Thoughts and opinions on life etc. by willbaforce
SHOCKER: I’m not writing to complain.
Reading back through my recent posts it seems like I’ve developed a penchant for a moan. I’m not actually inspired by hatred for the world. Nor do I despise it. Actually, at the moment I’m feeling pretty happy with the state of affairs that I’m in.
True, I’m very, very poor in a sense (I can eat, but I can’t buy media etc).
True, I’m unemployed, in a sense (I’m being interviewed and soon to become a student).
Nevertheless, I’m happy. Both of these truths have a deadline. Eventually they’ll end.
I’m happy in the meantime because though I live nowhere near any of my friends, I know that they are there. I don’t know why I’m so keen to relate this of late, but I truly do value my friends.
In their honour, here’s a bio of two of the rascals. I’ve omitted the names because for you guys its not too relevant and (if they read it) they’ll know.
Buddy 1 I think people truly don’t understand the value of friends made at University. I met him and ended up sharing a room with him during the first year, and a house in the second and the fourth years too. He’s earned himself a bio because through all the dirges I’ve dragged him through, he’s still standing by me. Admittedly, we’ve sometimes not seen eye to eye, and sometimes there’s been tough calls made, but at the end of it all, he still keeps coming back for more. I always remember a moment we spent in the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany. We’d been drinking all morning, and had run out of cigarettes. Duly, we combined change and fetched some from the machine, only to realise that we’d pulled out filter-less cigarettes.
I don’t know whether you’ve experienced the horror that we felt in that moment, as we opened the pack to the sight of tobacco. Groans were made and sobs of woe, as I held up the cigarette and peered into the twin ends of tobacco. We rallied. I exclaimed “we shall waste not want not!” or something similar. Probably not similar. I was drunk. Probably “Nargh mynah haha manarh?!”. He laughed. He ensured me that this was not going to be pleasant. He was right. Smoking that cigarette was like using a tube full of really thin straws or hairs. Within seconds I was scratching my tongue trying to remove the nastiness. He laughed, and went to buy some more, filtered cigarettes.
Buddy 2 stands for evidence that boys and girls can be friends. We met a while back as a result of housing desperation. I was just starting on a Primary PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) course, which I had attained through the clearing process. As a result of clearing, I then had a week within which I had to find a house, find some housemates, rent and move into said house ready to start Uni the following Monday. Hectic doesn’t even begin to describe it. Internet housing forums became my best friend, the refresh button my “man’s best friend”, obediently keeping me in the loop.
I get an email from a girl. She says she is looking too, would it be possible to look together? I obliged, and within a day we had two others and then within some more days, we were signing papers for accommodation. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that renting with complete strangers can be a bit of a lottery. The other two managed to provide some really awkward situations. For example, inappropriate advances and theft tastefully combined with sodden floors and weird odours. Buddy 2 and I ended up sharing a similar sense of normal, and as a result became friends. Most of the funniest moments we shared we largely due to her temperance for alcohol (haha 
), but one particular night shone brightest – her, one of the other housemates, chris and I hit the town to celebrate my birthday. We went to an Italian, where, for no apparent reason, housemate decided to leave. Plain walked out of the restaurant just as we were seated. Buddy 2 tries to console housemate, to no avail. Chris tries to make sure housemate took a taxi at least, and was told “I’m not getting a taxi, he’ll only rape me” as housemate took his proffered fiver and walked off. (Thinking about it, housemate deserves a blog post. Expect one soon.)
Buddy 2 was also one of the first people to ever see me perform karaoke too. I performed Take That’s “Want you back” with some others as a birthday wish / demand. That then started a year long obsession with Singstar. Good times.
I’ll stop here before this becomes an essay. I read somewhere that though we do truly value friends and family, it’s rare that we share this fact with them. Tell them – they’ll appreciate it and you’ll feel great for telling them!
It is strange how fatigued I feel when I clearly shouldn’t be. It is also shocking how half an hour’s sleep can make soo much difference.
This post is another stream of thought post, in that I haven’t started it with an agenda, more that I’ve started it with a view to writing about a couple of things. How I get them down is what’s going to make it interesting.
I’ve been watching the UK’s current Big Brother on a regular basis. I know, very sad / fabulous / weird / cool depending on what you like. I like it. Though it has made me muse a little. Currently, or last night specifically, there was a massive, massive bust up as a result of one house mate spilling another’s secrets to the rest of the house. It wasn’t a slip of tongue either. This girl swore that she’d keep the information secret, never tell it to anyone etc etc. In fact the guy she was talking to was refusing to tell her for that exact reason – he didn’t trust her to keep it. He should have stuck to his guns I guess.
The whole idea of telling people something you’ve been told in confidence is probably one of the cruellest things you can do to somebody. Well, cruellest things you can speak. I mean severing their right hand is probably much worse. But still, horrid.
People always say “you could have kept it to yourself!” as a justifiable reason for such infidelity. Which is just a straight up lie. People generally tell others confidential things because its literally eating them up inside. Telling someone reduces that strain – Problem shared is a problem halved and so on. But to then go on and pass the information on is just wrong. I’m not talking about “he fancies you” 10 year old type secrets. More the secrets that aren’t positive statements in any possible sense. Reusing that information can be really harsh, because that person may be venting frustration, or may even be telling you something that they actually feel, which could consequently mean that you’ve ruined any future interactions between those individuals. Allow people to seek counsel, but don’t turn it into a public debacle afterwards.
Rawr.
Moving on from that, I’m both really impressed with the current situation of the Rimmer map and completely tired of it already! I’m such a douche. I love that I’m getting responses from people, I just need to make my process for making contact and adding them a lot more efficient. Got to make it smoooooth. With the extra three os.
In other news, for those that don’t know yet from my Twitter, I’ve been conditionally accepted now for two different Master’s courses in Translation. This is fabulous news for a couple of reasons: (i) it shows (me) that others believe that I can complete them and (ii) it marks the beginning of my future. I’ve said before that I started teaching because I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. Well applying for translation positions and doing some pre interview translating has swung the scales. I want to become a translator. So, it really psyches me to know that the future is starting, I’m getting my work game on, so to speak.
I keep thinking back to the more depressing parts of the whole teaching experience and I realise that I was mostly responsible for it all. Although I wouldn’t have changed it -I’m much better equipped for so many things in life now that I’ve gone through it all. It even brings a smile to my face right now. Sometimes I do wonder what the people I left behind there think of me. Meh, who cares. I’m happy. 
All I need now is patience, patience to get me from today to June 2010, when I’ll be a qualified translator, and ready to start my life off proper. Especially in the financial sense. My wife, bless her eternally, is shouldering my unemployed weight completely. I’m hoping some part time work will resolve that soon, but things the way they are, its difficult to get something that won’t end up making me a deficit on commuting costs!
Que sirrah sirrah and all that.
Finishing with the Big Brother that started all this off, it is eviction night tonight. That’s the difficult part of real life I guess. Knowing that there’s no way to “evict” all the people that let you down or betray you. Instead, when it happens, know that they have, to some extent, taken you further down the path that is life. 
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes” ~ Oscar Wilde
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~ Ghandi
It’s Superbowl Sunday time once again.
I have watched the Superbowl every year now since the start of my university career way back in 2003. This may not sound special, but as a European, watching a Superbowl requires certain… commitments to be made. For example being committed to staying awake till half 3 in the morning, watching kneel after kneel to get to see the ceremony. Being committed enough some years to watch alone. Being commited enough some years to watch with someone. Being committed enough to have to explain the rules to someone. Repeatedly.
These things aside, I enjoy my yearly tradition. The game is always interesting (at least for the first half) and the half time shows are for the most part appealing (or… revealing).
I think one thing that I often remember about superbowls is how different each one has been for me so far. My first, a dozen or so first year students crowded round a non license fee TV in halls, not truly understanding the game but watching it anyway. My second, sat in my student let house with a best friend and some beers. My third in an Irish bar in Munich, running up an almighty tab with the same best friend. The fourth was in London, at the Superbowl bash in Battersea park with the same guy, which was ridiculously good – projected images on two massive screens in HD. There was also the opportunity to buy helmets (but later on this transpired to become “opportunity to wish we could afford helmets”). Last year I can’t remember what I did for it, but rest assured it was pleasant enough. That’s not the point.
The focus for this super kitchen crockery reference is my best bud. I have known him for the same amount of time as I’ve known American football.
We met at University, when happy coincidence placed me in the same bedroom as him. At first, when you discover that you’re to share your room with someone you don’t know, you can feel a little nervous, or annoyed. You might soon start thinking about other situations that may arise during a first year away from home. In all instances, the “at first” thoughts seem like you have drawn the short straw.
Nay I say.
That first year took me further in personal development than 18 years of schooling. Well, probable overstatement there, but you get the picture. I entered the house a shy skinny recluse, I left the house a semi confident alcoholic smoking skinny person. Or words to that effect. It was awesome. We spent the next year living together in a house, where we had a ”gig” stacked basement (musical friends and our equipment combined to create a damp but thoughroughly enjoyable jamming room) and a living room splayed with paintball pellets and pulp fiction posters, the obligatory playstation 2 complete with (i)Grand Theft Auto and (ii)generic football game (this instance it was FIFA). Again, progress was made (so much so, that I met my future wife).
Year abroad came and went (we lived at opposite 8 hour train journeys apart in Germany: few visits could be made or afforded).
Final year we shared with some others, but due to the nature of our courses we spent a LOT of time watching Voyager or Black Books with cups of tea and cigarettes. Yes, there were steps in the right direction. Or should I say steps in’t right direction.
There’s your back story. Brief, yes, but sufficient. This entry is largely a written account of my thanks to him. I don’t know if he’ll ever read or see this, I haven’t written it for him to see, he knows how decent he is. I felt the wider world deserves to hear it though. I mentioned what passed during our time at University, but the real focus is what I took from being friends with him. During the multiple bouts of game playing, dvd watching and beer drinking we talked. I learnt. I learnt to respect everyone, to honour appointments (however significant), to enjoy yourself completely in any situation, to laugh, never to take yourself (too) seriously and most importantly, to sleep in till the evening whenever possible.
Marc, you are a legend.
