Friday night of extrovertedness.

Well, while dolled up nymphets in clown makeup and slut outfits stagger about in the street out my window, while the night is claimed by those who have approximately discovered alcohol about the age I discovered Pokemon, while millions of people worldwide are out having a good time either socialising with friends or jumping on trampolines or tracing or colouring or brewing hard drugs or plotting for a means to dispose of the Cypriot government or working or trainspotting -- I'm a member of a marginal and rarely glamourised group.

The "I'm staying in tonight" posse. Holed up by myself in my room with only the dim bluish glow of a laptop to illuminate the despair on my face and the chaotic mess surrounding constituting the rest of my room. A few mugs lying here and here playing host to a number of dangerous colonies of bacteria, DVDs and books strewn here and there, school work, money, even a camping knife & fork.

However, this is not exactly how everyone in the "Staying in" crew roll. Some people insist on watching the haphazardly placed DVDs, some watch TV, some even just sit in the dark and cry themselves to sleep.

Oh, how lucky these people are.

Because I'm a member of a much darker and twisted subgroup. A selection of people who have such a weight around their necks it drags them down, getting more and more heavy over time until your neck reaches breaking point, and then and only then do you actually do anything about it. You actually do something worthwhile and productive, at the 11th hour. Lastminute.com.

Sure, on the surface we may appear to be like the "Staying in" gang in our preferance of watching this or commenting on that or speaking to whom -- but with the toxic but colourless gas of procrastination constantly seeping into our lungs, filling us up with poisonous, uh, poison.

Because we are "Those with a deadline". Because we have a very large piece of creative work to do in a very short period of time which is no-one's fault but our own. We could have written that drama script 2 weeks ago when you instead watched the first 3 Harry Potter films, but we didn't and that's why we're here now. Staring at the comparably paltry 1800 words knowing there's a good 3000 more still to come, we're snatching the odd few moments to write an angry blog about having to write without actually writing.

We're doing that, and quite frankly, I'm disgusted by our actions. For shame, we. For shame.

Hooray, hooray, it's time for school today!

Remember that kid in your class in primary school who was top in every class, listened attentively, was first to answer the teacher's questions, spend loads of time on stories, volunteer for the pupil council and just about loved every minute of school? Remember how much you wanted to punch him for being such a smug so-and-so?

That was me. Hello there! Were you thinking just then about punching a slightly pudgy child? That's so bad of you.  

So you progress into higher stages of school, you can't get away with that kind of enthusiasm any more. You have to hate it, because otherwise you'll be labelled a swot which is worse than being called a GIRL. It's not cool to like it, (As if I was ever at risk of that) so you complain incessantly about the corridors, the classrooms, the teachers, the subjects, your classmates, the toilets, the food, the raging apathy in the school, the lack of raging apathy in the school, not enough trips. the school spending money in the wrong places -- anything which merits a moan I whined about, creating the impression that our school is a bag of bloody shite.

One of the upsides of Scottish education is that after 4th year (aged 16) people who hate school more than Nazis can legally leave and either pursue more vocational education like building or beauty therapy (both cornerstones of our society), go on into employment or spend the rest of your life an unemployed person with shit in their hair who lives off the state, buying drugs and starting Victorian-sized families. This is good because it allows some people out of the system which they hate so much, which is extra good because these are usually the people are usually what we would call "wasters", people who are usually going to school because if they are caught being truant again their parents will go back to jail. But anyway -- it gets rid of a lot of people who really shouldn't be in school.

Offensive generalisations aside, you are left with the rest of us. The people who are at school because they see a tangible benefit to it. And then of course, you get to me.

The swot who loves school.

I do, I honestly do. I love learning about things, and the gathering of knowledge. I crave it. It's a hunger to know and to understand and to figure out, and it crosses subject borders too. Maths, Sciences, English, Geography, History, Politics... I adore it. To some it's as dull as hell (admittedly, some of the time they're right) but I see the enjoyment in the sheer joy of learning things. It's fun, more than anything.

...when it's easy.

I've come to stage now where I can't just cruise through doing the minimal work possible -- now I have to work hard at it. My subjects are no longer coming easy to me. And it's a real shock to the system, I can tell you that.

Advanced Higher* Maths is intolerably cruel -- it barely even resembles numbers anymore. Yay for Calculus!

Advanced Higher English asks a lot of you to do throughout the year: we need not only a 5000 word dissertation on two books but a creative writing folio. Whoop de whoop. Expect lots of deep poetry and mangled prose.

Advanced Higher Drama needs a good number of out-of-school hours to please it. Oh the joys of 3 hour rehearsals. That's 3 hours of holding in farts.

And Higher Chemistry, the easiest of of the four but like saying it's the best out of four shits. Urgh.

Excuse me while I go upstairs, do some homework and die from exhaustion. Yayy!

*Just for comparison, Adv. H's are equilivant to first year Uni courses. And I'm taking these 3 for no reason other than my own masochism.

Kiltman2

Talkin' 'bout my reputation

There's an often worrying disparity between that lovely few small square inches of cranium space we call home and big, stone cold reality occupying more or less everywhere else. It's on this basis solipsism came to be -- everything outside of your mind is unjustified, thus may or may not exist. Everything could just be a huge cognitive illusion causing your brain to believe its own deception. What you're reading now may just be a figment of your imagination (although not one of your best, admittedly). Of course, this means that no-one else has a mind and you are the only thing that's certainly real -- but what's to say that this reality is actually real? What's not to say there's another reality (a more real one) that you're not aware of, because you're busy imagining this one? Eh? Eh?

Which I think goes to prove my point that philosophy was made to make chins scratched, heads hurt and bearded men employed.

Regardless, it's an interesting concept, if not a little lofty. But it does highlight the independance of mind from body: us from the rest of the world. And what goes on in our head is not always what is true on the outside.

This can be seen in many instances. For example, a particular person may think that he is quite well respected, especially around the drama department in his school. He may also think of himself an upstanding and gorgeous young man who is loved by all. Oh, and modest too.

Imagine he is walking along a corridor in said drama department and he walks past a couple of 1st year girls, just as he passes he overhears one saying to the other "There goes that creepy guy!".

I was the only person walking in the corridor.

So here is an example of where someone's perception of the world is quite obviously skewed and ignorant of the reality. Where they've managed to fabricate a version of the world which they would perfer to see, which contrasts with the facts.

I despair at those girl's loose grasp of reality. I truly do. They should just come to terms with the gaping chasm between the real world and their quite obviously false judgements. Creepy? Hah!

Now excuse me while I go paint a rose on my torso in sheep's blood while stroking pictures of Lady Gaga and singing "Paparazzi". IN MY UNDERPANTS.

Kiltman2

INJUSTICE

Trees blurring by
I'm reminded nothing in life is free
Sipping a 150ml can of Irn Bru
Costing one pound and ninety nine pee.

Kiltman2

Thought teeny anguish was over? THINK AGAIN.

I'm coming closer and closer, as I'm being reminded almost daily by mother dearest, to the stage where I've got to make some serious decisions about life. Presently the most pressing choice I have to make day to day is whether to take milk in my coffee or not, or which Austin Powers film is the best (I say it with great deliberation: Goldmember), soon I'll be having to make some impossibly enormous decisions like which University to go to, which course to take, which car to buy (or not), which city to go to, where to stay, which hobbies I can keep up, car insurance, house insurance, life insurance, shoe insurance, morgages, career, hair colour, where to buy doors, and when I plan to die to name a few. It's daunting, to say the least. To leave the warm, comfortable cocoon of adolescence and spread my beautiful wings and fly into the gale-force gusts of adulthood will be tricky, but I suppose it has to be done. Otherwise I'll spend the rest of my life sat in front of a PC constantly shovelling cake and coke into my mouth with nothing but the company of my internet friends and the sound of fat cells growing on my rapidly expanding arse to live with. And we can't have that, now can we?

...Actually, that sounds pretty close to my dream of heaven. But some dreams are to be followed -- and some are to be beaten with candlesticks until they just don't breathe any more. Becoming a mega-slob is the latter, fortunately for my internal organs. Haven't forgotten about you yet, lads.

So, at least I've eliminated becoming the kind of guy who smells like rotten butter and finds pennies in his folds, but it's more or less the only thing I've managed to narrow down. There's still huge swathes of uncertainty and mystery left out there, simply because I find it so bloody hard to think of what I like and dislike. I like school -- I like the subjects I'm taking at the moment, because they challenge me on lots of different levels. I don't know if I would feel suffocated if I had to study pure maths, not having the chance to study and appreciate the nuances of language, of fantastic masterpieces of literature (and perhaps writing a few of my own, hur hur hur) and work creatively and not just along the lines of straight logic. That being said, a more artsy course may deprive me of the vast wealth of knowledge which comes from sciences -- I love science, I love finding out about why things are and the rational mindset it promotes.

The problem may lie, I suppose, in the belief that studying a certain subject forces me into that career for life. Indeed, for some more specialised courses like say Engineering or Beauty Management it may be the case -- but a decent-grade English degree can take you nearly anywhere. Same with Maths and a science degree. Or so people tell me.

I have so many conflicting images of myself in, say, 8 years time at the utterly unthinkable and ancient age of 25; such as being a pennyless actor living in London, who gets steady work but spends all his money on his pathological addiction -- buying tweed flatcaps. He spends most of his time watching plays, being in plays and writing plays. Just generally being a great big player. He refers to most of his friends as "dahrling" or "luvvie" and may occasionally wear stage make-up in real life because he forgets to take it off. Only occassionally. To date, his most prominent role was a muder victim on Law and Order: UK -- he got a good ten minutes of screenplay but was murdered by choking to death on a zucchini. Such is life.

Reasons supporting this projected future:

• I already sometimes call my family 'luvvie' cos of Australianness and giggles.
• I have a tweed flatcap and think it looks pretty snazzy.
• I like plays!
• I have a good choking face.

Reasons against this perverted failure:

• Acting recently has slowed to standstill. Need to join an extra curricular group asap.
• I couldn't live on baked beans. Sorry.
• My latest play writing attempt, entitled "Nazitopia" is what some may call a bag of shite. Can't imagine what the others would call it.

However, I could end up...

Your achetypal Mad scientist with hair which constantly defies the laws of physics which I teach about, a white lab coat stitched into my skin and safety goggles permanently on my forehead. I managed to ascend to the position of Master Overlord of CERN in the astronomically small period of 3 years after writing a paper which more or less proves magic is real and solves the problems of the universe. I teach roomsful of awe-filled students as I lecture my findings in an engaging, imaginative and enthusiastic manner, galvanising the next generation of prosective theotretical physicists to greatness.

Oh, and I'd have a cat named Magnum. That is highly important.

Reasons for:

• Love science for reasons already mentioned.
• I already have the hair
• Sharing the passion and enthusiasm for science with other people seems pretty worthwhile, and contributing to the massive comulative beast of Greater Science actually seems kinda fun.

Against:

• If anything in this prediction actually comes true just go shoot yourself. The world is no longer real. Do it and wake out of the simulated dream.
• I can imagine my initial enthusiasm being worn down slowly under the dullness and abstract nature of the work. Eh.
• The cat would probably starve I'm so absent minded. Today my coffee was cold. I wondered why. Turned out I had not realised the kettle needed to boil first for water to be hot.

Or

A globe-trotting engineer, I have a house in Texas, a flat in Macau, a beach hut in Portugal and I work in Venezuela, drive a car which could take two elephants in the front and back, and just generally have as much money, travel and company (*coughprostitutescoughcough*) as I want. So long as the global oil trade remains obscenely profitable (Must. Kill. Wind turbines.) I'll have a well paid, stable job working with a lot of other people, opportunity to travel and a challenging job.

For:

• omg moneyz
• omg exotic placez
• omg moneyz

Against:

• Money, as my inner communist is screaming to point out, isn't everything. Who knows, maybe it's not as fulfilling to be working to earn as much as possible.
• From speaking to uncles and my grandad, they've all come back with the same response. They look wearily into middle distance and say "do what you want to do, not just for the money".
• STDs. Need I say more?

Or maybe even...

A bookish fellow, thin and dapper, he enjoys hillwalking and being outside. A friendly, affable fellow on the outside -- on the inside, a writer and poet who writes in almost excruciating detail at the flaws of humanity, to great critical acclaim... later. In the meanwhile, these wilderness years sharpen his talent and he becomes even better.

And he owns a dog named Jupiter.

For:

• As pretentious as it may sound, I really love writing. It's a real passion now, reignited by taking Advanced Higher English. I write bad poetry all the time now, and occasionally mediocre stuff.
• Seems like something I can really put my heart into.
• I like dogs.

Against:

• You're only as good as your writing. You can put years into learning the craft, but if you can't write a decent story or poem, you're screwed. Same with any arts career.
• I would need to learn. A lot.
• No stability, and I'm not sure what it takes to be dapper. I'll wear lots of suits and smoke a pipe. Yeah. A pipe.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I need to take a dose of reality. It's all about as likely to be true as Super Mario. But, spreading it all out like this -- I think I can find a solution which ticks all the boxes.

• Travel
• Writing
• Acting
• Science
• Booky wooks.
• Pets.

Hmm...

A science journalist who travels the world on assignments, yet is an avid member of AmDram groups and writes the odd novel/play on the side for the lollage, he owns a cat and a dog and regularly goes hill walking.

Oh, and occasionally sits in front of the PC shovelling cake and coke and playing games.
Hell, old dreams die hard.

Kiltman2