A week in writing

Well haven't I had the most schizophrenic personality this week? Yes I have. That was rhetorical. You can't answer me directly: I'm typing. What the hell did you think this was- a conversation?

From the dizzying tiger-blood highs of (brace yourselves) teaching successfully, to the alcoholism-inducing lows of boredom, boredom, boredom and losing things, of all the weeks I've experienced in my life, the last seven days have certainly been one of them. But fuck. I'm not here to talk about my life (see various previous blogs) but to, hopefully, mildly entertain you; the remarkably resilient reader; with useless advice and cutting word-bullets. I may cheat a bit, and use some recent occurrences as framing devices, but I promise it won't be the insipid garbage spouted by the likes of this.

First let's share some wisdom. Sharing is good. Ask Gadaffi (n. A generous Libyan dictator currently running the largest High-Velocity Bullet Donation Program in all of Africa). Here goes: Kids are idiots.

Well... some of them. Which is obvious really. Whilst apparently drooling over how cute little Johnny-Toddler is, everyone's really secretly thinking how dumb kids are. How stupid. Look at him... eating his bib, puking on Mum, burbling like a drunk hobo... he must be monumentally thick. From teaching for a week in a secondary school, it seems some young 'uns never grow out of this, and wear their idiocy on their sleeve as a mark of pride.

You wouldn't catch Einstein getting baby food all over his face.

Far be it from me to dictate that there should be some kind of minimum IQ for people. That's ridiculous. But some of these guys just don't care. They're self centred, entitled little gits who think society is a tit to be sucked on until they die of liver failure at age 25. And they're proud of this. It's probably not even their fault, but it's hard to feel sympathy when you see them twatting their classmates with textbooks for shits 'n giggles. Anyway- that's more or less all I have to say on that. There are obvious points for discussion like how there are also quite a few genuinely (surprisingly) intelligent, witty, funny, nice students at the school I just worked at. Also there's the question of why the trouble makers are in their current state (professionally called the 'Who Fucked Up?' question). But this isn't a sociological forum. Go have clever dialogue elsewhere. I'm going to rip into something else.

Actually I've decided I can put a positive spin on an otherwise quite worrying story. Nothing too topical mind: there are exactly four hundred quintillion bloggers out there finger bashing about Lord Charles of Sheen or how nuclear power is clearly dangerous because Europe is in constant danger of Mag 9 earthquakes. So let's go with this story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13011073

For the lazy among you, the headline readeth thusly: "New York set to be big loser as sea levels rise". Very briefly, my polarity shifting attitude to this delicious little news slice is because at long last, the land of Hope and Burgers- refuge of the climate sceptic; and user of around 25% of the world's energy and home to less than 4% of the world's population- has got a reason to get down to some greenpeacing. Because if they don't, some New Yorkers will drown. This is the only way they're ever going to get the idea. Apparently knowing that half the Pacific islands will disappear isn't enough- it has to be brought home. It worked in WW2, right?

The next step. Pay attention nature.

Lastly and probably leastly, I have a literally vital* piece to say about time wasting. You know- what you're doing reading this, and what I'm doing writing it? That stuff. Time wasting benefits you in a great many ways. It makes you a stranger person: in my case, a person who knows pi to 50 decimal places, the names of every country in the world, and who has read extensively on the difference between a Fajita, a Burrito, and a Taco† and conclusively decided that hell... Old El Paso dinner kits may not be too authentically Mexican but at least they make some damn sense. On the other hand, I find that being bored is joint bottom of my list of least-favourite-feelings along with: being unable to find things, and being forced to listen to that fucking 'Friday' song. I despise, loathe, detest and hate boredom with an unquenchable passion that would make a psychologist kill themselves and all their children.

This ludicrous overreaction is due mainly to the fact that I listened to some well-intended advice a little to carefully, and now tend to analyse every waking moment to see if I'm wasting time. Do lots of people do this? Do you feel slightly dirty if you're watching TV for more than 12 seconds? Do you feel you have to reserve those less exciting activities like videogaming until you're older than Tutunkahmun and can barely walk or piss anymore? Apparently the thing I've soaked-up most from all the tidbits of info in my younger years is that doing something unproductive is a phenomenal waste of potential and you should immediately be sent to the circle of Hell reserved for the 'sloth'.

Kids, if in between beating the everliving shit out of each other (or in rare cases solving Fermat's Last Theorem) you happen to stumble across this pointless piece of literature, take this away from it:

Live life to the fullest: make every second count: be passionate in all that you do.
Unless you just feel like chilling out. As an idea, new Dr Who starts soon.

Neo "Get the hell off that computer and do something useful" phlegm



*For 'vital' read 'unimportant'
†Have you ever read about this stuff on Wikipedia?
Taco: "a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling "
Fajita: "any grilledmeat served on a flour or corn tortilla. "
Burrito: "a type of Mexican food. It consists of a wheat flour tortilla wrapped or folded around a filling"
Why don't we just come up with three words for 'sandwich' and export it to North America? 

Happy Blogday

...to me. Yes folks it's been two years since I started this jaunty little blog and in that time I've acquired LITERALLY a few followers. Which is always nice. I shall justify my recent post-vacuum (except for last week's bizarre pictorial interlude) by reminding my readers that I'm only just recovering from a recent bout of explosive exams.

I've had a recent suggestion to try and write slightly more positively about things. This is an odd piece of advice since my cynical approach adopted thus-far seems to have been largely well received (bar one or two vociferous critics). I also think I've realised why this is true. It's simple: People like reading things that aren't inherently happy.

"WHAT?" I hear (over the internet) a good few of you scream: "I'm always positive and I like reading positive things!"

I challenge you to name me them. Name ONE piece of purely positive literature. Outside of vague areas like cookery books or maths textbooks I reckon no such thing exists. Because it would be boring. Everything we read has something negative in it, from kid's books to newspaper columns. Can you imagine what life would be like if there was literature with no peril, or danger, or conflict, or anything negative of any kind? "Mrs Happy Fwuffy Bunnykins Buys Some Jam", in which the protagonist goes to a shop, buys some conserve, and never once has any sort of encounter or challenging thought. Come on- you wouldn't read that. "Mrs Happy Fwuffy Bunnykins Buys Some Jam And Gets Hit By A Truck" on the other hand is a sure-fire winner. Did she survive?? What will happen to the kids? Does this society of sentient woodland mammals include free healthcare? These are the questions! These are the points of interest arising from a tasty squeeze of negative-juice on our otherwise bland story.

Biographies (good ones) follow this rule too. No-one cares about some poncey rich bastard who was born rich, had money all through their childhood, grew up rich, inherited their father's multi-trillion pound business empire and then died happy. Screw that. That's designed to make us throw up in our mouths, not entertain us. But what if the star of the book was born in a ditch, in Croydon, to a mother who died in labour and a father who quickly stole the last bread and ran away? Imagine the gripping true-story of how they learned to survive by eating from bins; how their only possession was a piece of cardboard and a woodlouse called Trevor; how they fought tooth and nail to survive and through sheer determination, ended up being the 2nd richest person in the Universe. You see how negative things are needed?

"Silence fool!" I hear once more: "But this is surely taking it to extremes! Why not just add a bit more positivity to your bloggings?"

Well... if I change the tone of these, I'll almost definitely have to change what I'm writing about. Unless you really want an uplifting tail of how, say, the catering at our University is actually pretty good. Again: more dull than The Archers.

Have you ever read the typical blogger's blog? They illustrate exactly why, WAY back in my second ever article, I said how wary I was of starting this. There are blogs and blogs and blogs on fascinating topics like 'how quick my baby's growing up' or 'my favourite food' or 'pictures of my dog'. You know. Bollocks. The kind of pathetic crap no-one but a few relatives and your stalker care about. For nearly everyone who I don't know personally, I really don't care what comes out of your womb, what goes into your mouth, or what your stupid wooly rat-ball looks like. I also don't care what you think about the weather, why you love a certain item of clothing, what your ideas on philosophy are, or that the neighbour's foxes like peanut butter (I wish I'd made that last one up). To anyone but yourself and personally involved parties, your life is pretty dull unless something monumentally catastrophically disastrous happens to you. You don't make the news because your life is going great- you make it because your Nan just trod on a landmine on the same day your house burned down and your Mum ran away to be with another woman.

And you know what? My life's not that bad. So I'll do the next best thing and share some rants with you, until people stop reading...

...Or a relative steps on a landmine. Because I'm pretty sure blogging will be the last thing on my mind.

-Neop