Why I’m Rubbish At Blogging

Ok, so it happened again, I seem to have neglected you for about a month, and I’m really sorry, I really am, but hopefully I can go some way to explaining why I’ve neglected you…clearly this won’t fix all the pain and hardship it’s caused, but I can atleast try, and hopefully by the end of my writing you’ll have forgiven me (just a little bit?).

Lets get cracking.

Triathlon

You know when you’re a kid, and you think you’re parents are always wrong…well, it turns out that they’re actually right (about some things atleast). For various reasons my term has been very iffy (varied) and so have found myself in some not so good moods and so I was told that exercise does you good, increases your endorfin (that’s almost certainly wrong, in spelling and in wording) levels or something. So, being a good Son I tried it; now I’ve wanted to get back into a routine for a while but never really got round to it, so a couple of weeks ago, i went for it! Walked up to the top of the hill, and went for a swim.

I hadn’t swam for about 6-8 years previous, but it all came flooding back (bad pun there) and although that day I pushed it (some would say majorly) too hard, it was enjoyable (until the cramp set in) and I went back a second time that week. I got a training plan from BeginnerTriathlete.com, they’re very good and cater for all sorts of fitness levels. Mine takes 5 months and gets me covering a Sprint Triathlon distance, 750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run, it was going really well, but the week before I was due to come back for Christmas it all went a bit Pete Tong (wrong) and so it’s fair to say I haven’t biked/swam/ran since I got back, but i’ve still got a week and a bit left here, so hopefully if it stops being so miserable outside i’ll get out!

Christmas and Gingerbread

It’s Christmas in the Waldock house (and in other plays too I gather) so…ITS GINGERBREAD TIME! This is an annual thing, now in it’s third year, arguably this is the best year so far. A Gingerbread Eiffel tower. You can see all the pictures here it’s definitely worth having a look. Gingerbread tastes so much better covered in chocolate (for structural integrity) and icing (to make it look pretty) and sweets (to make it taste good). So apart from that, Christmas was pretty good, Santa brought me a Zoom H2 which is great. It’s basically a Microphone that can record onto itself, so basically a high quality dictaphone. I love it, it comes with a small handle and wind shield, so it looks just like a microphone (but fatter), I’m going to make full use of it! Especially now that The Feeder Series is starting to take off…

The Feeder Series

The Feeder Series is my current pet project which I’m hoping will serve me well this year and be useful getting me experience and into places that I haven’t been before. Am also hoping to get some other people on board, produce some video content and get some advertising sold on it, so that atleast I can atleast break even on the costs of web hosting, skype calling etc. This is one of 2 things that’s taking 90% of my time up, i’m playing about with the website and trying to figure out how to make it something that I’m really happy with! If you want to have a look at the current itteration, visit www.feederseries.co.uk.

Bucks New Racing

Bucks New Racing is what was originally the Bucks New University’s Motorsport Society (and still is) but is growing to be something much bigger. Kart Team come work experience come industry link come school workshops, we’re pushing every boundary to get into any Motorsport field that we can! It can something feel like we’re running a brick wall blind folded, but hopefully there will be some results coming from it soon.

That it really for my month, I know it’s nothing to be proud of, and again I am sorry, but hopefully you can forgive me.

New Years Resolutions

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions because if something needs ‘resolving’ as the title suggests then you should get on to it right away, so lets go for some New Year Goals…

1) Produce video content for The Feeder Series
2) Do more interviews
3) Build a better website
4) Do a Sprint Triathlon and Train for an Olympic Distance Tri.

They really aren’t that exciting at all, in fact, 3 of them will have no meaning to you (probably) so lets go for a mini-run down…

1) I’m planning some visits to some factorys/teams, see how things are made, and produce some mini webisodes (web-episodes) of The Feeder Series, I’m also thinking of taking a video camera to the Autosport Show, and record my interviews visually as well as Audio-ly.

2) I’ve already done 2 interviews (technically 3, but that one needs to be re-done as it was poor), and I really enjoy them, getting to know someone you don’t know is really interesting, and there isn’t generally anything that I won’t ask!

3) I’ve been playing about with websites for a bit, WordPress seems the easiest way to go (this site is on wordpress) but to get a better theme (thats how the words are displayed, see the difference between this site and The Feeder Series and you should understand more of what a theme is) you have to do somethings that apparently aren’t that complicated but when it comes to websites, I am competely inept, so hopefully I can get some help with that and get going with it, as I want to have something good in place for Autosport.

4) This year is the year that I do my first Triathlon, I’ve nearly done one in training, allbeit very slowly. When I take up a sport I usually have over ambitions goals of what I want to do with it, and whilst my hopes of representing Team GB at the 2012/2016/2020 olympics may be a bit too far gone, being able to represent my university isn’t that much out of the question. So this year, I’m going to do as many Sprint Tri’s as possible, and keep training. The British University Triathlon championships consist of a Dualathon (Run/Bike/Run), a Sprint Triathlon (750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run) and an Olympic Triathlon (1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, 10 km run) but thankfully not all on the same day!! They generally have a couple of months between them, anyway, in my head, I’m going to spend 2010 and 2011 doing Training and Club-Triathlons, with the intention of representing Bucks in 2012! Maybe a bit optimistic, but I can always dream.

The Challenge : Preview

Start at Marylebone, then go to the following stations in order, without passing through any of these stations (unless you are trying to get to that station, make sense? Clear as mud? Good!)

 

1. Mornington Cresent

2. Picadilly Circus

3. Paddington

4. Green Park

5. Westminster

6. London Bridge

7. Waterloo

8. Charing Cross

9. Goodge Street

10.Bond Street

 

Then off to Olympia if i’ve got any energy left.

Oh and i have to prove i’ve been to each station aswell. Gentlemen, start your…trains.

Right, where were we?

Ok, so at the beginning of 2008 i wrote a list of 45 things that i wanted to do before the end of the year, and it’s fair to say that i failed on quite epic proportions. So i’m going to try and do it again, but this time, we’re going to give it a bit of a longer period…lets say, before i’m 30.

However, we require a new list, (or just refreshed)

The following tasks have been dropped because I completed them

don’t get any points on my driving licence (i haven’t driven a great deal so this really isn’t that great an achievment)

maintain a relationship for more than 4 months – i have no idea why this was even there in the first place, but me and abi pretty much blew that one out the water

apply to university - yup, did that, even went through clearing (again) to complete the whole thing

make a jammy dodger milkshake – ok so i didn’t make it but it did taste nice

make donkeys/other random animal out of wood - LOOK!!

The following tasks are no longer applicable

get A’s/B’s for my a levels – if you haven’t been reading this blog for more than, 4 months? then the archives are your bedtime reading

learn to like coffee – why force it? i dont want to learn to like coffee…so i wont

The following tasks are not messerable, so it’s hard to know if i’ve completed them or not

take more pictures of places i visit

spend less time on the phone

make the effort with people

find something good about every single day – this one is measurable, but some days just suck

There are a couple of others, but for various reasons they don’t need mensioning, they’ll almost certainly crop up in the future though.

So now, the new list…

1. do a triathlon

2. go busking

3. watch more ‘classic’ films

4. give a fiver to a really good busker

5. go to a sushi restaurant with the moving plates (and eat sushi)

6. take the boat from greenwich down the thames

7. run 5k

8. learn how to make a good cake

9. have a bath when fully clothed (dosent have to have water in it)

10. stay up for 24 hours in a row

11. use the words “don’t you know who i am?” successfully

12. go the to natural history museum on a date

13. pretend to be a foreign tourist for the day

14. send a message in a bottle

15. buy something from harrods

16. Finish my first screen play

17. Get an oyster card (and use it)

18. stop biting my nails

19. meet someone famous and talk to them

20. cook a three course meal

21. go to madame tussauds

22. be on television

23. buy a stranger a coffee

24. go to the circus

25. be a member of the audience for a tv/radio show

26. do NaNoWriMo

27. do NaBloWriMo

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45. be part of a large group of people, singing ‘hey jude’ (large meaning over 1000)

That last one is probably the one i want to happen most…and if it dosen’t happen then I will just have to organise it!

 

There’s quite a few spaces left…

What do you think I should do?

False Starts

So there we were, poised at Marylebone station, standing, waiting, watching. The electronic platform boards the centre of attention, 6 trains showing, ours the 18:00 to Aylesbury, “delayed boarding” remained stationary as the world around it continued, but then; time stopped, motion slowed as the board showed “6”.

The rush, the pandemonium, the unorganised mass of people headed towards the barriers, each person vying for the first seat on the train, as I reached the barriers I headed for the larger one for persons with baggage; “it’s the quicker route” I thought, I watched as the person in front went through, I’d made the right choice, but then as I tried to pass through the barrier behind her, it shut.

Behind me charged a station attendant who saw the impending crush of body’s and moved to undo the gate, so I went to move forwards but he motioned for me to put my ticket through the barrier anyway, but no; the ticket’s corner was folded, it needed forcing through. The barrier opened, I took my ticket and ran, ran like it was the last train on earth, heavy laydened I darted between the crowd, knowing one wrong move and I’d cause an injury.

We worked our way towards the now infamous platform 6, but as our train slowly came into view we were taken aback; the train was only 2 carriages long. Now sprinting, the lactic acid building up in our muscles we got to the train, but as we pushed the door button it dawned on us that the train wasn’t turned on, had our pain been in vain?

As we heard the train powering up, the lights came on and we pushed the button more and more until it became apparent that the door wasn’t going to open. We looked over at the commotion to the right of us, the other carriage doors had now opened, should we go for it? Should we try and get into the other carriage? No, there was enough space on our carriage for all those lining up; or was there, to the left of us one of the two sets of doors, ours being the other, opened and we saw people loading onto our carriage, the carriage that we’d ran for, that we’d strained for, should we wait for our doors to open? But it  was clear that ours wasn’t going to open, a fellow passenger continued to push the button, pushing and pushing and then hitting the button with his full force. As I moved towards the other doors I heard a thud, as the same passenger had now started punching the door itself, but it was to no use, I was already at the door.

We all shuffled forward to the doors, aware that the train was about to leave, knowing our ordeal was not over yet, a father with his sons buggy was to the side of me, I gestured for him to move forward, he did, I followed. I finally got onto the train, the adventure nearly over, and as the train pulled away;

“Welcome to this National Rail service for Aylesbury…”

We’d made it.

Teach. Change. Live

Depending on how much communication you’ve had with me over the last months you may know that I’m seriously considering changing course (and university) at the end of this year. I want to move to a Primary Teaching degree and for anyone who thinks that it may be an odd choice to go from a Motorsport degree to a Teaching degree, let me tell you a story explaining why.

Abi’s Uncle and Aunty recently had their first child, who we went to visit a couple of weeks ago. Now I need to point out that I’d never seen a child that small and young before (she was only a week or so old) and I also have to admit that I was facinated by her.

After the placement I did during the last few weeks of the summer term, it struck me just how much potential the kids I was working with had, and again when I was holding this new born child, the thing that I couldn’t get out of my head was just how potential this child has.

At this point in time she can literally do anything with her life. She’s not dictated by money, race, social background, knowledge, ability, or any other thing you can think of. Right now, that 3 week old child has the ability to change the world, in a big way, or even in her own little way. The ability to move mountains and do things that we haven’t yet thought of, things that could save lives, or change the way we look at ourselves.

 

So much potential.

Endless potential.

 

 

I think thats pretty amazing.

 

 

but most importantly, How?

Who are you?

What are you doing with your life?

Where is your life heading?

Why are you heading that way?

When do you feel fulfilled?

The answer is not what you think.

Think deeper.

One of those moments

Firstly, since they sell Bacon baps on train? £2.30, which given usual train prices that’s a bargain! It’s delicious and just what I need at 9.20am.

I’m on a train back to university, it’s been a fun but busy weekend. The main tale that I have to recall to you happened on Friday between 10.25-10.30pm. Just before said tale I’d been out for a meal at Nando’s…

You probably won't get this joke....but it is funny, i promise

…with course mates, Abi and Phil (who is to become the main player in my story), I’d taken Abi to meet a friend who she was staying with, and as I walked back to my room I thought “I wonder what would happen if there was a fire, Phil [who was in my room at the time] wouldn’t be able to get back into my flat [which I had the key to]. So, imagine my amusement when I came back into my block hearing an alarm, looking on the wall and seeing a flashing red light above “C1” (which is my flat).

I opened the flat door to see my door open, another flashing light by my door and i entered to find Phil looking extremely embarrassed, and the senior resident looking extremely confused. I asked Phil what had happened, and he pointed out that he may have tried to turn off the light, but instead of pulling the white [light switch] chord, he pulled the red [emergency] chord. After many comings and going from various people, we discovered that the reset switch doesn’t work.

8 hours later it was still going on. Genius

Whatever you’re feeling, it’s ok.

“I dont know if you’ve lost somebody close to you,

I mean maybe it was years and years ago

Or maybe it was a couple of days ago.

I mean, I don’t know how long ago

Or if it was just the other day,

But I am so sorry,

I am so sorry for your loss.”

Rob Bell

275 and 737

It’s been an odd 24 hours if I’m honest. Yesterday I got on a local bus at 4.35 (it was 5 minutes late) to take me to Oxford, however it was a journey that I’m still quite unsure about. Now on my way back to the hills of High Wycombe (it’s 6:51am) that journey still plays on my mind.

Hello and welcome to this National Express service to Stansted airport. Interme..

(microphone feedback)

Intermediate stops are Stoken Church,  High Wycombe, Hemel Hempsted, Luton Airport and Hatfield. Please make sure your seat belts are securely fastened when seated. Thank you

To cut a very long story short, I went passed Oxford Brookes yesterday on my way into Oxford, and frankly, couldn’t stop thinking what might have been. Due to a longer term illness my A-Level results were a lot lower than I’d originally expected, and even after Brookes made a huge acception, dropping the grades down quite substantially, I still missed them by some margin. The head of course that I’d been dealing with before my results came out did phone and email me about a week later just to say that they’d been turning down people who were one or two grades off their normal offer, let alone me missing their considerably lower offer by a big margin, and so they were sorry but I wouldn’t be getting a place this year. (If you’re asking why didn’t I resit the year, then you should know that I never really got on with Sixth Form. Waking up each morning, going into a lesson and basically going through a text book for an hour, then repeat…for 2 years.)  So I really did have to go somewhere, if you’ve been a follower of this for the last couple of months you’ll know about the Cumbria fiasco too, all I can say is thank goodness I’m not there.

Anyway, I was on the way past looking into the University grounds just wondering, and then when I was in Oxford itself I couldn’t stop thinking that it should be me there, going round the shops and pubs then working my way up that hill back to campus. Oh and if you’re from Oxford Brookes, the road into Headington is not a Hill, please come to High Wycombe and I will show you Marlow Hill and Amersham Hill, your hill is a small mound compared to the aforementioned.

Now don’t get me wrong, High Wycombe is fine, a little hilly for my liking, but you can’t have it all your way.  I’ve met some great people and am having a good time, but there’s always that nagging thought in the back of your head, partly wishing it had been different.

Alas it’s happened again…

Ok, so i seem to have forgotten about you (again), i’ve even started another blog but i had to do that one as part of an assignment, but add it to your favourites anyway, it looks like it could be interesting.

Anyway, to show my love to you all, at the request of the now infamous Mr C,  i’ve done another guest post for Sidepodcast, go read!!

It’s about my foray into the world of podcasting.

Enjoy!