Bright Eyes

I was listening to Bright Eyes today. Instead of revising as much as i should have it inspired me to write only the second poem i'm willing to put up here. I'll attach the other poem at the bottom of this post, the new one is the one on the top. I don't think poetry is something i'm going to keep up so you're all incredibly lucky to have two to read ;-), if only they were somewhat interesting or even decently written i'm sure you'd enjoy them more. They are apocalyptic, and mundane, but i don't mind because it's better to produce something that i find moderately meaningful than something that i think someone else might like..selfish much...lol.

I'm not a poet, i'm terrible at writing original material but every now and again i give it a go, this poem isn't finished at all and was written really quickly. I haven't thought of a name yet but provisionally i'll give it the name "At the Bottom of Everything".

At the Bottom of Everything

A sense of superiority constantly fills the air,

Disposing of all the other emotions that exist in the room,

Attention focuses, fools' eyes glean, brashness lives supreme.

Sitting in the room,

A child in the body of a woman,

Gives in to the confidence of the deception,

An introverted glance, interest is sought,

When they walk off together I laugh.

Does it ever catch up with them?

Who's the real winner here as no fondness appears?

A desire for attention must be met,

Anarchy and apathy become simple buzzwords,

But they're all I know and frequent.

Confidence is found and mislaid,

But doesn't change who you are,

An introverted glance, no attention sought,

Another emotion persists in the room.

The Idiot (written last year sometime)

Beauty will save the world,
The noble wanderers,
That plunder silently.
Midas whispers.
Quick! Grab as much as you can before it all turns to dust,
Or before you do.

Fight nature, become young again,
Let your wondrous man-made light shine forever,
Care about yourself, you deserve to.
Don’t feel selfish anymore.
Are you lost?

I don’t know where we’re heading,
Anguished and alone.
Close the curtains.
Keep the vultures at bay.
Are you delicate?
Are you beautiful?
I doubt it.

USA

Just to let any readers know, I support the McCain/Palin ticket. I can't be bothered to justify it to any real extent right now, but perhaps in the future. I'm not a natural republican by any means, i've supported the Democrats in every election and mid-term that i can remember, but i have a lot of respect for John McCain and he isn't a true republican, imo being one of the most liberal republican candidates ever. I know everyone seems to think Sarah Palin is evil, meh, she seems allreet to me despite the fact she is under investigation for corruption (which she vehemently denies) and that she has a pregnant teenage daughter (which i feel should have no place in any analysis of her but am only mentioning to highlight that it shouldn't serve a place, ironic eh?). 

So before you get swept away in the tide of Obama fever, take a step back and really look at the career of McCain and the policies that he favours compared to those of Obama. It's very easy to simply support Obama because of the fervour of support that he holds at the minute, or alternatively because of the tarnished name of the republican party after the shambolic presidency of GWB, John McCain is a different breed of Republican and is the right man for the job. 

Sssseptember

Firstly a quick update as usual. Life is generally good. I'm still relaxing, listening to lots of music at the minute (the national, pulp, blur, weezer, albert hammond jr are on rotation) and i'm sitting outside in the sun which is miraculous because there honestly hasn't been any sun in Northern Ireland in weeks, most days are either cloudy with rain showers or fog, it's been miserable this summer. The sun is a welcome change, i love the heat and i'm constantly trying to brown up a bit to make up for my lack of italian language skill by at least looking a tiny bit italian lol. (the last sentence is basically not true, i'm not quite that much of a loser.)

My knee is causing me some real trouble these days. I injured it over 2 years ago now and i don't really know what is wrong with it. I've had MRI scans and X-rays, both showing nothing and sometimes i can have 3 or 4 months without any bother at all, i was able to play in 8 football matches last year at oxford competitively with no pain. At the minute it's taken a turn for the worse, some days i find it painful to walk and the idea of running is completely out. I'm starting to get a bit worried because the Oxford football season starts pretty much as soon as i'm back in October. I've been trying my best to keep fit recently, i've done a lot of cycling because it's quite easy on my knee and i've been taking cod liver oil and glucosamine sulphate in a desperate attempt to force my knee to heal. I'm planning to play through the pain barrier whatever happens in October but i'd prefer if it didn't come to that, i'm hoping to do some light jogging this week to see how bad things really are.

September will hopefully be a month of catching up for me. I'm planning to work pretty hard so i don't fail collections when i get back to uni and i've really been quite lazy so far, but i think when my brother and sister go back to school and my friends go back to uni there'll be little else to do except study which though it'll be boring, is pretty damn necessary. I'm looking forward to getting back now though, it'll be cool meeting the fresher's and seeing my friends again. I might try to be a little less private this year though, last year i made loads of friends but i really focussed so hard on my work that i didn't have much time for heading out and though i really love the people i already know well, i didn't get to know some of the year as much as i would have liked.

In the time i've been writing the sun has descended into a multitude of cloud and shows little sign of emerging, meaning that the time for writing is over.. back inside to do some law work and listen to the national!

It's been a while again.

Once again neglect has taken over and my attempts to carry on this blog seem ill-fated..but here I am again, to provide another of my many updates which seem to string together an incoherent jumble of what my life is like these days and months.

The first thing to talk about is what i've been doing this summer, mainly because at least then i can fulfill the diary aspect of my blog. This summer has been all about spending time with friends, relaxing and enjoying myself after a pretty tough year workwise at Oxford and i've really had a fantastic time so far. I've seen a few Oxford friends when i went to a wedding in Ipswich and i've been hanging out with friends from home almost every day, culminating in eight of us going to Prague for a week (i'm actually just back today). Prague was fantastic, although there was some infighting amongst the group and some rather strange behaviour but i guess that it's only when you are in close quarters with people that tensions really can boil over. Overall the trip was fantastic and really brought me closer than ever to certain friends and there were so many moments that really enriched my life, mainly esoteric sayings and my simple humour coupled with such fantastic trips as simply sitting in a park after climbing 250 steps just to have a nice view of Prague at night while having a few drinks and laughing, hysterically at times, with my friends.

This paragraph is more strange and needlessly philosphical than the previous one. One thing i always find interesting about people is that a person offers one persona to society in general, one persona to their friends and then their true person to themselves or to a very lucky few people. Some people always seem to be trying to save face, to say that something brilliant is happening in their lives when it really isn't, whereas others are blunt and honest with what is going on with them. I always wonder what the persona i offer to society really is, what do people think about me when i walk past them on the street or in a room? I don't particularly care what people think about me generally but it's an interesting thought to consider what the first impression that you offer to a person before you even speak is. If i was to guess my first impression that i offer i would guess that i seem rather cold which is rather unfortunate but probably accurate! My normal face seems set on a slight frown, which is odd because i'm almost always adequately happy. I'm very rarely clean shaven, which automatically brings with it undertones of shadiness or suspicion and i have both dark hair and dark eyes. To be frank, i'm not the bubbliest or beaming of characters! Sometimes i feel that i should make an effort to offer a more positive persona, because every now and then i feel that i almost stop people from talking to me because of the body language i emit, but then i conclude that i would look ridiculous walking around beaming with a smile on my face, and that i don't want to shave and look spick and span because i like my own style and generally, my demeanour is acceptable to me because i've concluded that i'm not trying to impress strangers and if anybody was to reject me because of a first impression, then that sort of person isn't the sort of person who i'd enjoy spending time with. I'm not sure if what i'm saying is the correct or incorrect approach to life.

The persona you offer to your friends is also an incredibly strange device, whether it is to mask severe unhappiness or to highlight to the world your despondent state in order to provoke a reaction from those closest to you. Almost everybody when they are pissed off shows their emotions, even if it is only subtley, and the reason they do so is that they have a desire to offload their anger to someone else who will understand and agree with them. However, i think that this is only true with anger rather than unhappiness. When you're unhappy you are, in my mind, in one of two states, either you have a desire for people to know that you are unhappy so as to provoke their attention being placed onto you and your problems to be sorted out and i feel that this form of an unhappy persona is mainly for minor grievances. When you are really unhappy is the persona that amazes me the most. When someone is really unhappy, them seem to try their best to offer a completely normal persona, or even one that is slightly happy in order to focus all attention away from themselves and to avoid suspicion of a grievance. I feel that it is this response to an emotion that is the most unhealthy, mainly because it is your close friends that are the only people who you should feel comfortable to be yourself around and if they are really your close friends then they have no desire for you to offer any sort of persona whatsoever.

Attention is a very strange thing. Many people are motivated by it and crave it, and i would be lying if i said i never desired attention. I have been motivated in the past and will be motivated in the future to say or do things in order to provoke a reaction from someone else or to make myself more heard within a group of people and i think almost everyone acts in this way at sometimes or another. I'm not sure what the link between the persona you offer and your position on how much attention you crave really is, but if i was to hazard a guess i would argue that it is the persona that you offer to the public that really defines what level of attention you seek. The people who dress provocatively, who speak loudly when unnecessary and desire approval from those they have never even met who desire the most attention and it is those people who present the brash and attention seeking persona to society. Perhaps i'm a bit too low on the scale of outwardness towards people i don't really know and i'm not sure to what degree that is to do with my body language or my general affront and although i would love to be able to seem more perky or chirpy to those around me i do feel that if i am to fail on the scale of the public persona at least i'm failing by not offering enough rather than offering too much.

I'm really not sure what the point is of this blog post, or what i am trying to achieve by writing it, i've talked a hell of a lot of gibberish but as i'm not seeking the approval of the reader (!) and it makes sense to me, i think i'm happy enough to quit while i'm ahead and stop here, knowing that even if this isn't understood or even read by another person that i can look back on it in 10 years and wonder whether a change in my public persona tomorrow would have either made or broken me.

Deepness or utter bollocks. Probably the latter if i'm honest.

End of Term Wrap-Up

Well i had my last tutorial yesterday and now it's time for the tedious task of packing everything i own into four boxes and getting ready to go home. It's been a great year at Oxford and at no point this year have i had any regrets about coming here, though i'm also extremely excited about getting home!

The main part of this post is to document my trip to Queen's Club in London. I'm a ridiculously massive tennis fan, i play tennis up to 5 times a week and my specialist subject in mastermind would definitely be tennis related. I don't just follow the top 10 players but i've a pretty good grasp of who is on the rise as a player in the top 1000. Unfortunately though there isn't any quality tennis tournaments where i live so being in Oxford allowed me to travel down to London to watcht the first day of qualifying for the ATP tournament at Queen's. I was able to watch players i've been following such as Alex Slabinsky, James Ward and Richard Bloomfield and was able to watch players in the top 50 like Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Richard Gasquet etc practicing on the grass. The trip to Queen's was one of the highlights of this term for me and i had an absolutely amazing time. Here's a couple of my best photos..

Don't look back into the sun (look forward)

Hahaha, my hilariously titled blog post is a reference to a libertines song that you should all go listen to, ah the humour involved in doing this is fantastic.....

Ok, so i've not been on blogger in quite a while now, about 6 weeks since my last blog post which is poor. So first of all an update. I'm in Oxford at the minute, with 3 weeks to go till i can start my summer. The term's been great so far, we had a ball at college which was very swish and like nothing i've been to before, and i've been living it up on the river going punting about 7 times already this term. I've been playing tennis about 4 times a week and have been made the captain of my college seconds team which i'm happy about because just 2 months ago i was trying to make a final attempt to recover from injury and regain some sort of tennis ability so i'm really happy that it's worked out ok.

I'm really excited about getting home though. It's not that i've had a boring time or anything in Oxford, in fact it's been the best term by a long way, but it's just that i'm getting fed up with the routine of reading list, essay, reading list, essay every few days and i'm looking forward to going 4 months without having to do any law (well....at least a significant amount less...).

I'm trying to work out some plans for the summer though, because every summer i hope that it's going to be the best summer so far and every summer i have to admit has got gradually better since the age of about 12 so hopefully i can keep the trend going! I get back home on the 14 june, and hopefully i can get straight into playing league tennis for my club, the mighty newcastle. I've got a morrissey gig in Cork on the 26th june that i'm really excited about, i've said for the last 2 years that the singer or band i want to see most is morrissey so it'll be fantastic to actually do it. This july i'm going on what is only my second ever family holiday (my parents run a restaurant so the summer is always too busy for them to take time off) to the Alps for 10 days. I've got a wedding in July to go to, one of my friends from Oxford is getting married so i'm really looking forward to that because i've never been to a wedding where i'm not just an accessory to my parents! Then in august, 9 of my friends and i are going to Prague for a week which should be pretty immense. Also, i'm planning a road trip around the perimeter of Ireland which should take about 5 or 6 days and i think one of my friends will be in France for a month so i'm going to visit them for a few days as well.

I'm sure you can tell i'm pretty excited about the summer...

No other news to report really. My law course is going ok. I'm studying tort and contract law this term, which is actually really interesting. After doing roman law and constitutional law which are both a little bit abstract it is good to get on to a couple of subjects that really relate to everyday life. I've been on a few open days to solicitor firms and have finally (i hope) decided that i would prefer to work as a solicitor in london than as a barrister. I don't have to apply for vac schemes till christmas so i'm not going to worry about that just yet, except to say that so far i really like the look of A&O and despite the fact it's a really traditional firm, Slaughter and May. I've been elected the law society president of my college which is cool and should give me a few chances to change the way things are done at the college and make the fresher's experience in October even better so i'm looking forward to that.

In terms of sport, just to finish with, i think that the winner of the djokovic nadal semi final which is bound to happen, will be the winner of the tournament and i don't think that federer has a chance against either player. Football...the champions league final left me totally broken and i've not really come to deal with terry's miss yet but i'll forget about that, it's good to see the back of avram and as much as i'd like jose to return it won't happen and i'd be more than happy to see Frank Rijkaard come in and teach chelsea to play some attacking football. Pity that lewis hamilton won in monaco, i'm a ferrari fan and they completely messed up. Monaco is the sort of race that if you win qualifying you should really win the race and it was a shambles. Looking forward to Euro 08 and the Olympics now, hopefully my summer of adventure and fun will be matched by a hell of a lot of sport as well.

self-warning

I got a pretty good kick up the arse today to be blunt. Basically i had an argument with a good friend and realised that i'd become a bit of a tool. Instead of just asking the person what was going on i created a whole crazy theory in my mind, got worried about what other people were thinking and acted like a total dick. The only good thing as that i've seen that i was an idiot and the fact that i've noticed it has made me come to a few realisations. The reason i'm writing this up on the blog is that so next time i have an argument with someone, especially a friend, i should remember what happened this time and get a little perspective.

You never know when you're going to need a friend on your side. It's crazy how many times people let their own self pride stop them from admitting to a mistake, especially because if people are your real friends it doesn't matter that you "lose face" to them because they're not going to throw it back in your face.

I know this post doesn't really do much for readers but hopefully having this up on the page will teach me a lesson or two.