Obsticles have arisen in getting to York.
And to this I have only one thing to say, something familiar to some more than others...

"Kill the lights..."

Kratisto.

Lionheart

Raise you banners raise them high in your homeland hear the cry
From the battle turn home back to England to claim your throne
Six white horses you must ride loyal comrades by your side
Prince of lions the second son through the darkness the king will come

Lion, Lionheart
Defender of the faith
Lion, Lionheart
Protector of the state
Lionheart

You crown awaits you the chosen one tell the people that freedom's come
Light the beacons ring the bells sing you minstrels there's tales to tell
Send the message across the land the king returns with sword in hand
Law and order he will restore evil tyranny will reign no more

Lion, Lionheart
Defender of the faith
Lion, Lionheart
Protector of the state
Lionheart

Raise your banners raise them high in your homeland hear the cry
From the battle turn to home back to England to claim your throne
Build your castles guard the keep behind these walls the city sleeps
No more conflict the blood is shed three gold lions on flags of red

Lion, Lionheart
Defender of the faith
Lion, Lionheart
Protector of the state
Lionheart

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6432447.stm
Where is justice?

Short answers to questions I'm fed up of being asked.

• One - I'm not okay.  The short answer 'I'm fine' is a way of saying I don't want to answer this question.  If you knew the answers you would probably only end up contributing to the reasons behind them. 
• Two - No the dissertation isn't going as well as it has been.  I've been having one or two motivational issues more to do with tiredness than anything else, but also focus.
• Three - Yes we lost to Oxford's 2nds.  No I wasn't boasting the night before - I was saying that we COULD beat them.  And we could have done - yes they were a better team but we've beaten teams that are better than us before.
• Four - My relationship status is 'It's Complicated' - that is because it is, okay?

 

I'm getting fed up of people talking crap about me behind my back.  Got a problem say it to my face, or are you that scared of me you won't do that?  In which case you're the one who's full of crap not me, and you're gutless with it.  
Sorry I'm ranting.  I'm fed up of being misquoted about things which are nobody's business.  

It's that time.  It's february of the graduation year.  Which means its time to start applying for future courses or face the real world of trying to get a job.  
In reality it's time for the masters application.  My supervisor's told me to look at Bristol and York as other options.  This has led to a lot of changes in my thinking.  I had been fairly set on sticking around for another year - although I had said that if by a miracle I got offered a PhD I wouldn't do it at Keele, because I couldn't stick around here for another three years.  Another year is viable, but three would be too much.  It's strange because I'd kinda settled on the idea of sticking around, but now I'm not so sure.  I'm thinking, it might be time to move on.  It's a tentative thought at the moment, but it might get stronger.  And all of this is taking place against the background of trying to write a dissertation and two other essays, and revise for finals.  It reminds me vaguely of UCAS.  It's strange.

Artist/Band: Shelton Blake
Lyrics for Song: Austin
Lyrics for Album: Blake Shelton

She left without leavin' a number
Said she needed to clear her mind
He figured she'd gone back to Austin
'Cause she talked about it all the time
It was almost a year before she called him up
Three rings and an answering machine is what she got

If you're callin' 'bout the car I sold it
If this is Tuesday night I'm bowling
If you've got somethin' to sell, you're wastin' your time, I'm not
buyin'
If it's anybody else, wait for the tone,
You know what to do
And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you

The telephone fell to the counter
She heard but she couldn't believe
What kind of man would hang on that long
What kind of love that must be
She waited three days, and then she tried again
She didn't know what she'd say,
But she heard three rings and then

If it's Friday night I'm at the ballgame
And first thing Saturday, if it don't rain
I'm headed out to the lake
And I'll be gone, all weekend long
But I'll call you back when I get home
On Sunday afternoon
And P.S. If this is Austin, I still love you

Well, this time she left her number
But not another word
Then she waited by the phone on Sunday evenin'
And this is what he heard

If you're callin' 'bout my heart
It's still yours
I should've listened to it a little more
Then it wouldn't have taken me so long to know where I belong
And by the way, boy, this is no machine you're talkin' to
Can't you tell, this is Austin, and I still love you

I still love you

A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin' on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One's headed for vacation, one for higher education,
An' two of them were searchin' for lost souls.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
An' eighteen wheelers can't stop on a dime.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith an' love for growin' things in his young son's heart.
An' that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give 'em all a better start.
An' that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker's hand.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an' the preacher;
"Who gave this Bible to my mamma,
"Who read it to me."

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, now I guess we know.
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway.

Seven

Artist or band: East West

The word for how I feel, the word for how I am, atleast for now, is raw.
It might be painful but atleast its honest.
I can't change my past, I can't change the fact I don't like a lot of things about it.  
I can change my future.  And that's what I've got to make sure happens. 
To quote a song lyric 'something tells me its gonna take patience' 
And it will.  It should be interesting.  I just hope things work out.
I trust in God that they will, but it's not going to be easy.
Worth, but not easy.

I'm sick of the watering down of messages and statements.  People with an understanding of NT Greek might get what I mean by this.  People so commonly get the wrong idea because of the weak language used by people when they quote the Bible.  I've realised one of the things I like about Jesus, confusing as something of the things he said were, he never minced his words - he said what he thought.  Speak the truth - don't flinch.

There's a lot of things I want to say, but I have neither the time nor the words to say them here right now.  Please take your time with me at the minute.  

For a short indicator of where life is going - Mum may not be staying in Eastbourne, as problems with the house has recurred.  Things may be moving again, and I am not a part of said future plans, because my own future is up in the air anyway.  This means there's a lot of sorting out to do, both physically and practically, and emotionally.  So yeah... interesting new year ahead...

Sometimes you have to wonder about people... you really do.  

I've been home for  a couple of days now, and while the place is vaguely feeling a bit less like somewhere I am visiting temporarily,  a place where I am a guest not a resident, there is still that atmosphere surrounding everything.  Maybe its because I'm only back for a week or so.  Or maybe its actually the reflection of the deeper something that I haven't really wanted to talk about on Livejournal before.
I've been in counselling recently, and without saying what it's for, it's to do with a very deep-seated emotional 'issue' resulting from a lot of family related events in my childhood and teenage years.  Having been talking about what happens in the family environment, and how it makes me feel etc, for the last 12 weeks or so, had kinda glossed over what it actually felt like, when I'm back in that environment.  So being back here is a kind of culture shock combined with reality check.

Two things have majorly annoyed me in the past couple of days - I'm not really one for ranty blog entries, but I need to vent this some where.

The 'To Work Or Not To Work' dilemma is back with avengence.  To explain - when I'm at home I tend to always be doing more than one thing at once - and at the minute that other thing has really got to be work.  Sitting with the others while they were watching TV, which I wasn't really interested in - I was making notes on some stuff I'd been reading.  I got gone off at for working.
The second day home - sitting in my room, tuning my guitars - I come down stairs at tea time to be gone off at for staying out of the way when I 'obviously wasn't doing work...'
I mean what am I supposed to do?

The second thing is to do with people presuming things without evidence.  I never said I was ending a friendship - I just said I probably wouldn't back in Eastbourne over the summer depending on how things go.  It's made out this is my choice etc, and in some ways it is, but in other ways its simple - I can't afford to live back down here.  I don't have the money, and there isn't enough work in the fields I'm qualified to work in.  If and it's a big 'if', I get a place on a Masters course I'd need to relocate anyway.  And it's not like me moving means I'm gonna dump all my friends here.  I would have thought people knew me better than that.  But hey, I guess I was wrong.

Anyhow, I need to go and finish my Christmas shopping...

Well, I'm back in Eastbourne.
It's not easy really - mostly because I'm not sure where I want to be anymore.  The house feels strange, my room isn't really mine any more - its been rearranged, and is half full of other people's stuff.  In fact its in the kind of situation where I couldn't move back in with my Uni stuff because it wouldn't fit.
Recently on the phone Mum has been saying things like 'because we don't have a 'family home' anymore' and talking about wanting me to have my own place etc, which I can kinda understand.  She doesn't mean it in a bad way, its not a 'you can't come back' from her side, its more a case of the situation has gotten to the point where there is no way I can.  Things have moved on.  Times change and we change with the times.
So yesterday's journey home was okay - although the last leg wasn't so good.  I felt a bit claustrophobic, and ended up moving away to the other end of the carriage from where I had been sitting - causing comment from the woman and her daughter who had been sitting around me.  I got quite a bit of work done, and more last night which was good.  So yeah, will probably get lots of notes made while watching documentaries after the others have gone to bed - like I did over the summer.  I really want to go and see the sea... which I will probably do on my walk home.  That is one thing I have definately missed.

Today has been a day of annoyances so far.  I have a feeling the problem with my room may well continue - because the floor is a bit scrappy today although there is nothing of mine on it and nothign a hoover couldn't deal with.  The annoyance was the fact that I don't feel like I can stick around in my room on Wednesday mornings when this is due to happen.  Hence being on campus at ten to nine.  
Wednesday mornings suck.  

The total remaining assignment list for this semester is just one item - a 4000 word research project due on the 10th January.  I've got a loose reading list, and other stuff sorted, but I think I am gonna do most of it when I get back after New Year.  I know it sounds stupid but I have no exams in January and after that hand in I have two weeks or so of no tutorials at all in which time I should be able to start bringing together my dissertation and do all those organisational things you really need a break to do properly - like organising my folders and doing my revision cards.  I'm also aiming to get my second revolutions essay done during that time - properly done, not rushing to get it in by the deadline etc.

I still don't quite know what I'm set to be doing next semester for my other politics module - hopefully it will be the Russian module.  Anyway, supposed to be meeting Tania outside in five so yeah... gotta run...

Well, I've done a lot of work lately and got things handed in on time.  it's a stubbornness I've developed out of necessity.  
However I am not going to the BUSA Individuals.  The complications of travelling, particularly when having been ordered by medics not to was just to much.  The orders are no strenuous activity for atleast a week and a half.  I've got to sort out going home and tidy my room and just generally sort everything out.  I'm currently going home on the 20th December and returning to Keele on either the 4th or 5th of January.  I have a research project due on the 10th January for politics and so I need the extra study time.  Also it is space where I can get everything together and start pulling together the loose notes and odd bits of my files and get them into some kind of workable order.  Dave M has already said he's around the same time so will be spotting for each other work wise which will be great.
So yeah, things go on.

< disclaimer >  This entry is likely to ramble a fair bit - as I haven't really ordered my thoughts before I started writing, as I usually do.  This entry may make oblique references to events which are only known to some or maybe even to no-one on my friends list or who reads this - feel free to comment going 'huh?' if you want an explanations.  Anything said in this entry that can be construed as insulting or attacking is not intended to be viewed in such way and is mostly like the result of the poor phrasing that tends to happen to my use of the English language at times of extreme emotion, or tiredness or both as now.  I also apologise if occasional phrases are not in English - again comment and I will attempt to clarify.  Just sometimes, Gaelic is a much more expressive language than English and I sometimes find it easier to find the words in my own language than English... 

I have a natural proclivity for complex relationships.  Things are never simple with me, and to be honest while I often decry simple things as boring - occasionally it would help if things were on the level.  Which is one of the central ironies of recent events.  
The second night I was at Keele I met a girl called Mel.  We were from roughly the same part of the country, but poles apart in worlds.  But we got on really well.  Unfortunately we drifted apart through course circumstances and other things but randomly kept running across each other around campus etc.  People remarked there was a unique spark between us.  Vix often remarked I seemed at my most happy when I was around her.  Its true.  It was a simple relationship.  We liked each other, we made each other laugh, we could always make each other smile.  At the end of my repeat second year we drifted apart again - no contact, until I found out recently she's married etc.  Part of me is happy for her.  Part of me stings.  Coming so close (6 months) after finding out Kinza had had a son, it has shaken my world.  It some ways the two were poles apart.  I knew Kinza was getting married, I knew she wanted kids.  I was the possible implication that she wasn't happy that got to me.  Okay, now I know life is hectic for her and things aren't great but she is okay.  Kinza and me, were always a complex couple.  It was never simple.  With me and Mel things were simple.  There was always an air of what might have been.  It never went away, even in that last embrace in the Hawthorns main car park.  It was always there.  That faded air.  Fado.  
I wonder sometimes what I did, or what I said that took me out of it.  In reality I wanted closure, hence wanting contact with her.  But now I have it, I'm not so sure it was what I wanted.  I'm happy for her, and all.  In reality I'm free now.  Such entanglements are behind me and I should in reality turn to face the road and move on.  In reality it's not about her its about me.  The person I was when I arrived at Keele, could have had a relationship with her, but who I was by the end could not.  Who I am now?  Well maybe, but it is no longer an issue.  There have been times when I've felt like I needed to slip back to who I was and forget what I became - but in reality both these movements are wrong.  The only way out is through to quote the Alanis lyric stuck in my head.  
In real terms the reason it sticks out is because even of friendships it was the least complicated between me and any woman.  And that is the thing which in some ways I miss the most.  Things get too complicated.  Occasionally simple is beautiful.  But I can't keep dwelling on it, I have to move on.  I can't let dwelling on what might have been poison the now.
And the now is not at all bad.  Life, while complicated and riven with problems that spring up, goes on.  Academically this year is going fantastically well, and while emotionally its had its ups and downs I've been able to deal with them for the most part in a good way.  Much better than two years ago.
It's just that this kick has come at the one time when I really didn't need it.  When I needed to focus on getting things finalised, getting work sorted out and with the competition coming up next sunday, training and getting prepared for that.  It's been an emotional weekend, but I've survived so far.  I'm just not even sure why it stings as much as it does.  I think it was because I never really knew why I messed up or what I did to mess up that brought things to where they were when we went our seperate ways.  But atleast now there is some closure.

I hate the new chairs in the library. It's impossible to sit in a relaxing position in them.
I'm going okay - but have been ill, and snowed under with work lately. 
Plus my fencing hasn't been going well - through a combination of injury and illness.  

One day things in my life will be simple.