Holiday...

We're going on holiday tomorrow, and not for just one holy day, but for a week of them. A holiday from a holiday, seeing as I'm not working at the moment, yet I'll be glad of the break after the exams and all that. We go on holiday the same time every year because it's the cheapest time of year to go, and to the same place every year (the same area) because it is in my opinion the most beautiful place on Earth, that I have seen with mine own eyes. Its beauty is immutable, we go to the Lake District (always the most current Lakes photo's on that last link); this year we go to this house, close to Langdale, the best spot in the Lakes. No more blogging for a week: no more computer for a week. The scales will fall from my eyes, strains of Beethoven's Sixth will fill the valleys, hosts of golden daffodils will dance...

Little Star...

Joni is my little Star of course, and she decorated a little Star at Nursery yesterday, which you can see below.

Stina Nordenstam also sung of a Little Star, it would be true to say that at the moment I don't listen to much else other than her album Dynamite which I rediscovered via the internet last week (whose cover is also a little star, strangely similar to Joni's below). It contains songs that are so understated, so finely and unhurriedly measured, and Stina's sweet, bright, childish voice cuts through the darkest chords and most distorted soundscapes like a lighthouse cutting through the foggiest, darkest night: and in that lighthouse is trapped a little star. The two work so well together (the dark outside, the light inside)- one exists for the other, although they are each the antithesis of the other. Hey, I think I'm trying to say I love this album!

Joni's been calling herself "me" these past few days (has she discovered what "I" is ahead of me? ;-) , but using it in a backwards, French sort of way, for example I shouted to ask Bex whether she wanted anything getting from the shop (I didn't have my coat or shoes on and hadn't mentioned the shop till this point) and Joni came running out of the living room and said "Shop, a me! Shop, a me! Shoes, a me!" and went rooting her shoes out of the cupboard. Clever. Also, more funnily, in the car: "Pump a me". And a minute later the lovely smell wafting forward to us unfortunates in the front....

Counting Electric Sheep...

Just finished reading "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick, the basis for the film Bladerunner. I must say, as others must surely have said, how different the book is from the film, and how much better the book is (though the film is excellent), and that I finally understand what the hell the title of the book is going on about: it's nothing to do with counting sheep to try and put yourself asleep (as I had thought)! Read it and see.

Noa Noa...

I feel like such a pig, we went to Whitby today to see a dress Bex really liked, and I didn't like it that much, so we didn't get it. It was fairly expensive even though it was in the sale, but I've promised Becky she can have something by Noa-Noa, the makers of the dress who have quite a few things for sale in that little shop (a lot of them over £100!), but judge for yourself the quality...

Semester One, in the bag...a wasted journey...Joni sings (at last!)

So got the first Semester of this degree out of the way on Wednesday with the Object Technology exam, boy, it was tough. The whole thing with that subject, well at least as it is taught by this particular teacher, seems to be "here is my solution to this problem" as if his is the only correct one, but there's more than one way to solve the problems he presents, and that goes for the exam: I hope he gives his students a fair bit of leeway, because I don't think anyone will come up with (his) "right" answer, whatever that may be. I did make a fundamental mistake though, I thought the only way to answer the problem was to allow something I didn't really know how to do, and I couldn't write the code for it, but I could see no other way to do it! Anyhoo, we'll wait for the results.

I got an e-mail this morning respecting a prospective placement with a company called Serco, well, here it is:

"About Serco's entry.
Mrs Atkinson would like to see the following 15 students URGENTLY today re the above subject matter. Failing to do so will jeopardize their chance with a placement at Serco. She will not be available from 3 o'clock onwards today...."(15 students including me listed here)

Here's the thing: I live 13 Miles from Uni, and we had planned to go out for the day, but on receiving this e-mail, obviously I had to respond. So, into the car, to the petrol station, and on to town I go. Eventually finding a parking space I walk the ten minutes to Uni to find that Mrs Atkinson has just gone on her lunch, she would be back in an hour. So, off to the Uni cafe I go, to slowly sup coffee and ponder what revelations or urgent tasks lay ahead of me to enable me to secure this placement. So, back to Mrs Atkinson's office I go, to find some other students have beaten me to her: I sit outside, staring at an uninteresting piece of wall, for a further 15 minutes. Have I built this up enough? Don't worry: it's worth it.

"Would you like to come in John?"
"Thanks"
"Take a seat"
"Thanks"
"Well, the reason I've got you in....eeh,you're going to be mad....It's just your CV, I'd like you to amend this, look here:"

BEFORE READING FURTHER SEE MY CV HERE (click on the image to focus it if necesary)...look for a ring around a certain letter.

"Why have you capitalized this letter "S" here, why have you done that?
.
.
.
(Mrs A. again)..."Sorry for dragging you all this way for this!"
.
.
.
(stunned silence, I reply eventually, because I rely on her to get me a placement)
.
"..yes...sorry about that, let's change it? Sorry again, yes these little things are important"

Obviously, I wanted to scream about the existence of telephone and e-mail communication in our modern age, but I had to bite my tongue, really hard.

Anyways, that was amusing, I Was thinking as it happened "this is good blog material"! Notice my capital "W" on the "was" back there, it's staying like that, OK?

To finish, I'm glad to report that Joni has finally let me record her singing (or I've finally managed to hide the recorder well enough whilst she sings, to be more accurate!). You can here my baby sing "Twinkle, Twinkle..." here and here.

Exam One...

One down (networks), one to go (tomorrow-Object Technology). I think I got about 80%, or somewhere not far off that, so I'm fairly pleased. There were a few questions I really didn't know the answers too, such as how an application gateway filter differs from a packet filter (WHEN were we taught that again? Must have missed that one!), but overall not too bad, the Maths stuff was all there, the Nyquist and Shannon/somebody else's theorems relating to data transfer...yawn...over a medium with/without line noise taken into account. At least all that's behind me now...let me just...there, I've freed up that memory, room for more junk!

Watched Closer last night with Bex, if there's one film that I'm surprised got a "15" and not an "18" rating in the UK, this is it. It's shockingly sexual, without actually having any sex in it at all. Neither has it any love, but again, it's full of it! I think it's a great film. For all its emphasis on the physical side of relationships, it does a good job, almost unwittingly-through contrast-at showing how a relationships physical side relates to its (good?) spiritual side. It shows how Sex and Love are two different things, but strangely reliant on each other. They're part of the same animal, and in this film, man is the animal, and particularly one man: Clive Owen steals the show, he is (as he says) a cave-man, he's scary, he fills the screen, he's brilliant. Natalie Portman also shines, if that doesn't sound too film-reviewing a thing to say!

Cold...

So anyway, we've had a family cold-a real belter of a cold-this past week. It seems to wax and wane, yesterday I felt slightly better, so did Bex, but today we're both back to square one (did we slide down that snake on square 99 in the night?), the throat pain is the worst: it actually woke me up last night, it was as if somebody was strangling me...perhaps Becky has had enough of me? I get really irritable when I'm ill, so I wouldn't be surprised. Also my two big exams are tomorrow, and the day after. I mean, what timing! The last thing you feel like doing when you've got a head-cold is cramming that poor head full of code, there doesn't seem to be any room for it, what with all the snot and whatnot ;-)

Seen a few good films these past few days, "Million dollar baby", probably the best film of the year so far, an amazing (anti?) boxing film, a superlative performance by all of the cast, especially Swank, who will probably get the best actress Oscar for it? Anyway Clint deserves the best director Oscar. And yet, even though it was good, it pales in comparison to a film we watched last night, "autumn sonata", another Ingmar Bergman masterpiece. The acting by Liv Ullmann, the scene where she's accusing her Mother (after her Mother has the nightmare and they talk in the kitchen) of not being any sort of Mother to her, that she has always been selfish, and wrapped up in herself-I can't do it justice, but it's some of the best acting I've ever seen. Absolutely breathtaking.

Why?

Of all the videos I've seen of the Asian Tsunami, one sticks in my mind: it sticks in it and twists in it like a knife, it sticks in it and won't let me pull it out. The video below (now deleted) shows a boy playing on the beach being swept away by the tsunami, one casualty out of possibly hundreds of thousands, but I think about this clip, this boy all the time, he's in my thoughts when I wake up at night: who is he? Who are his parents? Why was he swept away? And you can multiply these questions hundreds of thousands of times, and still get no answers. This BBC flash slideshow illustrates the pain of those left behind: this pain you can multiply by millions.

Audrey...Amelie...

I know Becky won't mind me saying, that I'm really looking forward to Jean Paul Jeunet's new film "A Very Long Engagement", featuring Amelie Tautou, I mean Audrey of course. It won't beat Amelie, but what film can? Not many. We saw the trailer to it last night at the pictures, before seeing "The Aviator", which was really good, a completely immersive (does that word fit?) experience. I haven't washed my hands since seeing it. Anyway, short blog, here's Audrey:

Banging...

Went for a jog today, as is my wont, and had a pretty scary experience-after running up a hill outside of Marske, a town near where I live, every car that went by sounded to me like it was-how can I describe this?- you know how a car makes a noise, mostly the noise from its tires, as it approaches and passes you, well the cars all sounded like they had punctures: the noise they made came and went, came and went, in my ears. I wonder why? It sounded like I could hear my heart beating- I was tempted to stop but thought it might be better if I kept running, albeit at a more steady pace, and the beating, banging, whatever it was, stopped about a Mile further on. I've felt drained all day too. And Paul, my friend, goes and puts me on the "Great North Run" mailing list, like I'm supposed to be running 13 miles around Newcastle in September!

A silence speaks a thousand words...

But what words does the three minute silence observed in Europe today in memory of the Asian Tsunami's victims speak? It could say any of these things, depending on your beliefs:

We don't know what to say-nobody does and everybody knows that- in the face of this tragedy, so it's best for everyone to say nothing, unitedly.

We are silent so that you can tell us why, God. Please answer us, we leave this silence so that you can answer us. If not now, please answer us some time. We will wait for your time. We think of you and hope that you think of us.

Listen: The heavens are silent. God is not there or he is not interested in us if he is. The answer is in the silence: there is no answer from above, the answers lie below, with Man, and with Nature: both are kind, and both are cruel; Man gives, and Nature takes away.

This is the only respectful act a multi-faith yet multi-faithless nation can observe unitedly.

This silence is the silence of a Father who's child asks him "Why did [insert god or religious figure] permit this?". It is an honest silence, it is an agnostic (even if one is not agnostic) silence, the answer the Father in turn gets from [insert god or religious figure]. It is the silence of not knowing, the honesty of not trying to pretend to answer when one doesn't know the answer, of not pretending to know [insert god or religious figure]'s answer when [insert god or religious figure] hasn't revealed this answer him/itself.

Purpose...

I had a strange thought on the Bus recently, that WE (humans) had to explain the purpose of life to God, and not the other way round. That's part of the reason we were created: to exist as a huge experiment in creation, and in living a finite life. I felt (strangely) that possibly God found himself in the same situation we are in, that he is a created being and has a finite (but very long) life. I know this goes against the Bible and what most people believe, and it's only a thought, and I'm not getting into those chicken-and-egg arguments over who created God (these questions have an infinite answer like the size of space: we can't grasp the answer but accept it)- but imagine God doesn't really know the reason to existence any more than we do, and this planet, or universe, is Gods way of getting the answers, but also his way of sharing what he has: Life, finite, but beautiful, and it's most amazing aspect: the ability to create new Life. God has made us exactly in his image, if this is the case: little gods who come from and go to oblivion, passing life on to more little gods....and if this life is a true reflection of Gods (I hope it isn't) then who are we to complain at its brevity? Should a millionaire spend all his time being depressed that he can never be the richest person in the Universe? Should someone with 70 years hate his 70 years because of the one who has millions? Or even IF that one has infinite resources of time, should we then feel that our life is less precious? Who knows whether we have more life to come, I hope we do, the Bible seems to say we do, I hope EVERYONE does, but at the moment I'm glad for this little bit of Life, all thoughts of the annulling creature Death to one side...

Time Passes...

A new day, a new Month, a new Year: another day, Month, Year has passed. I don't know about you, but 2005 sounds like something out of Buck Rogers to me: where are our hover cars? Or at least our hover skate-boards? The passing of time got me thinking about something Brian said, well actually something I thought reminded me of something he said, about how the "you" of today is completely different from that of last year, or Ten years ago, in the latter case there's not even any cells in our bodies which are the same. Well, at what point did the old "you" die? I think we die every day, or every night we go to sleep: at least we die a little bit. And what is actually "you" gets something added for that which is taken away- who knows what is added and what is taken away, each day, Month and Year. Will something be added when that final taking away comes? I was thinking, whilst jogging today (always good thinking time!) of the little I could remember about my Father, who died when I was Ten.

I will soon be the same age he was when he died.

I was thinking that I couldn't remember much about him at all, like there's a blank in my head: I remember walking into my Mum and Dad's bedroom in our old house, I remember where the bed was, and recently I remembered there was a brown clock on the bedside table: I can see it clearly, with it's red button to stop the alarm ringing on the back. I remember that alarm ringing, but not a word my Father ever said do I remember, perhaps this is why I blog: for Joni? I was thinking that if I could go back to that room, I wouldn't know my Father, because I'm not the person that stood in that room all those years ago. I wouldn't say it to her, but I think the same would hold true for my Mother.

If it could happen, the time machine meeting with my Dad, I'm sure it would be like the meeting I had with my best school-friend after not seeing him for Ten years (finding him on friends reunited): the difference between what my memory held-the moving pictures of him?-and what stood in front of me was so huge, it was basically a different film. We were both other people, so far from what we were that no "catching up" with each other as "old" friends was possible: it seemed strange to have to start again, so that's where we left it.

Change is the only constant of our lives: if we could meet ourselves as we were Ten years ago (on you reunited?) we would know this for sure, but the things that make "you" are making you every minute, and who can know what they are?

Each day becomes a box for a person we leave behind. Death is no stranger to "you".