A Mission Statement

It has been a short while since my last blog entry, and for that I sincerely apologise, but I've had exams, and work, and other such important things. But, after more than a few swigs of sherry and wine, I decided it was time to set out my mission statement for where this blog is going to go in the coming weeks. This is more for my benefit than yours to be honest, as it will help me focus my mind and my writing.


So, according to the sentence under the logo at the top of this page, this blog is supposed to be about:
1) ordinary and extraordinary people
2) the end of childhood
3) whether or not I am a proper human being




So, the 2nd focus has been a pretty key element in practically all my entries so far, and the third is probably seeping through a fair bit, especially in my last one about my borderline-obsessive daily routine.

So I think I should spend a bit of time now focussing the first third of my mission statement. Ordinary and extraordinary people.

Of course, there's no such thing as an ordinary person in my life. Everyone I know is extraordinary in their own way (I know, I know, go off to the corner to vomit if you wish). From my old school friends (mostly quite shy, reserved, polite creatures) to my newer college friends (um, slightly less shy, reserved and polite creatures). Alas, before I can speak about most of them I'll have to get CJ to come up with some suitable and preferably humorous pseudonyms for me to assign them.

So get prepared to hear about the people in my life: my friends and family

1) the politics-obsessed, intellectual (and slightly posh/occasionally pompous) boys from my last school
2) my family - continually calm and cheerful even in the face of never-ending strings of drastically dramatic events
3) The Corridor Crew (my main, favourite and indeed most interesting group of friends right now, consisting primarily of an exponentially increasing number of lesbians)

Not to speak of my search for a soul mate, my slightly more important search for a Doctor Who-buddy, and of course the most extraordinary young woman I have ever met. The person who changed my life, irreversibly, forever.

But those, my friends, are all stories for another day...

[mysterious pause for dramatic effect]

[FADE TO BLACK]



Farewell!

The Gent
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8 Hours Sleep, 8 Hours Work, 8 Hours Play, That's the Best Way to Live Each Day!

(If you enjoy this shamelessly self-help-themed post, you'll probably like The Life Regime as well, featuring many similarly-themed advice posts aimed to improve your everyday standard of living).

No don't worry, this isn't going to be some kind of dreadful self-help post where I inflict my own way of living upon people who I may not even know. I just thought that I would share my life philosophy with you, guaranteed to improve your standard of living in just one week! 


Yeah, okay, maybe I do sound a bit preachy...


Well, I don't care, as it's my blog and I can do and say what I damn well like. So, let's begin, as I explain The Gent's Life Motto #1:




1) I always sleep for at least 8 hours. As in, asleep by 11pm if I'm getting up at 7am the next day. If I receive less than this amount of sleep, I am grouchy, and prone to not engaging in conversation, and to banging my head accidentally against the wall in The Corridor Crew's Corridor (see C.J.'s blog Verbal Abuse and Dana Umlaut's It's All About M.E. for more info).

2) METATONE! With my breakfast I always take a healthy dose of Metatone. It's designed for if you're recovering from severe colds or flu, or from other illnesses, but if I take it I can honestly work all day without getting worn out or run down.

3) Good Breakfasts! At the moment I eat a small bowl of porridge with blueberries and natural yoghurt, a single slice of toast with a single poached egg, a glass of orange juice and a cup of tea. And before making my breakfast, I down a pint of water for rehydration.

4) Water! I love water. I am actually IN LOVE with water. Swimming in it, bathing in it, drinking it - the full works. I bathe each evening in it (up to one hour [taking up one of my 8 hours of play]), and easily up to 4 pints of it flows down my gullet each day.

5) Work! Lots and lots of work! I bathe in work. I LIVE for work. At GCSE, I piled so much on myself that I should have imploded. I did GCSE German from scratch from the beginning of Year 11 outside of school (hour before school on Mondays and Fridays, and an hour after school every other Friday), I did all three sciences even though I didn't like Science and had no intention of doing any at A-level, I took part in a pilot scheme for Additional Mathematics GCSE, I took part in a fund-raising scheme in order to go on a World Challenge expedition for a month to Africa, and I started up a graphic design company with a few other friends, which required our work every single lunchtime and lots of hours of our free time. I basically did 12 full course GCSEs, had to raise £3500 pounds in 18 months and go on expedition preparation trips, and had to help run a successful local business on the side. And I loved every, single, bloody, insane, minute of it.

I've taken it a bit easier the last couple of years since going to college and starting A-levels, but I still love working above all else. However, I decided that I needed more exercise and recreational time in order to better myself further, and to savour the last little bit of my childhood. And also to prevent me from descending further into my MUSTALWAYSBEWORKING insanity.  Thus, to this effect, I started living by the motto in the title. Which leads me on to:

6) 8 hours of play each day. Now, for me, this includes an hour in the bath, the hour in the morning getting ready, the hour it takes to get to college, and the hour it takes to get back from college. And the 2.5 hours I'll probably spend while at college talking to and relaxing with the members of the Corridor Crew. But that still leaves another 1.5 hours in the evening for watching TV, and going for walks with my two wonderful dogs.

So, my average week day now looks like this:

11pm-7am - Slumber (8 Sleep Hours)

7am-8am - getting ready to leave (1 Play Hour [Hey, I like making breakfast and getting washed])

8am-9am - going to college (1 Play Hour [Talking to friends on train/in car counts as play for me])

9am-4:15pm - usually 4.5 hours of work, and 2.5 hours of play (no, I don't know about the other 15 mins either)

4:15-5pm - going home from college (1 Play Hour)

5pm-6pm - relax, and piano practice or dog-walking (if I have an piano exam coming up, my mum has to take them, or they don't get walked) (1 Play hour)

6pm-6:30pm - HOMEWORK TIME (usually shorter tasks and making lists in preparation for later [I love lists!]) (1/2 work hour)

6:30pm-7pm - Dinner Time (1/2 Play Hour)

7pm-8pm - WORK - usually the hardest HW goes here - essays etc. I never spend more than an hour a day doing an essay (The Gent's Life Motto #2) (1 Work Hour)

8pm-9pm - relaxation - BATH TIME (1 Play Hour)

9pm-10pm - more WORK - normally the time for more relaxing work, such as watching French/German news, and doing EngLit work. NEVER Maths though. Maths can only be done in early evening (1 Work Hour)

10pm-11pm - my favourite hour of the day - READING WORK - usually wider reading for EngLit, sometimes French/German novels. I always make sure I have a calming music from EasySleep playing on my MP3 player, and a cup of Camomile tea, and a pint of water, so that I fall asleep straight away at 11 (1 Work Hour)

11pm - Slumber!

And there you have it. 8 hours sleep, 8 hours work, and 8 hours play. My Life. And yes, I'm well aware that university is probably going to screw this all up, and I'll end up having a nervous break-down. But oh well.

I realise straight away that this post has been incredibly self-indulgent. Just ME ME ME, look at how I live!, I like reading!, I do loads of work!, blah blah blah etc. But, quite frankly, if you can't be self-indulgent in your own blog that you yourself made, then where can you be?

Farewell!

The Gent
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The End of Childhood doesn't seem so disappointing any more

Just a quick post to further my celebrations at the moment, as I've just got a letter giving me an offer to Cambridge to do French and German at Girton College! Today is definitely a good day :D

Obviously, I still need to get the grades first (A*AA), but wherever I go I'm sure that this blog will carry on regardless.

The world truly is a great place, and I wish joy unto you all! (Yes, fine, I have had a couple of swigs of vodka).

Farewell!

The Gent
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Food, Wine and Animal Torture: My Christmas

(In order to read the writing in this post, please click Read More! at the bottom of the post. Otherwise you will view just the first paragraph and all the pictures)


No, don't worry, neither of those large presents were for me. One was a giant under-the-car-bumper lamp thing (!) for my sister's boyfriend, and the other was a food processor for her.


So yes, I thought I'd tell you a bit about Christmas chez moi.


Normally I'm rather disappointed with our Christmas dinner. We always have MASSIVE Sunday roasts each week, but because we usually have 10-12 people at Christmas, the portions become smaller, and I am less satisfied with the quality of our repas. However, this year the portions were much more sizable as my uncle's side of the family didn't come, my grandparents were ill, my great aunt was scared to leave the house because of ice, and another family member's in prison. Hallelujah! Ahem...




So yes, as there were only the five of us (me, Mum, Dad, sister and sister's boyfriend), we had a nice quiet day of massive portions, lots of wine and cruel abuse of our two dogs.


So, the meal:

The food begins being piled up...

Then a bit more...

Finishing touches...

Voila!

After dinner, we decided to entertain ourselves with some routine humiliation of our pets. My sister's boyfriend tried to get a photo of our Beagle with a Santa's hat on. Needless to say this task became increasingly difficult, as the poor thing didn't particularly enjoy having a piece of itchy fabric held against his head:

Get this thing off of me!                   Get that camera out of my face!               Oh, well, if you must...

One day, master, I will kill you. Slowly and painfully.

Then we tried the same on our other dog:

NO! GET IT OFF OF ME! YOU MONSTER! I'LL BITE YOU! I SWEAR I WILL THIS TIME! Oh...fine then.

Ow, stop grabbing the back of my neck, I won't go anywhere, I promise!

Ooh yes, and earlier on in the day I lay the table:

What, I'm not aloud to boast? It's my blog!

And finally, at the end of a long day, it was time to have a nap.

My dad wrapped up on a chair in his blanket:

My dismembered headless father

And my dog more conventionally went to sleep in front of the fire:

We beat her till she lay sobbing on the floor, a shadow of her former self...
Think animal abuse jokes are insensitive? Tough.

Hope you enjoyed these photos of what may be the last Christmas of my childhood (hey, I have to link this post to my blog's theme somehow).


Farewell!


The Gent
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Greetings World!

Dear Readers,

To me, the idea of writing a blog or even a diary used to seem like a time-consuming waste of time. They were the reserve of only those who had feelings and problems to vent out to the world, not work-obsessed, emotionless, cold-hearted bastards like me (my old form tutor’s words [except the bastard bit], not mine). Why spend time writing about stuff when you can be living it?

Why did I change my tune, then? Well, basically I have recently started reading a blog that one of my best friends for the last few months writes (C.J. – Verbal Abuse), and now the magnificent Dana Umlaut (part-time BF, part-time close sister, sometimes part-time wife) has also started one (It Is All About M.E.). And I now recognise that they can be useful tools for organising thoughts, and talking freely and anonymously about things. Plus it’s a New Year, New Start, “New Me” etc. etc. 

Also, I want to prove to myself that I can do things that aren’t about A-levels or university. Am I capable of talking about feelings/emotions? Do I even have any? Am I even a normal human being? Is work my life? Am I a control-freak? Is work what really matters in life, or are people and friends more important? (Surely not?)

So a tiny little bit about me. I’m an 18-year old college student from Berkshire, England, and I study French, German, English Literature and Maths at a sixth-form college in Hampshire. I like swimming, travelling, reading, Doctor Who, Italian food, the Radio Times, the BBC, Greek yoghurt, polite people and Radio 4. I am happy with life.

I believe that I am a bit of an observer. I love watching people, seeing how they act and interact. For me, the best photos aren’t those with people posing, but those where the people there aren’t even aware that a camera is present (I did just re-read that, and I realise that makes me sound like a bit of a creep). So some of the things I’m going to write about are other people/situations. Not necessarily friends, maybe random strangers. Like the weird man with hip-length blonde hair and leather jacket who walks round Wokingham smiling. Or the plump small woman who gets the same train as me and always eats Mini Cheddars. Or the mean but impossibly handsome train conductor, who is quite possibly the most terrifying man in his 20s who ever lived – imagine the looks of Daniel Craig, the terrorizing gaze of Voldemort, the voice of Alan Rickman, the boyish charm of Zac Efron and the maniacal behaviour of the John Simm-Master.

I also love TV, especially BBC dramas. Victorian/wartime costume dramas, BBC4 biopics and slow-moving foreign-language crime dramas are amongst my favourites. So I’ll probably write about those a fair bit as well. And possibly, if you’re very lucky, the odd book as well.

I might even talk about family a little bit, specifically the Major Crisis that has been at the centre of mine for the last couple of years (a long and complicated story that I don’t fully understand involving numerous prisons, £20 million, and cannabis imported from the Netherlands).

Finally, this is quite a big year for me. The year that I finish A-levels, leave college and go off to university. The year that, finally, I might say goodbye to childhood. A long process that so far has involved leaving secondary school, travelling round Africa for a month, crying at the end of Toy Story 3, and the dreadful realisation that, very soon, I shall have to do adult things, like get a job and buy people Christmas presents and learn to drive (*shudder*).

So that’s all from me for now. See you soon, and I hope you all enjoy what’s coming!

Farewell!

The Gent (an alias created for me courtesy of C.J.)

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