New Years Resolutions

Well, in the spirit of... actually I have no idea (perpetual traditions?), I have made many new years resolutions. Which I will have forgotten by February if I don't write them down. So here we are:

1) Blog more
This is only here because it's on my failed, neglected, pathetic excuse for a 'public diary/external thought aggregator' I consider that this is encompassed by other resolutions. But since this is at the top of the list. I will see it and FEEL BAD. Yes, I am talking to YOU future self, arsehole.

2)Prioritise my time, stop procrastinating, train my fleeting short-term hedonism.
If I put much effort into stuff, I could be fucking awesome. But I don't. I spend hours being distracted by relatively irrelevant things, on youtube, twitter, 2leep, any on demand media service or name-your-poison-here. In my first term at uni I would leave work set TWO WEEKS before the due date until 6 hours before the deadline, (which yes means more than once I began working at 4am) having spent the previous day just lurking on the interwebz. I have had four weeks off over christmas, during which I had 3 maths questionaires set, a research project, and a 1000 word essay. I have started none of them. I return to uni in 3 days. Shit.
At this point I am genuinely worried I will fail my degree, before I have really even started it.
Admittedly it doesn't help that I constantly question my decisions about going to uni and this degree, but more on that later.

3) Tell more people how much I appreciate them, stop loosing those people.
Well the initial part is a little difficult to accomplish without sounding weird or overly emotional. But worth a shot. I have found it difficult to make any particularly strong bonds with people recently, so more effort is required there. So I shall roll all that into one 'Be more friendly' header. On the latter, there are several people who I was really close to who I have lost contact with, and I hate it. So by the end of the year I either want to have restored my relationship or written it off. If that is (unfortunately) the case there shall be a big note attached to the memory saying “Don't do this again because it's fucking painful and you probably wouldn't survive a repetition in any identifiable manner”

4) Dance more.
Pretty simple. Obviously it contains numerous implications. I do however harbour a secret desire to actually be able to dance, so I should go to a class.

5)  Re-learn to read sheet music and to play the guitar.
Technically I am a grade 4 guitarist. Unfortunately I have forgotten almost everything. I keep meaning to re-learn, but, well... (see #2)

6) Support my parents more.
Various complicated and painful reasons for this one. Basically, they need help, and I should help them more, otherwise one or both of them are going to have a breakdown or make themselves very very ill. And, supporting my theory that I am a heartless selfish wanker, this would mean that in the long run I'd have to do more. It is intriguing how one's relationship with parents change when one moves out/away.

7) Create more.
I've been meaning to do this for yonks. (See 2 again, 2 is definitely the main problem here) Currently I consume a hella-lot of media, in terms of video, music, images and writing. I do not contribute to the collective pool in any way. This was suggested by someone during a discussion about creative commons, the suggestion was if one consumes free (as in gratis) media the payment for this should be contributing your own. Other than this I want to make some videos and film some things, as I have some ideas that I think would be cool to watch. Obviously at uni it is incredibly easy to start doing this, and I already have a little. Some large part of my loan may go on a DSLR, however that would be ridiculously indulgent.

8) Get fit
An old clichéd one. However, I am a fitness instructor, and get paid to instruct people who at the moment are often fitter than me. This is embarassing. I really love my job, and don't want to loose it. I'd also like to take it further and become a personal trainer, for which I definitely need to be much much fitter. Also, as I want to join the military immediately after uni, I need to seriously pick my game up for that. The regime and discipline will also help with #2.

9) Stop thinking about how awesome I could be, and all the awesome things I could do. And do it.
Do it, all, at once.
Just see #2, again.

Game on, 2011.

P.S. Also, I suppose get laid would be nice.

zZZzzz...whadda? who>h

Having been awake ffor around 22hrs now I'm begging to get very tired, especially as for most of time I have been inside reading or writing. I shall soon go on a quest to the garage to purches Relentless.


And you can tall mysdhhhc xh


Yeah, I fell asleep at this point and proceeded to type several hundred lines of "h" then c, a space, x and h again. Hmm. What could that mean?


Bugger all.


I reckon I was out for about 45 mins, then I woke up, proceeded over to the aforementioned garage and purchased two cans of 50:50 Relentless, a Boost (food of the gods/junkie) and a KitKat chunky Caramel.

Sooooo 320mg of caffeine, various other dubiously effective stimulants and SUGAR LOTS AND LOTS OF SWEET SWEET SUGAR, and 3 hours later I feel slightly less bushwhackered. I'm aiming to make it to 2100 before sleep, but I expect I'll crash before then, so more relentless might be required. If anything I'd be mildly interested in the effect of 2/3rds of a gram of caffeine in a day. I got the shakes once, which was horrendously disturbing at the time (that there is probably an indicator I shouldn't do this again, funny how nostalgic hindsight is, the sly trickster). I still can't write that fricking blog post though. Or the other massively more important report I should be cracking on with.

When I was working nights I was regularly pulling 24hr and even 36hr days (I think the record was close to 40? Nearly fell asleep on the canal towpath in Guildford that time, and had to pace back and forth on the train home) without the assistance (if such mind fucking tomfoolery can be called assistance, rather than self-inflicted torture) of chemicals. This must be easier if you ease yourself into it, rather than going from a good 9hrs sleep a night (admittedly mostly done during the day) and low-intensity uptime, to a 30hr day. It seems to be especially hard when you don't have anything especially important or urgent that needs to be done. Pressure motivates me, which pisses me off, because I wait until really close to deadlines to do anything, so the quality of my work suffers and I get stressed. I hope to remedy this at uni by working incredibly hard, and, of course, playing just as hard.

Anyway, enough of this bullshit, maybe I'll plug away at the other blog for a while, erm....nah, I'm not gonna start the other project today, watch some videos, continue listening to loud music (currently I'm trying to see how high I can get my average plays per day on Last.fm, it's 67 atm, my only friend on there has hers up to 123), play shitty online games, maybe play some slightly less shitty xbox games, same old crap really. Fun fun.

A comparison of th....SQUIRREL!!!!!

I cannot focus today. I am trying to have a reasonably productive day, as I only woke up at 1350 (fuck, that's actually after most of the east coast of America). So to compensate I determined I was going to start finishing some of the dozens of jobs I have to do. Also my sleep schedule is so fucked I decided I'm staying up until 2100 tomorrow so I can get up at a sensible time on Saturday, sod what my body says, I'll power through with dangerous amounts of relentless (my energy drink of choice, what of it? Red Bull tastes like a marinated rat died in a can)

But, mother trucking curses, I was trying to write a post I thought up the other day, whereupon I cleverly wrote the notes down on a piece of paper which yesterday I PROMPTLY FUCKING LOST!! So the words upon the paper (don't be pedantic, yes I'm typing it, I'm allowed to use a literary device in a dubious manner, I'm frazzled right now, leave me alone) are making even less sense than they normally do. EVEN TO ME. You can probably tell can't you? You can can't you?! CAN'T YOU?!?!? DON'T DENY IT YOU BASTARDS!!

Another issue that's pissing me off is that at the moment, caps lock is on. See the problem there, caps lock is on, but it's lower cases. Shitty keyboard. I can't be arsed to figure that one out right now.

So, why the fuck am I stupid enough to be clever and right the notes down, then loose the crap I put them on, causing more stress that there would have been had I not written any notes? Son of a bitch.

Also, even if I've gone to sleep far too late and am only four hours in, why do TWO alarm clocks fail to rouse me? HUH? I could probably be brutally sodomised in my sleep and I wouldn't even notice. Seriously, that shit freaks me out every time, it's like I've temporarily died, the alarm clocks are seriously loud, and not a peep out of me.

Fucking arse. I become so demotivated when everything goes wrong on me like this. Anyway, move along, nothing to see here. Seriously, fuck off.

Voices in my head, shut the fuck up

I was lying awake in bed last night (see I was trying to sleep so I could get up at a time that wouldn't be considered by normal people to be late afternoon, but couldn't because the previous two nights I'd been awake till 0600 playing Assassins Creed 2, if I ever get into MMORPGs I'm finished) and amongst the multiple things (see below) rattling and chasing each other round my brain like foxes screwing on top of the dustbins I realised I am currently reading Halting State by Charles Stross, whilst listening to audio books of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow and 1984. How the fuck can I follow all that?

Maybe the propensity (is that even a word?) to flit between websites, articles, media sources and constantly having music playing in the background has given me so much practice I have now elevated my ability to do parallel thought processes to some super power level. Frustratingly, with physical tasks I am still typically blokeish and if someone asks me to do two things at once I'm fucked. Texting whilst walking makes the probability of my face being rudely introduced to a lamppost better than even, and the chances of me tripping over a PERFECTLY FLAT SURFACE almost certain.

I reckon I can switch between sources of consumption types easily, but if I have to actually do anything my brain throws up. If I'm writing anything important, or doing anything which requires a reasonable amount of attention I need to concentrate on it for the output to be anything other than a pile of dung. I don't have to sit down and think about it for hours, I can keep it running in the background so to speak for days and ugly, half formed ideas and theories drag themselves out of the slime for inspection and are either poked, prodded and tortured into a reasonable, sensible plan or are beaten back down with the mental equivalent of a baseball bat. I tested to see if I was understanding all the stories I am consuming and I could explain where the plots had come from and were going, so obviously this 'give-this-thought-process-attention-or-it-will-aggressively-rape-whatever-it-is-being-applied-to, leaving-you-confused-and-frustrated-and-with-more-work-than-you-had-in-the-first-place' rule doesn't apply to consumption.

Anyway this was all going on in one of those 3am oh god, oh god why can't I sleep slightly neurotic moments. Another part of my head was compiling a long list of all the stuff I had to do the next day. Another was getting stressed about not being able to sleep and the increasingly long list and IMPORTANT LIFE CHOICES THAT DEMAND ATTENTION AND HAVE TO BE MADE NAO and money (money's always in there somewhere). Another part was playing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme tune. Yet another was analysing all this in a slightly amused, smug yet intrigued manner. And the final part was telling all the rest to please be quiet(not in those words you understand).

So yeah, that was my head space. Not a mood conducive to sleeping. I had to write the list down and put on some instrumental cello music and wait another 45 mins before I could drift off. I got about half the list done today; but have just realised I've now lost it, which is really going to frustrate me, and it's 2am. Bastards.