30 day challenge - Day 23

Day 23 - Something you crave a lot

Peace.

30 day challenge - Day 22

Day 22 - What makes you different from everyone else?

What an awkward question. There's nothing that makes me different from everyone else apart from the undefinable spirit that makes me question what makes me different from everyone else, But everyone has one of those.

The truth is, if I'm honest, I don't know. I'm keen to hear your views.

30 day challenge - Day 21

Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy

There is one thing above all others that is making me happy to be me right now. Her name is Rebecca and she is truly a wonder.

And she may murder me for putting this photo up.

30 day challenge - Day 20

Day 20 - Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future

For reasons of sanity I'm no longer focussing on the future.

30 day challenge - Day 19

Day 19 - Nicknames you have and why you have them

Other than Nattars, none, and I've already discussed Nattars.

30 day challenge - Day 18

Day 18 - Plans/dreams/goals you have.

Short term goals are to find a new job, Then, if things don't improve with my disgusting housemate, find a new place to live.

Longer term is to complete my professional chartership and become a chartered engineer. Also to get through the Holosync programme, preferably without going completely nuts along the way.

Longer term, I'd like to travel the world meeting people I've met on the internet in person. I've made some great friends and I'd love to meet them, stay on their couch a few nights and get to know them better.

30 day challenge - Day 17

Day 17 - Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

I'm having enough trouble inside my own self without straying into someone else, but there is one person Who I think would really benefit if I took over their lives for a day, I think it would do me the world of good too.

Me - circa, early to mid teens. We'd both have a great time in each others bodies laughing at how ridiculous we were / have become. The only drawback would be the inevitable urge to try and "fix" things before they went wrong which would likely make everything worse.

I wouldn't want to change a thing that has brought me here or I might not be here.

30 day challenge - Day 16

Day 16 - Another picture of yourself

This was taken by a lovely young lady at a gig a few years ago. We'd never heard of the band and went on a whim. The young lady is no longer in my life, but I still like the band and rather unusually I do like this picture of myself.

30 day challenge - Day 15

Day 15 - Put you ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play.

1. Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
2. By Tomorrow - Candie Payne
3. Take it back - Barenaked Ladies
4. Farewell my love - Seth Lakeman
5. See Emily play - Pink Floyd
6. Hiphopopotamus Vs. Rhymenoceros - Flight of the conchords
7. Original fire - Audioslave
8. Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica": IV. Finale: Allegro molto - London philharmonic (by way of good old Ludwig van)
9. Bad Dog No Biscuits - Seatbelts
10. Voodoo People - Prodigy

30 day challenge - Day 14

Day 14 - A picture of you and your family


Erm, sorry, I don't have one. That's rather upsetting. I shall endeavour to take lots when I visit over xmas and I'll get back to you.

I really should have read through this list first.

30 day challenge - Day 13

Day 13 - A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Another tough one as I've not let anyone upset me recently but myself and I'm in no mood to write a letter to myself. Sorry.

30 day challenge - Day 12

Day 12 - How you found out about blogging and why you have one.

I honestly don't remember and I'm beginning to wonder.

30 day challenge - Day 11

Day 11 - Another picture of you and your friends

Photos of me with friends are thin on the ground. The ones that I do have make me look a lot more adventurous than I am. Last time was snowboarding, here I am with my loyal crew at the end of a sailing trip.

30 day challenge - Day 10

Day 10 - Songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad

This is another difficult one for me as I prefer the huge, eclectic music library and shuffle button approach to music rather than sit down and ponder what to listen to. I see music as something to ride an emotional wave on. Great music makes you feel things not the other way around. However I shall endeavour to pick out a single song I can relate to each emotion. These are examples only and not indicative. ;-)

Happy - The rhythm, The Cat Empire. Happy in music form.

Sad - That day, Natalie Imbruglia. This is a great song for cheering me up. Fantastic lyrics.

Bored - Wandering star, Portishead. This is such an interesting piece of music it's hard to listen to it and stay bored.

Hyped - Lost in space, Apollo 440. By far the best thing about that film, this has long been my cure for earworms.

Mad - I can dream, Skunk Anansie. This is a great angry song

30 day challenge - Day 9

Day 9 - Something you're proud of in the past few days

This is just a little thing from this morning.

This morning before work there was freezing fog, it was just starting to snow again, there was ice and snow underfoot. Through all this I kept my discipline and went for a run, (albeit a short, slow run) around a frozen lake while I could barely see 20m ahead of me down the track.

See it on a route player here. Yes that is a start time of 7:37am, no it was not dawn yet.

I'm not particularly proud of the performance, but I'm proud of the discipline as I slowly begin my training again. I think this will have been my last "fat month" after a marathon. They've gotten too hard to bounce back from. "Fat week" next time maybe?

30 day challenge - Day 8

Day 8 - Short term goals for this month and why

Goal 1 - Get back into the habit of running and start my next lot of marathon training.

Why? I've signed up for my next marathon. It's in Prague early May next year. It takes me about 4 months to get fit enough for a marathon.

Goal 2 - Get through the holidays with some semblance of sanity.

Why? I don't like this time of year, between Christmas and birthdays, shopping and travel, I tend to lose track of myself and end up frazzled. This year is all about organisation and centring and keeping things light.

Goal 3 - Instigate some personal life changes.

Why? I can't really talk about these in public yet as things are currently in motion but I am endeavouring to get myself out of a rut that is causing me to suffer.

30 day challenge - Day 7

Day 7 - A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you.



At an early age I started learning martial arts. I studied various styles but one stood out for me as something I love, Karate-do. I've not been able to train in it for some time but the philosophy and code of ethics it instilled in me is still a powerful influence on the way I think and act. I hope I'll be able to go back to it one day.

30 Day challenge - Day 6

Day 6 - Favourite super hero and why

As I've said previously in the course of this challenge I don't really do favourites. I'm fickle. It depends on my mood what I'm going to enjoy. Growing up I read the X-family of comics most often. New Mutants, then X-force. Probably just as I was a teen.

Just for the sake of the challenge I'm going to choose V from V for Vendetta. This will no doubt kick up a debate as to whether V was super powered, or even a hero for that matter, but he was pure. Not in the white goodness pure sense but in the scientific sense. He had something he had to do. He did it.

And I am a great fan of his message. Those who rule us should never be allowed to forget that they do so only at our suffrage.

30 day challenge - Day 5

Day 5 - A picture of somewhere you've been to

Finally an easy one. I may surprise some people who still organise the wold by stereotypes by putting aside playful rivalries and Britishness by posting a picture of what I am unashamed to say is my most favourite city in the world, Berlin. I know I said I try to avoid having favourites but it's hard not to. I don't have a bad thing to say about the city or it's people.

This is perhaps one of the most famous landmarks in the world, The Brandenburg Gate.



I took it when I last visited. The day after I took this photo I ran through the Brandenburg Gate at the end of the Berlin Marathon. It was my first marathon and I was very proud to be there for the marathon that was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the end of the Berlin wall. A terrible thing from a sadder Berlin that I'm glad is resigned to the past.

Some sections of the wall are still standing as a monument. They're quite amazing to see covered in the murals painted to inspire thoughts of freedom and unity and to remind us of the pain it caused, but what always seems to amaze folks most the first time they see it is just how thin and small it was.

30 day challenge - Day 4

Day 4- A habit that you wish you didn’t have.

Hmmm, another toughie. Not because I don't have bad habits, quite the opposite in fact. There's lots to choose from, that's my problem here.

I'm currently going through a phase of self improvement in my life. An essential stage of this self improvement is self analysis and the more I look at myself the more I'm seeing that I don't like or I'm not proud of. There are many aspects of my personality that are doing me harm.

To choose one to express in this blog is therefore a toughie. And no, indecision is not normally a bad habit of mine.

I think I shall say a habit I wish I didn't have is a habit to distance myself from others. I choose this because I often use humour as a defence and a way of keeping people at arms length and, more often than not, this takes the form of sarcasm and acerbic wit. This can be hurtful to the people closest to me, the people I'd least like to hurt.