Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Educate Me

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

I’m bored. Really, really bored. Over the last few months I have watched people leave college and start working; sometimes for themselves, and often for others. I’ve also watched people become redundant and, if you’re trying to look at the positive side of things, they now have had the slate wiped clean - an infinite number of opportunities now available to them.

While all that has been happening, I, on the other hand, have been stuck in the classroom, exam hall and my room - doing homework. I don’t know what I really want to do in life - but I know what I don’t want to do. Put up with this seemingly endless bombardment of useless information for another minute.

But I do.

Why? Because at the end of the day I know that the harder I work, the more effort that I put into my education, I am widening my horizons, and when one doesn’t know what they want to do in life. That’s very reassuring to know.

Right now, I’m at the point when I’m looking into Universities and I’m not sure what to do. Every single person I talk to tells me that I must go to University, and I know why they say that - it’s just what’s ‘done’.

However, there is this voice in the back of my head asking me if I can really bare an extra four years of education - useful or not. I see the rational direction in which to go in. But yet, against everything my head is telling me - my instinct, just wants me to get out there and start doing something with my life.

So in the mean time, before I really have to start choosing Universities and what else I want to do; I’d better get back to digging my hole.

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Goals for 2009

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

First things first. Happy new year!

2008 has been a very busy year for me, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get as far with it as possible. There were far more highs than there were lows - but just a few to many for me to be satisfied. Having said that, I’ve learnt a lot and am looking forward to starting the year afresh with a new set of challenges and goals so I can get the most out of 2009.

It’s all very well choosing resolutions that say; “Buy insert product name here”, and I do have a set of things that I’d like to be able to purchase over the coming year. But is that really a goal? I’ve also tried to be slightly vague, by doing so I might be able to accomplish these goals in ways I didn’t initially conceive. That’s very important to me, because I know that, inevitably, I’ll be trying new things of the next year. If I have to focus on a set of tasks I’ll never branch out.

So, without further ado, here is what I would like to accomplish in 2009:

Become as proficient as possible at web design and creation
Ah web design, you’ve been the bane of my existence for quite a while. I’m always having great, if you don’t mind me saying so myself, ideas for website designs but just don’t have the skills to put them into place. This coming year I want to put a lot of my time into creating projects for myself that will allow me to gain more experience, whether it be fully fledged Wordpress themes or just a simple website, with no CSS.

The ability to transfer my ideas from my head to Photoshop and then a fully functional website would be a godsend. I’m always incredibly jealous of those capable of doing so, and I want in.

Continue to produce and increase the quality of the content on this, my weblog
Finally, I feel great about the direction my blog has taken. I don’t feel that pressure to write any new posts when I don’t have anything to say, and I think that the quality of what I have been producing has indeed increased (though, you may disagree with me there).  But I want to be better, much better. I write for myself, that’s important to me, and I won’t be happy until I feel that ever word I have written is a perfect representation of my thoughts and feelings. I still have a long way to go in expressing myself fully in writing.

Receive good results from my GCSE examinations
I’m by no means a particularly smart person, the only thing I’ve got on my side is that teachers tend to like me, a lot. But unfortunately that’s not particularly helpful when it comes to exams. Which is why I’m going to be pulling out all the stops to get some satisfactory results in my GCSE exams in June. In England they are a very big deal, and affect your future choices at what you might want to do at A Level.

Having said that, if every time I leave the exam hall I can say I did my best. I’d like to think I’d be happy with my results. I just hope that comes into fruition.

Finally, enter the realm of photography
I mean it this time. I swear. For a long while I’ve been trying to focus a lot more of my time into digital photography. I just never quite get there. Now this goal does actually involve a purchase, in this case my own DSLR. I’ve just been using my dad’s for that last year or so. But I can say safely, that this will be the year.

I also want to dedicate a lot more time to photography, I plan on going out a lot more often with the goal of taking photos and improving my skills. I am however, slightly worried that my MacBook Air won’t be able to handle some of the editing. We will see…

Budgeting Better
Unfortunately, I have a bit of a cavalier attitude to money, not having to pay for anything that I don’t want happens to be the main reason. So this year I’m looking at putting a lot more of my money into a savings account that I recently set up. I’ll be adding to the pot every month. I’ll also be budgeting how much I buy on iTunes and Amazon - the two biggest culprits.

I’m looking forward to 2009 and what it holds, I’ll be sticking this post up on my wall and hopefully it will inspire me every time I feel a bit down. What are you hoping to get from 2009?

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On Holiday - Christmas 08 Edition

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Early tomorrow morning I’ll be off to the airport for my Christmas holiday to the British Virgin Islands. I’ll be away for ten days - which means I will return on Christmas Eve, just in time for all those presents.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to take some photos of the places we visit and people we meet, it’s also an opportune time to whittle down the pile of books I’ve been meaning to read. And finally, to get some school work done; after all - I’ve got my GCSE trial exams as soon as I return to school.

Best wishes in the holiday season, stay safe and enjoy yourself. I know I certainly will.

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“You Can’t Even Watch DVDs”

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

I just need to get something off my chest. Ever since August, and the purchase of my MacBook Air the number one comment that I’ve had has been:

“Is that the one without a CD drive? Why did you get that? You can’t even watch DVDs”.

Yes, how observant of you. Have a cookie. If I wanted to watch DVDs on my computer I would have made a sensible move and purchased a computer that has an optical drive. I didn’t buy the computer unaware that it didn’t include one. Please don’t insult my intelligence by assuming such things. There’s a lot more to using a computer than watching movies.

iTunes. iTunes. iTunes. I buy my music from iTunes, I buy television shows from iTunes, I rent and buy movies; from iTunes. Problem solved. Move on.

That is all.

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Posted in Personal, Technology | 3 Comments »

Moleskines

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

What is a Moleskine?

Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook, used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries.

This silent and discreet keeper of an extraordinary tradition, which has been missing for years, has been reproduced by the Italian company Modo & Modo since 1998. With it’s various different page styles in accompanies the creative professional and has become a symbol of contemporary nomadism.

Rather vague, ‘eh? But still quite effective at putting forward the heritage of a Moleskine notebook. A Moleskine is like Microsoft is to computers, but just to notebooks. They produce some of the highest quality products you will ever come across.

I have been using a Moleskine for just under a year now as my sole notebook. I think I first heard about it via a tweet and decided to check them out. So, I placed my order for a large Volant notebook with ruled lines. At first I was concerned about the price, unable to comprehend how a notebook of all things could have such an elevated price tag.

When I first opened it up I realised why people have become so dependent and excited about what I thought might only be a notebook. You get a very strong sense of the build quality, from the smaller details to just the care taken into the production of a Moleskine notebook. The paper is not thin and flimsy; but solid, closer to card. There are details in a Moleskine that you just don’t get most of the time from products of a similar price: for instance there is a pocket in the back of the book used for storing extras like lose paper. The edges of the notebook are curved, suggesting that the paper was not a load of A5 sheets collected together.

Plenty of people like to lay out the pages of their notebook in a certain fashion, having different areas of the paper for various tasks. I on the other hand like my Moleskine to be a simple stream of my consciousness (sounds very groovy doesn’t it?) onto paper. I started writing solely with pencil, always, always sharp, but after a little while realised that pen was superior - after all, you can see all the mistakes you’ve made when looking back. I’m now a big fan of Lamy fountain pens with blue ink, never black.

I am aware that a few people out there just don’t understand the concept of writing things down on paper. I think the issue is organisation:

On a computer you’re pretty much forced to save something in a location and if it doesn’t have one, create one. With a Moleskine, I can just write it down. You don’t need to think about a file name or location. You could spend that time thinking about actually what you want to write. After all, who likes making a Text Edit document just to write down a sentence or two? It doesn’t make sense to waste all that time.

Overall, I think the reason that I enjoy paper over computers for taking down notes and ideas is because with a notebook, you start at the beginning and finish at the end. You have this archive of your thoughts (I suppose in a similar way to a blog) and how they have changed. At the end of the day you can have a high quality book, that sits your shelf,hopefully outliving your computer, that you can look through with ease for years to come.

Any other Moleskine users out there? I’d be interested in hearing why you chose one.

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Posted in Opinion, Personal | 2 Comments »