Becoming A Year Older and just being generally more fatigued

I fear I have neglected this blog for far to long and it’s for the very excuse I loathe, work.

Have you ever just had a string of days where you can gradually feel yourself going mad? well not necessarily mad but I can feel my out look on life and world view slowly change for the worst so my mental state is being affected! It’s just I have had the worst of days recently after 4 days off and 4 days of pure bliss (will write about them soon!) and now for the past 4 days I have had a pattern of late finishes and early starts (which I should question the legality of but alas nothing will probably be done about it) and with me lack of sleep and being deprived my all important sleep in for a period of time really get to me. Sleep is very important so I have been trying to go to be as early as possible but being a night owl and feel I am quite productive on a night makes it very difficult for me to switch off ‘early’ and not my normal time of 1 or 2 AM. So with early starts, feeling like I’m constantly at work and being to exhausted to do anything slightly productive in between work and sleep , I fear I’m slowly losing my mind! Today I uttered the phrase ‘ I hate my life’ when I discovered I do not have a day off until Monday meaning I’m working 8 days straight, and this is very unlike me, perhaps it was unintentional, a bit over dramatic and maybe ever so slightly for a comic effect, but it still was very unlike me, I generally have a very positive outlook , but I can feel the venom of negativity swilling around in my head slowly ebbing away at my happy go lucky thought process. The venom may only be temporary but I am sick of being in a bad mood, it is so unlike me! I’ll just have to wait and see how I am after a nice sleep in, surely back to my normal self?

Anyway the days of joy I experienced was related to my birthday, I gained an extra year at life and I am now 21. People tell me how important it is and I can see their point but to me turning 20 was the biggest change. It’s when I finally took more responsibility for myself and properly started to consider my future, thinking about the important things like careers and so forth which to be fair I should of probably started to consider a long time ago, but it’s just how it worked out for me!

As for my birthday, my parents were nice enough to hire a room for me and my twin to celebrate our birthdays in style! It was a great sensation having everyone I loved in one room, being able to go anywhere in that room and find someone I wanted to talk to. Combined with the choice of my own music, free alcohol and everyone being super nice to me because it was my birthday (most of them are normally!) it was near enough some of the most perfect 4 hours anyone could ask for. Well aside from a certain sibling hooking up with a certain ex but then again it wasn’t a big a deal as you may think!

So now I am a year older and more determined to make something out of myself than ever! But obviously because of my negative mind set recently I’m thinking it is getting far less likely. I know I really shouldn’t think it but the same things keep flowing round my mind! ‘You’ve been in the cinema job for 2 years of your life and have barely been promoted. what are you still doing there?’ and ’should I go back to uni before my very average a levels mean less than they do now!’ I really shouldn’t be thinking about these sorts of things because you build on what you’ve been fortunate enough to achieve yourself so instead of moaning I should try my best with the qualifications and skills I have acquired (no matter how little they seem!) I just need to try harder, stop complaining about how little I have achieved because of how very little effort I have put into anything it’s what I deserve, I need to gain more skills, learn more things and just work towards something and not quit! Once I have done this all this inner conflict, all this self doubt. it all should just disappear!

That is why the list is so important to me, there may be some insignificant things on there, but also some skills, some things I can put some effort into, some things I will be proud to achieve when I have! I am working on them, though it may seem I have neglected to write about any of them in this entry, but it all seems a little to insignificant to write about at this moment. I will do this!

will report back a lot sooner than last time!

until then,

Wes Out!

The Polar Bear and the paper love heart

Just when I’d left everything till the last minute,

just when I’d foolishly squandered my time, when more important matters were at hand,

just when I let my paranoia get the best of me, never thinking straight,

just when I let my neuroses get the better of me, so full of doubt again,

just when I had beaten myself up about every little thing, how could anyone put up with me?

just when I was going to dismiss this evening as a complete failure,

that’s when it appeared…Thank You : )

#41 Start a Podcast & A Little Epic Tale

So it only took me 4 days but I finished my first podcast!

To reiterate what it’s about it is essentially me talking to my friends, interviewing them in a sense, showing people who they are and why I love them, and as we talk we inevitably go off topic and such it’s a bit of fun really. I don’t expect many people but immediate friends to listen to it but i’m working on putting it on itunes and linking it on some social networking sites just to see if some bored people will give it a listen, i’m sure they won’t regret it, like I say it’s a bit of harmless fun, two people having a chat and being in each others company, I like to think that will be part of it’s appeal really, everyone loves a bit of slice of life!

The first podcast is with my friend Gary, I never really go into detail on how or why we met but he is the boyfriend of another good friend, they met over the internet and really fell for each other it’s really quite sweet and now they live together it’s a pretty good story really I maybe should of asked him to talk about that instead of the nick names he had as a child but oh well! He is one of the nicest people you can ever meet and I think he comes across like that in the podcast! I actually can’t wait to do more, just hope people enjoy it! Here’s the link to the MP3 file: Wes & Friends Episode 1 but like I say should be on itunes soon just search ‘Wes and friends’

Anyway, I should of wrote this little story sooner but just haven’t had the time I fear I neglect my blog already but I’m not sure whether to blog about none list related things, I think I may do not to sure!

I would like to tell a tale, a tale of a Saturday night, an unfortunately monotonous late shift had just ended at work and I was at home, late night browsing of the internet as I do constantly telling myself to go to bed as I had been out the night before and only had four hours sleep (the night out in question was generic fun, not that I intend to make that sound not enjoyable there was just nothing to report so I guess it could be classed as uneventful.) Anyway, a close lady friend who incidentally is a recent ex girl of whom I still feel a great deal for, was on a night out and sent me several messages exclaiming how she was confused and a manner of other things that I consider her normal adorable inebriated texts she sends me, until in one of the she mentioned a heroin addicted trying to get her to take some, I was immediately panicked and asked her to phone me, not that I would think she would do such a thing it was just the idea of her being in the company of that calibre of person which I am aware is horribly judgemental of me but I couldn’t help it! As I waited for her phone call to know she was safe it felt like hours had passed when it was probably only a few minutes, but then she called and I was greatly relieved! She seemed very confused and quite upset because as the night went on she was left with increasingly few people she went out with and had very little money, this made me question how she was going to get home so I asked if she wanted to get a taxi to mine so I knew she was safe, she agreed and it seemed she maybe even needed me in this situation to ‘rescue’ her if you will. So I guided her to a taxi rank over the phone but suddenly realised I had no money so I told her to tell the taxi driver to stop at a shop about 10 minutes away from me so I could get some money to pay her taxi fare and told her I would meet her there.

I instantly grabbed everything I needed, and rushed out the house. I also remembered an umbrella as the weather of recent has instilled the fear of the apocalypse on me as it rains so frequent and violently, I also thought the last thing my friend needed was a watery wrathful downpour after the events of her evening. I then preceded to do something I do very rarely, I ran, I ran fast, I wanted to make sure I was there, there for when she pulled up, there so she knew I was reliable, there so she didn’t have to face a dark cold night on her own. At that moment I never really felt that needed, that helpful, she was relying on me at that moment in time and it’s something I rarely feel, self-worth. As I ran it felt like something that belonged in an old timely romantic picture, no matter how insignificant it all seems now, no matter how little romance there is left in out relationship aside from strong lingering feelings on my part and a platonic affection on her part, it just felt right. To ensure I was on time I took a short cut and climbed over a wall, injuring my knee in the process, an injury that has afflicted me to this day, I was gasping for air, I’m asthmatic and  I’m aware that fact may ruin the whole romantic scene I am painting but nonetheless it made me feel I was fighting against something, my body wanting me too stop, but I needed to be there, running across the dark early morning streets of Haxby, fearing such insignificant things about her arrival, maybe it was a unlicensed taxi and she has been kidnapped? maybe she gave the wrong directions and was at another quaint little shop in a quaint little town? or something as believably boring and tragic that her taxi just simply crashed. Those thoughts swilled around my head as I eventually made it to our meeting point to find that she had not arrived. I got another sense of deja vu as I panicked and minutes became hours, where was she? to taxi’s usually take this long? Until I heard the noise of an engine and saw headlights reflected in a road sign, it was her, she was safe, and she was with me. The taxi driver asked me to look after her and told me she had been talking about me and though rather highly of me, much to her embarrassment, I thanked him and he drove off. I had been waiting weeks for this reunion, she is currently at Middlesbrough at university and I rarely see her, I know I shouldn’t really care for someone who is just a friend as much as I do but I missed her and her being there right now, safe meant everything to me. She explained the situation with the heroin addict as we walked back to mine, holding each other close which we hadn’t done in a very long time, I was felt like a hero, I had come to this girls rescue,  I was there when someone needed me which never really happens to me, I’m never really required or needed, well at least not as often as I would like, but I suppose it is a blessing that the people I care about and in constant need of care. But as I soon found out the whole situation wasn’t as dangerous and scary as I originally thought, but nonetheless I still gave her a place to stay, I gave up my warm winter bed and hopefully made her feel cared for, no matter how much the whole situation can be down played, I was there for her and I hope it showed that I always will be.

Anyway there is my story, my little tale of my evaluation of self worth, the time I was a hero, and the little time I got to spend with someone I really care about! I hope you enjoyed it and enjoy the podcast!

till next!

Wes Out!

#10 Learn How To Drive And Several Other Terrfying Incidents!

My first entry regarding items on my list!

To be fair, I have been working on this list item before the list was even in my head, I had done 4 lessons up until today and I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t completely terrified every second I was behind the wheel! In my defence, it is early days as obivously as of today I have had 5 lessons but part of me still thinks I shouldn’t be filled with dread and think I’m going to crash and die simply when I am going 40 down a road in which the national speed limit is in place so should be going faster! I am always on edge and I am paranoid as a car approaches me going at the national speed limit my brain for no good reason at all tells me ‘your going to swiftly turn the wheel right and collide into the speedy car’ and I really can’t think why such a thought process occurs but it does!

Anyway as far as progress with learning to drive, like I said it is still very early days and to expect to be a good driver after so few lessons would be incredibly unreasonable of me but still after today’s lesson I have concluded that I am a very slow learner! It’s bizarre last week’s lesson ended with my instructor being pleasantly surprised and properly praising me for the first time and today’s lesson ending with him asking what went wrong and pleading for the Wesley of last week to return for the next lesson. Needless to say it didn’t help my confidence a great deal, but I do agree with him, my head was totally in another place today and I can’t for the love of me think why! I was just forgetting little things like you can’t actually move without releasing the hand break and that you have to actually steer with the road when turning left, not into the curb! I’m trying not to be too hard on myself because everyone has there off days but people usually have a reason for doing so, I did not.

So I’m going to file this weeks lesson under failure but I still look forward to my next lesson and do actually enjoy driving despite the terror and doom that fills my head while doing so, I think it’s down to my teacher I really like him. He’s a friend of the family and quite a by the numbers straight thinking serious person, but he also has a light hearted side he occasionally lets out, like this week he randomly started clucking because we drove passed some chickens and he did a Zippy impression because we saw a rainbow, it’s because he is normally quite straight and formal that these little amusing lapses really make me enjoy being taught by him. A definite highlight of today’s lesson was when an L plate flew off the car and he refused to leave it and spent 10 minutes in a cow field looking for it, I think I was the first ever driving student worried that his instructor would be attacked by cows and I’d be left stranded down a country road!

After my driving lesson I also continued to terrify myself, I went to watch Paranormal Activity with my brother and my friend Ben. Due to all the hype in America and simply because it follows the found footage genre that has recently become so popular, I was really excited to see this film. I had heard promises that it was one of the scariest films of all time and that it will stay with you forever, but if I’m being truly honest the whole experience was a little underwhelming. As a whole I thought the film was paced pretty badly, but that is when I start to conflict with myself about it, being the genre that it is, it needs to dwell on the everyday lives of the two characters being haunted, how they differently react to the increasingly terrifying paranormal occurrences in their house etc. before the film can focus on the scares so it feels realistic and that the scares are a pay off for the build up. But some of it just fell flat, I found myself eagerly awaiting the night scenes only for a door to creak or a noise to be made then it would be morning, the scares and night scenes didn’t seem to build up too well just go from tame to horrifying towards the end of the film. Saying that, there are some very genuinely scary moments in the film that will stay with me and keep me up for a few nights, I just feel a lot of it’s potential was wasted for a lot of unnecessary character building scenes. Still it is a very original, very realistic and very scary horror film that is refreshing in a time where 90% of horror films are poorly made trash filmed on a shoe string budget with no originality to gross millions, it is just a victim of it’s own hype!

So thanks to Paranormal Activity, I won’t be sleeping for a few nights! As a returned home I was also terrified into the thinking my 16 year old goldfish was dead. Again. I’m sure you are thinking it’s a pretty bizarre thing to say, but my fish, Gilbert, has been my fish for the majority of my life, I think I see him as the last reminder of my childhood, and my panicked very childlike sadness and fear to his potential death is evidence of this. But fear not because he wasn’t dead he just decided not to move for 24 hours I guess because he is so old but he is swimming about happily now. One thing that really gets me is the thought of small creatures be vulnerable and harmed, I openly wept in front of my friends when I was 16 when the group hamster we had for just a week died, just the idea of the poor helpless hamster suffering in silence brought me to tears and would probably still do so now! It’s probably another reason I got so worried when I thought my fish had died!

The rest of the evening though was spent in the company of my good old eccentric friend Lee, like the majority of my friends I think he is pretty unique and I think a lot of people tend to undervalue him because he is so different but that is why I love him. This gave me an idea for #41 on my list: start a podcast. I decided I am going to interview all my friends, get them to tell me amusing anecdotes, maybe just record ourselves just talking the nonsense we normally do, I’m pretty sure it will make really good listening and will also show the world just how unique and amazing my friends are! Watch this space for the podcast I hope to record the first one as early as tomorrow!

Anyway in case you were wondering my blog updates will not be daily, it’s just because I just so happened to do a list activity the day I started the list, but I will update it hopefully two or three times a week maybe more depends how much I get done or how much nonsense I think warrants a blog update to waffle about! But I’ve already had some pretty encouraging reactions from my first post and just the general idea of it so I am very excited!

I hope you will still ecompany me on my ongoing adventures!

Wes Out!

 

Confessions of a frustrated cinema worker

I’ve now worked at a cinema for nearly 3 years now. I essentially am your run of the mill socially awkward pretty geeky irrelevant member of the world with very little direction.

I have no qualifications except for pretty average A level results that will be void in a few years and now intention of attempting university again (yes I dropped out of uni!) so essentially I’m stuck in my cinema job. Not that it is awful, I love my job 90% of the time, I have quite alot of responsibility as I am a supervisor without the extra wage, I am in charge of training people and making sure everything runs smoothly when the managers aren’t about.

So I have a pretty good job but the structure isn’t there as it is rota based and my hours are all over the place and I am pretty poor at time management so find myself on days off never really doing much except going out, drinking, playing games, watching films etc all the normal stuff really and I recently found myself wanting more out of life.

Cinema work, though I can’t stress enough I do enjoy it, can be very monotonous like most customer service jobs, and it hit me that the hordes of people i’m serving as they mindlessly waddle themselves to watch the lastest blockbuster shat out of Hollywood, that I am better than these people I am serving, there’s got to be more than this! Not that I think I am actually better than EVERYONE I serve it’s just that a lot of the people I serve can barely string sentences together and I often think the sad thing is they probably make more than me!

So essentially I thought things had to change, I want to stay with my job in the meantime as there is promise of promotion lingering in the air and like I keep saying I do enjoy it, it really can be the easiest most fun job in the world, I just need some direction, just need to think i’m doing something! So I came up with an idea to compile a list of everything I want to do, see and learn as deep down I am a person with a lot of ambition (but sadly very little drive!) and gradually attempt to cross them off over a year while blogging about them!

They’re many great lists in history: Schindler’s list, Santa’s list…(well that’s all I’ve got!) and I hope to be apart of those great lists!

So here’s the low down, I will spend a week or two compiling the list and building myself up for it, then start as soon as I can! I will then write about them and cross them off! The list is numbered and I will write the numbers of the things I am covering in the blog as a sort of title to make things easier, now obviously some of them can not be crossed of instantly so will constantly blog about their progress until I do so! It’s a pretty simple idea but I am really excited about it! I have trouble finishing things, seeing things through the end and I want this project to prove me wrong!

So please join me on what hopefully will be a fun little adventure!

Wes Out!