Final yesterday. Dismal weather ended a dismal tournament with Australia just edging it (especially Gilchrist). It is the most long and drawn out and unnecessarily stupid tournament in the history of the entire Universe, and I include Canada in that!! Everyone in the ICC should be sacked just for letting it take place! In other sport, Man Utd creep towards the finish line in style (yippee!), am looking forward to Wednesday.

Real maths!!! Arrrggghhh. There is something about applied maths I just don't get. It's Ok in theory but start making it real, and applied and it becomes very difficult. Unfortunately, this together with the opening statement means it is going to be a bleak few weeks.

Which leads me very nicely onto the final and very real fact that is exams! Yurk. I'd better kick my arse into gear soon or I will not do very splendidly. Library tomorrow!

The Wall

Arrgghh so long without a post. Right first, A quick update-Back in Durham, term just started, should be revising, am happy. There you go.

I have become increasingly aware recently of 'The Wall'. It's kinda like 'The Man', but more bricky and less human. So what exactly is a wall? Well for a definition, I turn to the world of football. 'A wall is a line of people who stand in a row, to try and stop the ball from reaching the goal'. Well ok the wall IS human here, but bear with me. Basically YOU are the ball, the goal is...the goal, and the wall is the wall.

And like any decent wall, this wall is graffitied. 'What does it say' I hear you cry in desperation. Well it says 'I would *insert personal goal here* but *insert personal wall here*'. So basically the wall is apathy, the wall is reserve, the wall is comfort the wall is self-centredness, the wall is what drags us down and keeps us from being what we want to be.

For example, in revision for exams, in trying to help others, in the search for some kind of meaning, in trying to become better people, in trying to achieve anything in fact! It sets up a conflict in our minds. We want to, but we don't ACTUALLY want to. We would, but we can't.

So how can the wall be broken. Well, like any wall, it can crumble, and by spending years running into it, kicking it, chiselling away at it, it can be broken. Or we can ask someone bigger than it to lift us over.

Hehehe

Yesterday went too soon

I have now spent 20 years in this place. Wow, when i look around, i wonder how i made it this far! I can't help thinking that anyone who makes it this far, must have a fairly good chance of finishing life Ok. I have no knowledge of what's to come, but i doubt there will be many decades as frantic or as difficult as the teens, (and the preteens for the pernickity ones). It seems that most of lifes lessons have been learnt in these ten years. I don't pretend to have reached anything near full maturity, and someone please kick me if that happens anytime while I am still alive! However i think the teens are a big thorny hedge that everyone must be dragged through backwards to get to the other side.

It is also a mini milestone, because I have now spent almost exactly half my life up North. This depresses me slightly, as I mourn my lost accent. The vast rolling hills of urban wasteland, the paradise of urban heat island, the glorious mountains of concrete are no more a part of my life. Of course this is really just a comparison between town and city, however for me it seperates life dan saerf from life uhp ear. Not that i have loooads of happy memories from London. Infact most of the significant things in my life happened up here, and most within the last few years! lol

So yesterday did not go too soon really, just sounded like a nice nostalgic name, albeit nicked from a song.

Easter Existentialism

'Existence precedes essence'

It's a popular concept in modern philosophical thinking-The idea that we ourselves create a meaning within our own lives which does not extend beyond those boundaries. Life is nothing except the subjective point and meaning that we give it ourselves. Once this cornerstone has been laid, it is natural that other such ideas such as truth, meaning, purpose, reality and God tend to go down the drain. How does this idea of subjectivity actually reflect the 'reality' we perceive?

C.S Lewis writes that that 'You can't go on seeing through things forever. The whole point in seeing through something is to see something through it...If you see through everything then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through all things is to not see'. He uses the example of a window looking out onto a garden. In other words subjectivity can only truly exist within the framework of objectivity. I wonder what the bank manager would say if i went down and tried to argue that the debt i have is all subjective, and so from my perspective there is no debt. What would a husband say to a bride who claimed when they said 'I do' it was a subjective statement? The very nature of the world we live in, is one of objectivity. This does not mean that subjectivity cannot exit, but it does mean that we cannot try to deny the existence of objective reality.

And if there is an objective reality, is it then outrageous to claim that there is an objective truth? For if objectivity exists then it is possible for ideas such as purpose, meaning, truth, reality and God to exist outside of our person. It is possible that there could be a God, who created this universe and everything in it. It is possible that there could be a right and a wrong, an ultimate truth. It is possible that we could be part of an amazing creation that reflects an amazing creator.

In the Bible, God refers to himself as 'Yahweh'. This means 'I am'. He is that he is. This is not a fluffy subjective term, this is a reality, an existence, a truth. The Bible goes onto claim that as God's creation, made with a specific purpose, we have all turned away from him, and live in a world with little purpose, and little meaning. Sound familiar? It then claims that Jesus, the Son of God came to Earth to die, as a real person so that we might find purpose again, that we might have a living real relationshp with the God that created us. It's a big claim,it's a massive claim but one i would argue is very much worth investigating.

Happy Easter!