The Power of Blog

Meant to cover this AGES ago - but didn't - so here it is - a week late.

Check the link to see the true potential of blogging!!! The world is our oyster!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4847424.stm

Gotta be starting something

 It MUST be spring now!

The sun is shining out side!

The sky is blue! The birds are singing!

Spring must be upon us! Although - if my whether telling skills are anything like last time - it will pour it down before the day is out - just to spite me!

You may have noticed I have not been around for a while.  Basically - I couldn't be arsed! I have been in a kinda, what's the word - introverted mood recently. It probably had something to do with the weekender I had on the 1st and 2nd. I didn't get back to being near myself until about the 6th. And I have been really busy at work recently (it's great - I like being busy!) so had no time to write my irrelevant drivel on here while at work.

What with the break up of IT - I've kinda just kept my head down and got on with it. I suppose - even though the company is (or rather - has) broken in to two totally separate companies - I will have half as much to look after than before. But - since the IT department will be twice as small - I will have less people to help. I guess if I am being totally honest - I have coasted in my job for the last couple of years. I think this may be the ideal time to push myself on - take more responsibility - get more skills and push my self up. Don't get me wrong - I have absolutely no desire to move up the 'management' ladder - none at all - management is not for me. But technically - I want to improve and I want to improve my skills in that sense. And there is no better time than to start on that path now. As it is - there are three of us in the IT department. After a few bouts of redundancies in the past year - I am very clear in my head that if any of the IT department were going to be booted - I'd be the first one to go (I'm the youngest (by almost 20 years!)) so least experience, both my colleagues have been/are now IT managers, both have a certain degree of knowledge about my job but I have almost none about there jobs blah blah blah). Basically (and bluntly) - the department could get by without me - whereas the department would struggle to get by with out the other two.

So - now I have faced upto this - lets do something about it! And that's what I am going to do now. I wrote ages ago that I intended to get some qualifications and certify, so I am already 3 months behind - but time to push on me thinks!

Change of trak now - and I've been watching quite a few movies over the past week.  I saw Broken Flower a couple of days ago (with Bill Murray). Its a good film - Bill Murray plays the same kinda role as he does in Lost in Translation - and although the film isn't up to those heights - it is still a good film and worthy of a watch. Click here to see a proper review (since I didn't even tell you what it is about!

Broken Flowers would have probably have had more on an impact if I had not watched Vozvrashcheniye (The Return) the day after. Its a Russian film - and its fucking marvellous. Obviously it is subtitled - and I'm guessing it is quite a rare film since I can't find an professional English review anywhere on the net - but it is a really really good film. The IMDB plot summary is: Two teenage Russian boys have their father return home suddenly after being absent for 12 years. The father takes the boys on a holiday to a remote island on a lake in the north of Russia that turns into a test of manhood of almost mythic proportions. And I know this is blatant plagiarism - but this is a review I found on IMDB of this film, written by a viewer - that quite neatly sums up the film:

'In Russian director Andrey Zvyaginstev's The Return, a father (Konstantin Lavronenko) revisits his family after an unexplained absence of twelve years to take his teenage sons on a fishing trip. Winner of the grand prize at the Venice Film Festival, The Return is a film of rare beauty and authenticity about the complex bonds between a father and his two sons and the need to discover one's self. First time director Zvyaginstev leaves much unexplained and the film, while a simple story on the surface, has suggestions of Greek mythology, political allegory, and religious parable. The film takes place in seven days, separated into segments. The two boys, Andrei (Vladimir Garin), who is about 13, and Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov), a year or two younger, are very different but have become attached to each other as a result of their father's absence.' The reviewer goes on to say 'The director has said that the film is about "the metaphysical incarnation of the soul's movement from the Mother to the Father." I'm not sure exactly what that means but the film taps into the universal need to love and be cared for, and the hurt that results when the need to be sustained and protected is thwarted. The film rekindled sad memories for me of what it felt like to be a child trying to reach a cold and distant father. Together with knowing that the young actor who played Andrei died in a swimming accident after the film was completed, made The Return a moving and painful experience.

All of which makes the film sound cold and desolte - which I guess is spot on - but it is well worth finding anf watching.  I'll just finish by saying I'm already scouring the internet for details of other films by director Andrey Zvyaginstev and actor Konstantin Lavronenko. They were that good.

Anyway - time to revise - so I'll leave you to it :)

Week

A week since my last post.

I've not been in a very communicative mood recently.

Still not I guess.

Change

Feeling a bit woozy today.

Not because I'm ill or anything - just becasue there will be a big change going on at work soon.

Really quick summary. I work(ed) for a company that had two seperate departmentss - but we all worked for the same company. The IT Department I work in serviced both departments.

Then there was a management buy out - so the two departments are now two totally seperate companies, no connection between the two at all now. Which means the IT department is going to split in two - half go with the new company - and half stay with the old. I've known that for about a year - but because the IT department has had to oversee the split of the company - we have stayed together.

Its getting close to the time when IT is finally going to split though. And its a bit sad really. I get on REALLY well with everyone in the department - everyone knows everyone else really well - and we kinda buzz of each other to some degree. And in a month at most - we will be split and three of the people I enjoying working with will work for an entirely different company. One of them is probably one of my my trusted mates.

Its a funny feeling to have.

So do you?

So do you blog everything?

If things happen in your life that are close to the bone - do you still blog them? Or do you shut things away from your blog that you feel are too personal?

I'm trying to work out which way I should go....

I need more!

I admit it.

I get more and more drawn into Hayao Miyazaki's work everytime I read an article on him or see some of his work.

I now own Howls Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totono. And I need more!! I need my fix!

Anyway - been reading loads of new blogs today (I know, I was at work - but there good blogs) - so I have updated my list thingy to show them all. I'm not going to have enough hours in the day soon to read them! I'll have to employ readers for me to tell me whats going on ;)

Anyway - all this reading has made me sleepy - so I'm off.

Oh - and anyone (hello - ANYONE?) who reads this may notice I've deleted some posts that I put up last week (that had pics on). I had a severe attack of paranoia after what I posted earlier this week. It might have been irrarional - but I was convinced someone would see the posts of last week - realise who I was and then link me to the post from this week. That could have been a bit dodgy for me in a number of ways! So I blindly deleted articles (willy nilly [I always wanted to say that!]) that would defo give people big clues as to who I was.

Now I'm thinking clearly again - I can see I was rash - and that no one that reads this would have any idea who I am - but too late now...

*

Its Tuesday now.

I went out Saturday 11pm and didn't finish until 2pm Sunday.

I didn't/couldn't sleep at all until Monday night.

I have just eaten my first meal since I went out at 12.17 Tuesday afternoon.

I had to skip work on Monday with some lame excuse.

I'm at work now - but shouldn't be really since I can hold a conversation and make it make sense, and I'm finding it very hard to concentrate on what I am typing now as well as pressing the right keys, in the right order. I'm keeping my head down, wishing the seconds didn't seem like hours - with no idea how I will make it through the next 4 hours un-noticed.

My hearing is still fucked.

My eye sight is wavy at best.

I've stopped feeling faint Monday evening. I stopped having a pins and needles sensation all over my body - including my face - on Monday evening.

You have to wonder if it is all worth it. Sure - while your out - in a state of euphoria, surrounded by people you care about who are also in a state of euphoria - dancing to the best god damn music on the planet - in one of the best clubs on the planet - of course its worth it.

But when your coming down, and you realise the strain your putting on your 'normal' life, and the strain your putting on your body - you gotta wonder why. I've been wondering that for the past 24 hours (when my brain has let me focus on it...).

And yet I know - come Saturday April 1st - I'll be doing it all over again.

Now that really is fucked up.

*Apoligies if this entry makes no sense. In my current state - I'm amazed my brain is still in control of my fingers.

Dreamy Regrets

Had a weird dream last night.

I'm not sure why I had it - I've not thought about this subject for quite a while. It was such a vivid dream though. It was pretty short (I was 7 - I was taking part in a Karate demo at a fete of some sort. Everyone was clapping and shouting and having a good time. It was an actual event in my life - so how I remembered it I have no idea). When I woke up though I couldn't work out why it had come into my head.

I guess it is my biggest regret really. My parents, when I was 6, asked me if I wanted to go to a Karate class at my local sports centre. I said yes and from the very first lesson I was hooked. I started training twice a week and flew through my gradings (like exams to get to the next belt) with full passes all the way upto black belt. I passed that first time, and was (at the time) the youngest blackbelt in Shotokan Karate in Yorkshire. I had started training 5 times a week by now - and twice a week at one of the best Karate schools in the UK in Leeds. I was competeing in National Championships - and at 14/15 had started taking classes at my local Karate club - and was helping someone out who was setting up his own club in Halifax - and I was only 15. I was just on the verges of the GB u16 squad - and then BAM! I went from training religiously 5 or 6 times a week (no wonder my parents look 20 years older than they are with all that driving me around!) to training once a week at best. I discovered girls and football. And it totally knocked me off course. I couldn't fit in playing football, chasing girls (unsuccessfully as wel!) and Karate in the same space. And at that age - I decided I liked football better than Karate. So I dropped Karate totally. It's my biggest regret.

I wonder what would have happened if I had kept going? I could possibly have made a good living out of it - or at the very least supplimented another job very well. Still - I guess I'll never know.

As it happens - I did OK at football too - I played Semi Pro for a couple of years and had some good times and good laughs. But I have never been anywhere near to making a living out of it.

I guess only having one regret in 29 years is not a bad ratio though so I can't complain (oh - not including never being able to marry Keira Knightly!!!)

Sometime, just sometimes, I wonder what if though.