Here we go again.

I've decided to start blogging again. Not out of necessity but because I actually want to.. who knew?

So I'm back at college but doing a completely different course this year. Well, I say "back" but i'm just short of half way through the college year so i've actually been back for some time.
I'm really enjoying my course this year. I studied Creative Technologies last year which was essentially a year sat infront of a computer, not exactly my idea of a good time (even though that's how I spend the majority of my free time anyway).

This year however, I'm doing Furniture Production and Design which consists of half my week in the workshop watching a pile of wood be turned into a beautiful piece of furniture by my very hands - This is a very satisfying feeling - and the other half in a drawing room designing pieces that if I had the facilities and time to create would make me a very wealthy man.
All in all it is a course that I take great pleasure in doing and I'm happy to say I have a further two years ahead of me before I will leave and go on to create one-off pieces to sell.

For the first time in my life I actually know what I want to do after leaving education and I'm very confident I'll do well for myself. Well, that's the plan anyway.

It's good to be back. Peace out.

Fear, it's all in your head. Right?

When i think of my fears the first one that throws itself at me is heights. I am absolutely terrified of heights but at the same time i love them. Weird, I know but fear gives adrenaline and you can't beat a good adrenaline rush. Heights have always terrified me but when i was younger there was very little that could stop me from doing something incredibly stupid involving them because it was just too much fun, i loved the buzz as the fear kicked in. Now i'm less incined to do these stupid things not because of the consequences if something goes wrong but the fact that i simply don't have the energy for it anymore. i can't even bring myself to run unless it's a necessity. I still love the rush and i believe i will never tire of it.
Death is also there. However it's not so much a fear of death itself as a fear of the inconvenience that is running out of time. I'm not ready to die, i've hardly even begun to live my life yet and there is still an unfathomable number of activities i have as of yet failed to attempt. The highest on my list being, without a shadow of doubt, skydiving. I outright refuse to die until I have done this atleast once, which conveniently links back to the fear of heights.
I think the only true fear i have is pain. I don't mean the pathetic pain endured from a cut or staved joint, I am talking about the unimaginable pain felt by someone who has just recieved a number of bullets to the body or who has been mown down by a car at high speed. That is the only concept of dying that scares me, the few seconds of excruciating agony before you finally kick the bucket.

peace out

Blogging

To be perfectly honest at the start of this class I was reluctant to start writing blogs but as it is part of the course I soldiered on. Six months later, here I am and I'm beginning to enjoy myself. The concept of writing my ideas and feelings down for all to see was alien to me and it wasn't exactly enticing. However, after some criticism both counstructive and complimentary on my lecturers part I'm beginning to enjoy posting my views online.
As of yet I have not opened my blog to the public but instead kept it only to within view of my classmates but I think after this class is done I will continue to blog and will get round to adding tags to allow anyone to read them.
After reading a multitude of blogs I am aware I don't quite have a grasp on what a good blog consists of but it's something I will pick up on as I continue to write. Well I'll see how things go.

Peace out

Roll on summer

Summer is fast approaching, the sun is happily burning us Scots for once and things are looking good. Other than my desperate lack of money, i have a feeling this year is going to be one to remember.
I'm going to have an unmissable chance to catch up with the people i have started to lose contact with and it will be a great opportunity to make some new friends.
Ofcourse the thing i am looking forward to most is the parties. nothing beats summer parties, it's warm enough to comfortably have them outside and it stays light far longer.
After summer the fun doesn't stop either. (makes a change.) I'll be jumping straight into another year of college to do something i have an undying passion for, wood work. i'm going on to do furniture design and production and i couldn't be happier.
It's going to be a very good year.

Grow up or get out!

As i am a teenager i know a lot of people who are self concious about their looks. Most of the time they worry about their weight. This irritates me to an unfathomable level. The vast majority of them are an alright weight and are just looking for attention. Due to the fact that it is incredibly easy to tell apart the people who are genuinly unhappy with themselves and the pathetic parasites who feed off the compliments of others, i have resorted to telling them to grow up. This usually works, however, the few relentless people who continue to fish for compliments receive an unwelcome bite.. my agreement. If they insist on calling themselves fat to acheive a compliment, who am i to argue? Trust me, if someone calls themself fat in an obvious bid for you to disagree, nothing hits them harder than you agreeing with them. That will be the last time that parasite tries it with you. Now rant over and back to the main point of me writing this blog.

Crash diets. This is when those nieve little children who are not happy with their weight decide to starve themselves to lose the extra pounds. Now i'm not going to deny that this works because it does... to begin with. After getting to a weight you're happy with you start eating again right? so after all that time of little or no food your body gets used to having to make every skimpy meal count, it stores more energy to keep you going until the next inadequate injection of nutrition. This isn't going to end well when you start eating properly is it? You're body will be stuck with all this extra food it can't handle, so what does it do? Turns it into fat.
so the weight that took you two months to lose is back in three days.
There are one or two of my acquaintances that insist on continuing to starve themselves until they faint, then eat a little to keep them going until the next black out. As you can guess, their weight resembles somone bungee jumping off the top of a line graph and it's yet to level out.

Well i think this gets my point across. peace out.

Lottery money, what would you do?

Winning the lottery, something every person would love to do. Whenever you ask someone what they would do with the money if they won, they say something about changing the world or giving it to charity. As nice as this idea may be, in most cases it's simply not true. If you won the lottery the only world you'd be changing is your own. It comes down to the simple fact that although we don't like to think it, we are all materialistic and the first thing you would likely do is get the car of your dreams and a house to match. Actually, thats not true, the first thing i would do is throw a party to celebrate. Then get the house and car. Next, give money to family and close friends and finally use some to improve your community. I know this makes me sound selfish but would you really give your money, (it may be from the lottery but it is still YOUR money) to complete strangers? Do you think they would do the same for you? I doubt it. Don't get me wrong, i would help others but i wouldn't simply just give it to charity. I think it was Andrew Carnegie who refused to give his fortune to charity so he helped people help themselves. THIS, i think is a good idea. He supplied funds to build new schools and colleges to allow people to get the qualifications to make their lives better. He also funded the creation of more hospitals. The money i would give away would be towards ideas like this. How does the saying go? "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." This is the kind of thing i believe in. Slight contradiction here but there are a few charities i would contribute to, Medical sciences like cancer research etc.
Like the vast majority of people the money would go (mostly) to improving my life and the lives of those i care about. As selfish as it may sound that is just how it is.

Splinter Cell.. What happened?

For anyone interested in gaming i'm sure you will be aware of the latest in the splinter cell franchise, Splinter Cell: Conviction. I have been awaiting this game for some time however having played the demo downloaded from xbox live, (due to a lack of money i have been unable to buy the game,) i was very disappointed.
It seems they have lost track of the entire idea of the splinter cell games. This was originally to navigate the levels, completing missions without being seen by the enemies. in the first two games ("Chaos Theory" and "Pandora Tomorrow") being detected by anyone with a gun was a disaster and the odds of surviving such an encounter were excitingly low. You were forced to either open fire and alert everyone in the building; run as fast as humanly possible and hide for a rediculous amount of time; or simply drop dead. In the newest game however it is no longer about stealth and using the gadgets in your possession to their full strategic ability and more about simply shooting people down. you no longer have the ability to climb near enough anything available to get a decent vantage point from which you can plan the best way to get past the obstacles and you can stand in plain sight and not be seen. this makes the game less fun in my opinion as it's no longer about skill and strategy.
In "Conviction" you have the ability to mark three targets near you and by pressing a button you automatically shoot them dead. Wheres the fun in that? Not only is this far too easy but everyone in the area fails to notice the three dead bodies lying on the floor. I'd say that's pretty unrealistic. In the previous games you were required to either sneak up behind someone, waste one of your VERY few bullets or set a trap and lure the them into it.
All in all i think that Splinter Cell: Conviction has been a let down and has lost sight of the concept of the splinter cell games. (atleast, this is what the demo has led me to think.)

On the bright side... that's me saved £30. not all bad eh?

I've just realised the importance of money...

before now i've always had atleast a little money to get by. Whether it was from my old paper round, some left over birthday or christmas money, wages from my more recent job in a takeaway or a little something from my dad. A few months ago i was loaded. i had money to happily waste but ofcourse the inevitable happened and i lost my job. this was because the business was taken over by some guy and i was paid off. i went from a minimum of £90 every week to nothing which at first was fine because i had money saved up.

However, in the last month that money ran out completely and now i'm finding it a struggle to even find money to eat when i'm away from home which is the majority of near enough every day. Luckily my college pays for my transport otherwise i wouldn't be able to attend at all.

i have been attempting to get a new job but it seems nobody wants to hire a seventeen year old. All employers seem to think that teenagers are untrustworthy and that we are not dependable. When it involves getting wages i am a hard worker and i am alomst never off or late. i think in the 8 months i worked at my previous job i was late twice (by roughly ten minutes) and i was ill once. considering i was working four nights a week that was not bad in my opinion.

When i was paid off my previous boss promised me a glowing recommendation. not only did i fail to receive this, i was also underpaid on my final two paycheques. this is from the same guy who handed me a payslip with £12.50 in it when i was due £140 with a smile on his face then tried (and failed) to look surprised when i showed him the error. Instead, he just looked more disappointed that i had realised... (as if i wouldn't have?) But that's all in the past right? No, it's not. Due to the fact that i never received the recommendation i was promised (even after asking him for it countless times) i have been unable to secure myself a job. Even though i have eight months of experience working in a fast food shop i was still turned down by a chippy that were looking for staff because i had no proof.

Now, with less than two months of college left i am looking at a less than party filled summer unless i can find a job and fast!

T in the Park... without the T?

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has advised a ban on alcohol brewers sponsoring cultural events such as music festivals and football games. Now this, in my opinion is just plain wrong. They believe that the abolition of alcohol advertising will dramatically cut down on the number of underage drinkers and alcohol related deaths... this is not the case. teenagers don't drink because some footballer has a drink brand written on his shirt, or because music festivals are supported by these brands. They drink because when you're young there is bugger all to do and nothing beats a good party.

These people no doubt consumed alcohol before the legal age, just like you and me, yet they insist on trying to stop it. The simple fact is that banning the advertisement isn't going to do anything to stop underage drinking, nor is trying to ban alcohol at festivals. People will simply start using drugs, i mean let's face it, pills and powder are far easier to hide than a bottle. There is already a lot of drug use at these festivals and by banning alcohol that number is simply going to sky rocket.

In my opinion their best bet is to bump up the fines for being drunk and disorderly/drunk and unable, or even slap a few days of prison on it. That will make them think twice about getting a little too out of it, and while they're at it, do the same for buying underagers alcohol. if they can't get it then they can't drink it.

I remember getting a fine for being drunk and unable once.. i got a £40 fine and nothing on my record, i payed the fine and it made no difference really. If the fine had been £150-200 it would have been a different story and if i had been made to spend a few days in prison i would definitely have thought twice before i had my next drink.

Theres a sign near my house that says the maximum fine for drinking in the street is £500 yet i've never met anyone who has had one anywhere near that, the most i've heard of is a mere £60 and there are A LOT of people who drink in the streets. The police rarely do anything to prevent it. They will take down a few peoples names then never bother persuing it. it's a joke.


Right, this is starting to really irritate me so i'm out.

Brit Awards = Fail

So the brit awards.. full of the so called "talent" of Britain yet the vast majority of these artists are only as good as they are due to the editing done to their recordings and very few of them write their own songs which is just as much a part of being a successful artist as having the voice to perform your work. But ofcourse no one else seems to care about that and we end up with artists who don't deserve to be as big as they are for the simple reason that they aren't as talented as they are made out to be... Alexandra Burke = Terrible. Tinchy Stryder = Terrible. La Roux = Terrible... are you beginning to see the pattern. There are however the very few artists who actually are talented. the ones who write their own songs, play their own instruments and have a singing voice that sounds fantastic even without editing. Lady Gaga for example offers an acoustic performance that is just as good as her recorded and edited performances, she plays piano in her sets and also writes her own songs. these artists are more than worthy of recieving the awards for which they are nominated.



Aaand now they've ruined it again with the likes of Scissor Sisters and Spice girls. Just when i thought there was hope they disappoint me. I suppose this isn't really my type of music but i can still appreciate true talent when i see it and lets be honest, half the artists in these nominations are nothing without the engineers that edit out the bum notes and flaws in their performances.


Haha I just found Rihanna in there. She is a talented artist but i also find it amusing that she seems to be the punch line of everyones jokes these days (see what i did there?)


Right i have become bored by this topic so i'm off. Peace out.