Sunday 29 September 2013

When Two Tin Cans Attached With String Just Doesn't Cut It

It's Sunday and you know what that means! Time to dust off your work clothes with the ever-looming Monday, rub the sleep-dust out of your eyes due to long-lies and prepare for another incoming blog post! A few things have happened since the last time I blogged, and one of those things is that I was promoted at work. As of now, I am the Head of Student Services and Admissions for TBC. Although it means a lot more work (ultimately more than double as I've added another entire department), I think it's a good opportunity to expand on my experience and make a difference within the college. Only time will tell though. Another item is that I may have another Taekwondo test in a couple of weeks but I will confirm that soon.


Onto this week's topic and it's based on living abroad again! I know, right? I'm actually talking about travelling and living abroad, which was the original point of this blog! Must have hit my head or something. Back on track: living abroad and communication is the main topic for this week, and I would argue that this is one of the biggest hurdles for moving abroad. Before I continue, I'd like to note that I realise you make new friends etc but I'm looking at old/best/close friends and family.


By default, when you move to another country, you will be leaving behind family and friends (unless you're extremely lucky and they move with you, which would be weird) which for most people, can be a slightly depressing experience. It means that it is more difficult to do simple things such as meet up for coffee, go to the cinema or just hang out on a couch eating Chinese food whilst playing video games. You miss birthday celebrations, wedding announcements and the birth of babies. In some cases, this can promote a feeling of isolation as you see yourself as outside the group and that you can't necessarily join in. It can't really be helped but at the same time, you should try to limit the metaphorical distance between you as this will help not just you but everyone. Just remember: even when you're the one that is moving, everyone is affected by it.


Thankfully, this is easier than ever. We have Facebook, Skype, international calls, Viber (whatever that is), twitter, vine and a whole host of other oddly named programs that make communication easier. Sadly though, this doesn't solve the whole issue either, especially if you have a large time difference between the two countries. This is where a bit of self-discipline comes into it.


You see, you both have your own lives and the time difference really highlights this.  When you're having your dinner, they could be in the middle of work. When they're getting ready for bed, you might be ready for a chat on skype. When you're getting up...well, you get the idea. Time differences can suck and as the person who is away from everyone, it can really start to affect you. Therefore, you need to start working things slightly differently from what you're used to. Here are three tips to help get you by, especially if you've just moved:


1. Don't Panic – If you don't hear back from someone straight away, when you normally would, don't panic! They'll get back to you eventually.


2. Schedule, schedule, schedule – If you can, book a time for a skype session, in advance. Find a time that suits you both and stick to it. You can even find websites online that helps you to book meetings.  It's no different from meeting for a coffee.  You want to make it authentic?  Make a cup of coffee and shout out your name.


3. Weekly meets – Now, this is one of my favourite things: Weird Wednesdays. Started by one of my closest friends, each Wednesday, we link something weird or unusual on Facebook. So far, I've: learned of a village where women can decide to live as men; heard Poseidon sing; and discovered that premature babies can be given caffeine injections. This is particularly great as I usually learn or experience something new but no matter how busy we both get, at least one of us will post something and prompt some communication. Simple and easy and worth trying out.  You can also check out Sandwich Saturdays which is similar but delicious.




Pick of the Week



Medieval 2:Total War 'Our arrows will blot out the sun!' is an apt quote as my 300 longbowmen fire onto some rebels that have took over a village, before my knights storm their militia. Medieval is a strategy game that crosses Age of Empires with Civilization. Micromanage your cities and your armies whilst you take over Europe. Command your armies in a battlefield where weather, approach and terrain affect your decisions, then command your spies and assassins to take out or court nobles. Old but gold.


Music of the Week

Who is rocking my music players today?  I'm going to with Turisas's new song: Ten more Miles.  Enjoy and keep marching on!



Well, it's a simple post today but hopefully you will get something from it.  Until next week!  

Sunday 22 September 2013

A bit red in the face...

Woken up again. Early. Not enough sleep. Cranky Robbie. May kill someone if it happens again. Approach slowly, cautiously and with food and you may live.  Preferably a muffin. You've been warned. Onto today's post!

We've all had some embarrassing moments: those moments that you can't help thinking about despite the fact that they make you turn an odd shade of red and grimace like you've fell naked into a pit of lego. I've actually had two of these this week, including my first professional faux pas which I'll get to shortly and one my mum told me about (but that's her story to tell, not mine).  For me though, I enjoy my embarrassing moments and often use them as an interesting story for the future (albeit after a period of time has passed).  Enjoy them and share them, as they help add some colour to this fleeting life of ours!

Now, I've certainly had my fair share of these, ranging from the comically timed to the outrageously absurd but nothing quite prepares you for that 1st professional moment, where you suddenly realise you've said something horribly horribly wrong and you have to keep your face straight and just pray that nobody caught onto what you said. This was, and still is, cringe worthy (seeing as it only happened this week) and I'd like to share it. However, let's have a quick look at my top 4 embarrassing moments until today (in no particular order)!  I'm sure I've had other moments more embarrassing but I'm either not telling you or I've blanked them out. Either way, here are some!

  1. In the process of shushing people due to exams being held in the Geography department, tripping and knocking over the 'quiet, exams in process' sign
  2. On a seven hour flight, knocking a glass of red wine over myself as I repositioned my dinner tray
  3. Being kissed by a drunk stranger in the streets of Ayr after trying to look cool in front of my then girlfriend.  I can assure you, I've not tried to act cool since then.
  4. Being kissed by a drunk stranger in Tesco who had been pretending to be French (I seem to attract these people)

However, nothing is quite like that first professional moment which just horrifies you. Bit of background to where I work: we have a ping pong table in our students common room for the university students and the ping pong balls are kept in the admissions reception. Now, I was sitting one morning, happily minding my own business when a university student entered in the room and asked for a ping pong ball. As the kindly and caring person I am, I immediately gave him one. He then asked for a second one and that's when it happened. I couldn't stop it and immediately realised how stupid it was as soon as I said it. With a completely serious face and without realising how ridiculous it sounded until after, I said to him 'You must be pretty skilled to be playing with two balls'.



I've never fought the urge to panic or snigger more in my life. Take a second to think about what you're going to say people or it will end up as a story on a blog you're writing.  If you do say something stupid, own up to it!


Pick of the Week

Reddit – WHY HAS IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO INVESTIGATE THIS SITE? As the self-described 'front page of the internet', this is a site filled with a huge amount of news and information plus, as there are a variety of sub-fields, you can get information related to your interests. For example, I'm a member of the 'sub-reddit' for anime which means I can get a lot of news/information on upcoming anime shows. Now, I'm not going to lie...there are a lot of cat gifs and dog pictures as well as complete rubbish but if you have 15 minutes to kill, this is a great way to do so. You might even learn something.


Music of the Week

This weeks' song is the opening to Darker than Black and is written by the band Abingdon Boys School.  Enjoy!


Well, that's it for this week,  If you have any stories you'd like to share, feel free!  Until next week!

Sunday 15 September 2013

Words

Ok, bear with me this week: it may not be my best work. I'm not great with more emotional items and I know what I want to say but not really how to say it. However, I've been doing a lot of thinking the past few weeks and a lot of self-examination but this post starts from one sentence.

There is one phrase that I've heard in my life that haunts me. It comes back to me at least once a week and it often pains me to think of. Five words that helped shape me today and that may shape me in the future. Those words were simply 'Somebody should control your friend' and were spoken at a party I was at during New Years which, funnily enough, became the best party I had been at in a long time. Now I don't want to give you the wrong impression: it was nothing malicious or dangerous or anything like that. I was just playing a silly joke on a friend that was probably a bit too childish for a group of 25 year olds... I was merely trying to imply about a certain cream for a certain 'ailment'.

To be honest, I'm not sure I was meant to hear it either but it stuck with me. It horrified me at the time and still does a little bit. It made me wonder about the person I was. Was I an awful person for the joke? Stupid? Childish? Was I out of control? Now, I have the tendency to overreact but this struck me hard and probably rightfully so. It stuck with me and I never knew what I should do with it.

Then it came rushing back to me this week when I had been doing a lot of reflecting on my life: thinking about my goals and who I wanted to be and I decided to use it to look at my life. I then also began to have a look at my goals in life and I realised that I've been idle as well as childish. Sure, when it comes to work, I work hard and always do what needs done and then some but in my personal life, I've become stale and stuck.

From this, I decided to go back to a list I posted near the start of this blog: a list of my goals that I wanted to complete before I was 30 and see what I had done. Along with this, I had posted this motivational speech that got my blood boiling and my motivational juices running.

The difficult thing for me is motivation, I will be flat out honest. As noted, I am often lazy and lethargic but I plan to change that. Can’t change a leopards spots? Adobe Photoshop, bitch! These days you can have that leopard in zebra stripes riding a fire-breathing bear that can fly. So, in the interest of changing my spot, I have a plan. You see, I have a list. A list that I carry in my wallet at all times with me. A list that no-one knows about or has seen, other than me. A list that has my hopes, dreams and goals written on it. A list I am going to publish here. Why? It will motivate me as I have will have informed everyone what I plan to do. So, I invited you all to get involved with my goals, my dreams and my future. Shout at me for not being proactive enough; mock me for having something silly on my list; celebrate my completion of items; but overall, get involved

But did it work? No, it didn't. Out of my entire list, I have completed one item which was visit Japan and even that was a compromise. In over 2 years, I haven't even planted a tree or started a podcast. Get married? Ha! I'm no closer to getting a girlfriend than I am solving world hunger, let alone getting married. Sure, I've started writing my anime again but that took me over a year to start.

So what does this have to do with that sentence? This sentence, with the realisation that I've not come closer to my goals due to my childishness and idleness, has helped me decide the person I want to be. I no longer want to be someone who lies in bed at night regretting all the things I either did or didn't do. I want to be a person who knows what he wants and lives life to the fullest whilst not being a fool or a burden to others. If it takes me out of my comfort zone, that's fine: motivation without action is useless and you need to be willing to experience the new but I also don't want to forsake what I enjoy either. You need the balance in my opinion.

This won't be easy. We've all seen that I can do a pretty motivational speech and that little comes out of it. No, what I need to do is take a long hard look at my life and work out what's stopping me from doing this and then try to fix it. Maybe then I can move forward and the fact of the matter is, the only person who can control me is me.


Pick of the Week

Finding Quiet and Mindfulness Through Food – Thanks to Michael (as usual) for this link. If you enjoy travelling and enjoy trying new foods, then this is worth a read. The author discusses how to use local food to connect to the country you're in. A great read.


Music of the Week

Perhaps fitting for this week's tone: Nirvana – You know you're right. Enjoy.



See you all next week.

Monday 9 September 2013

Just a quickie

It’s just a short update this week. As this week has been the very definition of a roller-coaster week for me and at this point, I’m both physically and mentally exhausted. I can’t talk about I much right now but next week, I should be able to. Instead, I thought I would just give my monthly update on ‘Those Paths We Walk’ and leave my next main post for next week. Apologies for this but if I did much more, it would be even less standard than normal.

The biggest thing this week is the fact that I've actually started writing the script now and have completed the first two scenes so far! Or, to be more specific, I've rewritten the first two scenes as I had already started these earlier. Thankfully, the first few scenes are really just introductory scenes which introduce some of the key characters and sets the pace, so they give me a bit of practice with script-writing again: something I've become lacking in. It actually took me longer to start script writing than I had planned due to my decision to go over the framework a third time. I decided to do this as there were a couple of sections I wasn't completely happy with and a couple of scenes had to be split up differently. They are now sorted for the most part and should now be ready to write…at least, ready to write with some editing on the fly as well.

A second thing that I wanted to talk about is actually an aspect of the story I've removed: imps/gremlins. Now, before you start wondering if you should feed them after midnight, it’s not that type of gremlin. In fact, they would never have been seen by any characters at all: only by the reader or viewer. Originally, I was planning to use them to represent depression in the characters, and their level of depression. For example when someone was happy, there may have been one lying about asleep but when they were really depressed, then there would have been hundreds of them actively moving around the room. Whilst I think that would have been an interesting way to visualize depression, I had begun to suspect they might distract from the actual story that was taking place, so I removed them from the script. This doesn't mean they are gone for good though! If people like them or if I think they can add something to the story, then I will certainly consider bringing them back from the dead.



Pick of the Week

Deus Ex: Human Revolution – This is a slightly older video game than I’d normally mention but I started replaying it last week and it still holds up. Set in a future where human augmentation is the norm, you are the head of security for a multi-national company whose been tasked with unravelling the web of mysteries surrounding the attacks that killed your girlfriend and left you as part machine. The game is split into two parts: mission and hubs. Missions, as you may have guessed, is where you have to complete the given task. However, you’re presented with a huge range of choices: guns blazing or stealth; hack the networks or turn security on the enemy; enter through drains or via rafters?


The hubs tend to be based around different cities, where you can investigate the black market, go shopping or simply explore the area. Here you can also take on side-missions, to help you gain some more experience to augment yourself further: another area where you get a huge amounts of choice. Do you want to become and armoured tank who can turn invisible and throw a vending machine? Would you prefer to be a silent assassin who can drop in from the roof without harm and launch an attack that knocks out everyone in the room? The choices are endless, the story intriguing and the characters human. Check it out.


Music of the Week

Going to go with an old classic this morning, as I was wanting to listen to this morning but I couldn't.  Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name of

 

Well, that’s it from me this week. As I said, it was going to be a short update this week but I will be back to regular updates from Sunday!

Sunday 1 September 2013

Travelling Alone Part 3 - Waiter, I'd like the soup of the day and a friend please

So, it’s time for the final part of Travelling Alone and for the finale, we are going to be looking at the actual ‘being alone’ part. Whilst loneliness is a factor (discussed shortly), it is certainly more complicated than this. I mean, we’ve all been alone at some point and you certainly don’t shrivel up into a miserable ball of loneliness right away, do you?

Of course, that is simplifying it a little, as more often than not, you will feel lonely if you don’t have regular human interaction and this can become a major issue when on holiday. It can begin to affect your mental state which in turn can affect your enjoyment of the trip. I mean, think about it: it’s easy to go for days without talking to someone when you're travelling, other than to order a meal or to purchase entry and this, especially for the more sociable amongst you, can be a problem. For me, due to a variety of reasons, I spend a lot of my time on my own with limited social interaction and this has helped with travelling on my own (and it’s probably as tragic as it sounds - Ed) but it can still rear its ugly head.

In particular, I've found that night time is the worst time for loneliness as, more often than not, this is when you’d sit down and have dinner with your family/friends and socialise after university, school or work. When you’re travelling alone, you can’t do this as easily plus there isn't always as much to do in the evenings on your own. Of course, for the more sociable amongst you, this may never become a problem but for people like me, who are terrible at going and talking to strangers, this can become difficult. This is where the loneliness can sneak up on you: you're sitting at a restaurant or bar table and wham! You're suddenly longing for someone to argue with over the TV remote or are wanting to discuss how good your meal or beer is. Now, you may be wondering why I'm targeting the evening and night but from my experience, you're usually too busy during the day to worry about being on your own as you're away sightseeing and are busy dashing from one place to the next (if you're like me, that is).

However, this returns us back to the evening. Sitting at a restaurant and eating on your own is fine and should't be viewed with the social stigma that it has but, when you do it several times in a row, it can be a little draining, especially when you're in a slightly more upmarket restaurant where you can't bring out a book to read whilst you eat. This then results in you sitting and staring around the restaurant whilst waiting for your meal to come: awkwardness at its best. Then, when you finish your meal and pay up, what do you do? You still have a few hours until you need to sleep. How do you fill it? Unless you have an evening tour planned, then you're potentially doomed to repeat this: do you go to a club and potentially stand around like a statue in the hope that you get involved in the dancing or in a group; do you go to a bar and hope you get swallowed up by the crowd? You might think I'm painting a very bleak picture or you might think that I'm just being awkward in not socialising but for me, this is an issue. I find it difficult to just go and speak to someone new, unless I'm forced to and that is not going to change quickly so it can causes issues for myself and people in a similar issues.

Worry not though, my dear reader! There is a solution at hand and that is, the dreaded 'p' word: planning! Oho yes, it is back and with a vengeance! Let me elaborate before you come running at me with pitchforks and flaming torches as I'm a militant monsters when it comes planning. I am not suggesting you plan every hour of every evening. Hell, I'm not even suggesting you plan one evening, if you don't want to. What I'm suggesting is just planning for the fact you will be on your own and make a few preparations for it. Bring an extra book with you (or if you have a kindle, bring an extra 10,000 books with you). Check out possible night attractions so that you don't need to sit and spend your time on your own in the restaurant. If you write a blog, you can spend your time doing that over a beer. As an example, let's compare two different trips shall we, to see how this works.

Travelling back to my Tanzania trip, as mentioned earlier in the blog, I was on my own for around 10 days but I hadn't planned for being on my own. By the time the sightseeing part of the trip had started, I had read all my books and had no-one to talk to. For 10 or so evenings, I was lonely and fairly depressed. I had never experienced this as I didn't have much to do other than sit on my own somewhere and perhaps plan my next day. During the day, I was fine but as night fell, I became a mess as I was completely alone and bored. I eventually ran into a couple of people I knew for a night which was great but then when they left, it was back to solitary confinement for me. I ended up scouring Zanzibar island for English books, to allow me something new to read. It was horrible.  Fast forwarding to Hong Kong (just call me the Doctor), I had planned for this. I knew I was going to be on my own and made sure that I had an extra book and that I knew of a few night activities that I could participate in. I also spent that time with a beer and writing my blog entries about Hong Kong. This significantly improved my evenings and stopped me from feeling lonely as I kept myself busy.

Obviously, this is just one example from my experiences but it shows that loneliness can occur on holiday and that it can be solved as well. However, should you find yourself lonely on holiday and can't find a way to shake it, just remember two things:
  1. You're only on holiday for a short time and that you'll be with friends/family shortly, so enjoy yourself and try to not let your loneliness affect you
  2. If it does become bad, the world is a small place: you can find a phone, send an email or skype the people you miss without much difficulty these days. Don't be afraid to do this if necessary: it isn't you admitting weakness, it is you solving a problem



Pick of the Week
Tomb Raider – Recently, I completed the latest installment to the Tomb Raider franchise and I have to admit that it was a fun game and an interesting introduction to Lara's beginning. The combat is pretty solid (I do love me a bow and arrow), the climbing and adventuring feels like old school Tomb Raider with a modern overhaul (i.e. with a set pieces etc but this isn't always bad) and the drama of the story certainly keeps you on edge. My only real complaint about the game is the injuries that are forced upon Lara. They make a big deal about her being injured via a cut scene but then, more often than not, completely ignore it in the game with her running and jumping like an Olympian. There is one exception where she can't climb but that lasts only until she finds some painkillers. Despite that, it's a great game and well worth playing if you're a fan of Lara.




Music of the Week

This week it's the turn of Otep – Ghostflowers. Now then, Otep is an angry young lady and rightfully so but it's a great song and she is one of my favourite female vocalists. Enjoy!




Well that's it from me and from my Travelling Alone series.  Hopefully, you've learned something about travelling alone and perhaps, about me.  If not, you probably haven't missed much.