Free education anyone? You only pay for the bit of paper.

Monday monday. First day back at University today for me, frighteningly the beginning of my third and final year. Despite being accustomed to the sights and scenes of campus life, it was the mistaken overhearing of a first year's conversation earlier that reminded me of the following ludicrous aspect of going to University. See, they don't take registers whenever you go to lectures or seminars. You don't even have to present I.D. when entering any of the buildings, and the entire campus is employed legitimately as an array of public footpaths.
Personally I'm finding it bitterly ironic as the deteriorating bank statements roll in, that the amount of cash borrowed from the Government in no way equates to what appears to me to be free education. But of course, if anyone actually wanted to learn without having a bit of paper to prove it then our newest facade of democracy would surely jump at the chance of implementing control methods. No security yet, so what I sadly acknowledge must be the ever-rising hypocrisy of what it is to be recognised as an intelligent human being. No not while systems manipulate this existence will our real geniuses flourish. I can't present an alternative, but it's a fact - if you're poor you're less likely to go to University, and in our future Generation X there are thousands not taking the chance to reach their capacities and realise their potential.
Perhaps I'm naive to think that even a moderate amount of people have any sort of lust for learning in an age where we waste our time watching adverts and sitting on our arses nurturing self-obsession. Our sap-infused popular culture we have inherited rapidly from the U.S. replacing the actuality of life with an illusory virtual world where commercialisation rules. Of course I include myself in this condemnation of modernity, it being my own culpability as part of such brain-numbing normality that provokes me to this outburst. It doesn't quite feel right, there's no room for fitting in when our societal roles are pre-allocated by class and context. Yet despite this great methodologically constructed world, has anyone noticed that the education system has failed a significant proportion of our society? In relation to my starting point, there's some unnoticed free words of the wise going spare in Brum.

Out of date? It's not too late. Best before? It's not the law.

What do you think folks? The "best before" date on food is only a guideline isn't it, not a religion? If the tuna pasta claims to be BEST before the date shown, then I have always believed that it'll still be pretty damn good a few days later, even if not the best it could have been. The incontrovertible "use by" date is intimidatingly less ambiguous however, which always makes me a little uneasy when daring to trust my own instincts at dinner time. The ominous sentence fragment anticipates the threat of "or else..." challenging me to bow to the fridge-guardians' authority.
Well hang on just a cotton picking second here, forgive me for taking affront at so trivial a matter, but somehow there's an edge of condescension to those bold two words "use by". In a recently long-forgotten world, food didn't come from tesco and it was up to us to decide what was edible. Surely we can't be losing such crucial judgement down to food standards fear-mongering. As a student let me advise you that eating around the mould does you no harm, and staleness merely adds to the texture. I ate a week-old lasagne with relish yesterday to no ill effect, and am impatiently considering that a more careful person may have thrown such perfectly good food away. I suppose it's no remarkable feat considering most microwave meals could survive a nuclear war, yet I would urge you all - if it doesn't smell too bad at least submit to a taste. Maybe you can't trust a reckless youth, but surely you can trust yourselves?

Religion: ruled by fear or are we all going to Hell?

Today somebody asked me how I stood on religion. Not to thrust pamphlets into my hand or tell me I'm going to Hell but actually for the sake of philosophy and conversation. Although I'd always have said I was opinionated on the subject, I realised I hadn't thought about it in a while, and after thinking about it for a bit I came up with the following reply:
I just can't quite believe that mainstream organised religion is the answer to the supposed miracle of life. Instead, the predominant beliefs being forced down my throat sound delusional, and seem strikingly characteristic of the way the human mind works in more ways than one. It's uncanny. The way we need to idolise a leader as if escaping responsibility for our own lives saddens my sense of independence. Take Christianity for example - the bible is full of gory death, torture and punishment, yet it is humankind whose preoccupation with death makes it the worst thing in the world we can think of. It is the inevitable punishment: we are promised salvation on the one hand, but eternal damnation on the next, only serving to exacerbate our fear of death and confirming a second human characteristic: the fact that people enjoy suffering. I'm convinced of it. We impose restrictions on our own instincts - everything we enjoy in life we deprive ourselves in the attempt to convince ourselves we have control. Hence the irony of love, which brings us a contradiction of pain and joy. Even sex, our own method of continuing survival has been smothered in the social norms caught up in our warped beliefs. We have invented sin, and why? Is it so we can revel in the heightened sense of drama infusing life with meaning and satisfying the ego? Or so we can claim control over how we live, refusing to acknowledge the power of probability and chance. Those two heroes would surely make fine gods, yet our need to see the human face reflected back at us as an assurance that we are here for a reason rules non-entities out. How do we claim to have any concept of eternity when even the age of the universe is beyond our wildest dreams?

The morning after the night before.

Dreaming of water again. Only as I wake up thirsty do I realise my body's trying to tell me something, but as usual my first thoughts are chiefly preoccupied with where am I and how did I get here? Another typical evening at the pub last night, but I'm only fairly sure of that thanks to the nation's ever-increasing tendency to binge-drink. If only I could remember past this sketchy outline! Such a shame that it seems to be the only thing we know how to do as far as the rest of Europe's concerned. If the brawling shouting swaying mob I've accustomed to being a part of is anything to go by, it's hardly our striking tolerance for drink that makes us kings. And as a groggy consciousness finally resumes, albeit with startling blanks, the question on everybody's lips (besides the vomit) is - was it worth it?
At this precise moment in time I'm inclined towards the negative. What a surprise. But why oh why will I forget that before next weekend comes whizzing around with all its fake promises of shining fun and inebriated glory? There must be something about alcohol that makes our abuse of it justifiable - after all it is Britain's favourite pastime. Getting drunk is fun, isn't it? I mean that's indisputable - why else would we flock to these alcoholic establishments in our millions? All I'm starting to question is, if you can't remember it, how do you know it was the best night of your life? I suspect there'll be more on the topic, especially if these day-long hangovers persist.

A day at the office.

Wednesday. Proudly marking the halfway point of the working week, it inspires hope in us all - after lunch it's practically the weekend. It must be the office that's responsible for our ironic optimism, driving us to wish away precious minutes of our lives. Recent news has deemed those working in I.T. to be the most miserable people in the country - maybe computers are somehow draining our life force? It may be a desperate attempt at avoiding responsibilty for our own boredom, but such illogical thinking must be a sure-fire symptom of office cabin fever.
Yet the office also provides us with a sanctuary from reality. Safe from the wind and rain, the same things happen day after day in a predictable merry-go-round of clock-watching. In a way it's all quite comforting - the intermittent clicks and whirrs of the fax machine, the hum of the monitors. Even the gentle tapping of keys complements the polite yet patronising background murmur.
For some one facing a full in-tray to say the least as my final University year looms, saying goodbye to a comfortable summer job provokes a twinge of apprehension. So what is wrong with me? I should be longing to escape this monotony - just a week ago I'm sure I was. Judging by the thousands of office hermits wishing they did something different each day, it's clear that the nature of the office as a refuge is preventing us from following our dreams. It's easy, not too badly paid and we know what we're doing. But it's this relentless circular existence that's holding us back - does anyone realise it in the deja vu of the everyday? Blink and you've lost twenty years.

Croydon lives up to its reputation - yet another teen stabbed.

Yet more blood on the streets of Croydon last weekend, our town's most recent top story feeding the persistent stigma that haunts the routes some outsiders fear to tread. Man dead, was the rumour circulating on Saturday, as police tape barred South Croydon High Street and headlines screamed the news of the latest teen stabbing. But Oliver Kingonzila was only a boy, the 26th youth to be killed this year in the London area alone, a figure which rivals the total of teen murders for the whole of 2007. How many more children are going to die at the hands of their peers before the year is out?
It seems wrong to list the event as just another statistic, yet such tragedies shockingly appear to have become the norm. How can the future generation seek to overcome this cynical acceptance while our current Government fails in producing the right number of fuctional members of society. To me, the familiarity of this sort of news grates sharply with the setting of this latest tragedy; as a Croydonian myself I found the locality unnerving. The question is, will it take every borough in London to cringe at close quarters for us to start appreciating the severity of the problem? It's a pity Downing Street isn't in the Hood.

Accessories of the technological age - are they taking over our lives?

After a week in the far distant reaches of North East Scotland, one startling realisation is making me squirm with embarrassment. Unease and impatient self-contempt force me to admit my complete incapability to feel complete without the various accessories of modern technological life. Mobile phone, laptop, digital set-top box, the list goes on - I missed them all, and I must confess and describe to you the entire sad picture. Envisage if you will, the sight of your desperately unfit blogger struggling up the nearest hill a mere two days into the holiday - in the quest for phone reception and longed for internet access. Anorak-shrouded on a lonely clifftop edge in the pouring rain I obsessively checked my e-mails, don't forget facebook, and frantically bid on ebay.
Despite my earlier post in which I allege not to feel part of this technological age, I am ashamed of myself for having given in to this modern urge; an obsession to feel permanently connected with the outside world. Even now, the need to have University Challenge murmuring quietly in the background strikes me with concern. Is it me, or is it a feature of the young generation that seems to require persistent reassurance from various simulations of human contact? Worse still, does this eerie hands-off existence include us all in technological dependence? My grandma just got an ipod for Christ's sake.
We seem to be depriving ourselves of real human contact in favour of interaction with machines - are we deluding ourselves about our ability to be sociable? The whole world seems to go by without me noticing it. Every bus, train journey and walk I take I'm detached from reality, depending on my machines of distraction to entertain and amuse. Does silence scare us? If only our obsession for being constantly occupied could be implemented constructively in this mess of a planet.
Forgive me for sounding like an old woman, I don't mean to be closed-minded. Maybe it's a feature of evolution that we grow continually aloof, or maybe these are just our new toys, a luxury that we will indulge momentarily, soon to be forgotten. We become individuals in our detachment, yet in our separateness we are doing all the same. Entertaining ourselves used to rely on each other. Even in relation to our growing obesity crisis, technology has a guilty part to play - over Eastenders I sure wouldn't rather play tennis! Aside from the PC attempt of the Wii-fit, (a believable virtual reality indeed), discouraging the lazy normality is the last thing on our minds. Either way I'm as guilty as the next person - human nature desires convenience, and for the average individual, you can't deny we spoil ourselves.

Introductory contemplation: to blog or not to blog?

The nature of blogging is undoubtedly a worn-out subject I'm sure, but for those of us who arrived late on the scene of technology, uselessly clutching at pens and bits of paper, it can be the only real beginning. Now I won't start by regurgitating ancient insights; worry not. Everyone knows blogging has revolutionised the expression of free speech and all that blah blah blah, so I'll try not to throw mud at our democratic pioneers by being unoriginal. Nor will I attempt to explain the reasons behind why this blog has begun, for fear of offending the thousands who may or may not admit that writing a blog feels, dare I say it - self-indulgent? And after all, why deny ourselves what is only human nature? I'm a mere beginner but I'm damn well enjoying myself!
Too soon for philosophy perhaps, but this is only a test blog, so I'll permit myself the liberty of straying from the point. Getting back to it however: INSTEAD of focusing on the multiple benefits of blogging (a celebrated but overwrought topic for sure) this blog aims to address the potential downfalls of this newfound tool. It sounds converse - why am I blogging to denounce blogging? I should make it clear that as a beginner I am not in any position to condemn anything, but even observing myself as I write, having a free reign over language, opinion, debate, that has the potential to be communicated to anyone in the world is a powerful liberation! And if blogging is addictive, then a liberation it shall be, perhaps even a dangerous one.
Now don't get me wrong, I must sound like I take myself far too seriously, but this itself insinuates the truth of the matter - it seems that it is impossible to convey true individual character without it being distorted by blogging. Other people's perceptions, the context of the individual, and in this case the unintentional tendency to adhere to a pompous-sounding narrative (no I'm not Boris Johnson) all contribute to a huge divide between the blogger and the actuality of the individual. As some one who began this introductory post with little direction and/or intent to stick to the subject, I'll allow myself to arrive at the following conclusion; detaching ourselves from reality through blogging is what makes this an exercise in freedom, and indeed, in this respect the English language has never failed us before! Oh, and of course the inevitable myspace afterthought: don't judge me on my words for they are not the sum of me... I would claim anonymity but that's no fun, is it?