A life changing moment

It’s not every day that your entire existence and purpose in life is called into question. It’s not even every day. At most, it’s once a fortnight, and even that can be called a busy couple of weeks.

Before this point, I’d pretty much set my life plan out. Psychology at university, become a journalist, marry a surgeon, become editor of the Guardian, retire onto an island. Not Ireland, a proper one. I was so sure that this was the path that my life would take (minus the surgeon part, I would be just as happy to marry a Hollywood actress or one or more of the Saturdays), that I took all the precautions to achieve this. All my A level choices and all my work experience is geared towards that path. No flexibility to accommodate any potentially life changing epiphanies that might arise.

I many terrible habits, anyone who went to my old school will testify as to how long I spent with my finger up my nose until the age of 8. One of these which I still suffer from is that I have a tendency to look at someone doing something and think “It’s good……I could do that! Probably better.”

The only reason I ended up watching this film was because I had money left over on an iTunes voucher and it was on special offer. Either this was fate, or no one was buying it at full price. I like to think it was both. I had been looking for an action, romcom or murder mystery film (lolwut?!), but the title attracted me to this.

Bowling for Columbine. What’s not to like? I know what bowling is (a game where you try to knock down pins by rolling a ball at them). I know what Columbine was (a tragic high school massacre in which 12 students and 1 teacher was murdered). I’m sure that everyone, knowing this information, would certainly want to watch it.

I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a documentary. I thought documentaries are either videos of penguins with Morgan Freeman and David Attenborough talking over them, or programs on Channel 5 in which incredibly fat people talk about being incredibly fat. This was something else.

A film by someone called Michael Moore, who is basically a left-wing whinger like me, Bowling for Columbine was a powerfully moving film about the weapon crisis in America, and the public’s attitude towards it. Through its masterful imagery and penetrating investigative journalism, the film is both informative as to the problem, and persuasive, making the watcher want to take action. It is wonderful in many ways, not only entertainment, but entertainment with a message. Entertainment that can change the world and make it a better, safer place. I watched this and thought “This is utterly amazing…………I could do that!”

Watching it was possibly a life changing moment, because it completely changed what I want to do as a career. Admittedly, this may not last long (I used to want to be a spaceman), but at the moment it seems to be where I want to go. If anyone hasn’t seen any Michael Moore films, I would recommend this, and also Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko. He is brilliant. If anyone has never seen any documentaries, then what are doing? Seriously, drop everything and go and watch March of the Penguins. It’s a video of penguins, with Morgan Freeman narrating! And not a single high school massacre in sight, what’s not to love?

This one experience has completely changed what I want to do with my life, I want to be a film maker. I want to make films that inspire people and change people. But I still want to marry a Saturday. Preferably Una or Frankie.

I have a dream

I had a dream last night.

I know, a terrible opener for both a blog entry, and any conversation ever. If anyone ever starts a conversation with me telling me about their dreams, I immediately join in with the spirit of the conversation. By daydreaming. Don’t worry, the ending’s even worse.

Bare with me, I had a dream last night. Since getting a new (and unbelievable comfy) mattress, I’ve been sleeping much deeper, and getting some REM in. Not the band, although anyone who knows their stuff about REM, or like me, has looked at their wikipedia page, will know that REM comes from rapid eye movement, which is what you do when you dream. So in this case, I was dreaming, rather than listening to REM. Although I can recommend that too.

Since I found out about the concept, I’ve been desperate to be able to lucid dream. This is where once you’ve recognised that you’re in a dream, you can control the events, rather than just going along with it. Apparently there’s a technique to it, so I’ve put it on my list of things to learn to do, along with drive a car and make people think I’m normal.

When I dream, though, I am absolutely sold to it. I have no idea that each 20 minute period (most dreams only last 15-20 minutes), aren’t reality, for their duration anyway. Sometimes, when I wake up, I am genuinely surprised that I’m not a dragon, and have never have been. And let’s be honest, a little disappointed.

What dreams have a habit of doing is portraying the world in a way that I, subconsciously, want it to be. A few days ago, I had a dream where I was going out with a girl, and she was perfect. Not conventionally beautiful, but in my rapidly moving eyes, she was perfect. She was blonde which surprised me, as my usual preference is brunette, but everything seemed right so it didn’t matter. What struck me most was her perfect personality. Everything she did and said was exactly how I would’ve wanted her to do and say, and she exactly shared my sense of humour and interests. I’d found the one.

Here’s a fact that I found interesting, when you dream, everyone you see in your dream is a face that you’ve seen before in real life. Your brain lacks the power to invent faces, so everyone you see is someone your brain has stored, be them a local news reporter, a lollipop lady or the Pope. Remembering this, I realised that my perfect woman must actually exist, so I took to Google. Not too much looking revealed her to be actress Rachel McAdams, off of out of Mean Girls and Sherlock Holmes. What my brain had done was essentially taken Rachel McAdams’ face, and given her my personality. Shame, our children were beautiful.

I am fully aware that this entire post has been entirely self-indulgent and not particularly entertaining. So true to form, and as promised, it was have a rubbish ending, the ending you’re never supposed to use. Brace yourself……

….and then I woke up.

The Holy Apartheid Lesbian Hunger Games and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Despite the fact that the mantra ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ has been drilled into everyone since birth, we still do. Frankly, it’s a stupid phrase, saying that to judge a book, we have to read it in its entirety, meaning that to know what the best books are, we have to have read all of them. That would take loads of books, as there are 129,864,880 books in the world (well at least according to http://www.fastcompany.com/1678254/how-many-books-are-there-in-the-world, and I don’t know why I bothered finding out when I could’ve just made one up. Like you could prove me wrong). Why not just decide what the best books are as the ones with the prettiest pictures on the front?

I have noticed a similar pattern happening with the hits on this blog, with the most hits being on the posts with the most interesting titles. The top 3 have been;

1. KONY 2012. 156 views. It was topical, back when everybody cared. Come to think of it, that went pretty quickly.
2. I am an idiot. 127 views. Presumably because people already had suspicions that I am an idiot, and wanted it confirming.
3. Sexual Bucket List. 123 views. Because you are all perverts.

In my opinions the best posts, ‘Stereotypicality’ (69 veiws) and ‘I have been warned’ (71 veiws) haven’t had nearly as many views simply because the titles haven’t been eye-catching.

Therefore, for this post, I have gone the opposite way, and gone all out for the title that will attract the most people, and then just blogged about what’s ended up on the page after I’ve mindlessly typed for a while. As far as I’m aware, the quality of the piece will bear no effect on the popularity, and given that my ego now almost entirely rests on the number of hits this blog gets, I thought I’d go for it.

I have sorry if I’ve left you out of the title. As far as I’m aware, I’ve increased my demographic to include

Lesbian-pretty much all boys

Hunger Games-topical

Deathly Hallows-most girls

Holy-the Pope

Apartheid-if that doesn’t grab Nelson Mandela’s attention, I don’t know what will.

Stereotypicality

In the culture we’re in, there are very definite stereo social norms (too much comms is bad for you). A lot of things are just expected from us, like boys have short hair, and girls having long hair, unless they are a, ah-hum, oh never mind. Anyway, point is, everyone tends to fit to a certain mould. There are then little facts that set each of us apart from the norm. These makes us interesting, and unique.

Let’s start with the norm, the stereotype.
Btw these aren’t bases on real people. So don’t cry.

His name is Will. Or James, something along those lines. He goes to school, drifts through lessons, but does his homework. He got a couple of As and mostly Bs at GCSE (I’m a grammar boy, my standards are high), and 2 Cs in chemistry and Drama. On the week days he plays Call of Duty and plays football on saturday mornings. Probably at left back. He isn’t really very good, but he’s been going since he was 9, so he gets the occasional game out of pity. He has scored 3 own goals this season. He’s not very interesting at all, and frankly he couldn’t hold a conversation if it had handles (some of the jokes are purely for my benefit).

Her name is Sophie. Or Hannah. She enjoys school, especially being around her circle of friends. She doesn’t know that all her ‘friends’ hate her and hang around with her through pity. She does have issue with her weight. She thinks she’s fat, and she is a little bit, but not as fat as she thinks she is. She has had two boyfriends. The first was called Dan, and he was 3 years older than her. She dumped him when she realised that he was only with her for her size 34C boobs, he didn’t even know her surname. The other was Josh, a shy boy her age who’d asked her out in an hilarious mix up, and hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he didn’t really want to go out with her in their entire 5 month relationship. They never even held hands.

Ok, so I have kinda gone to town on the old stereotypes, but you get the point. Here are my facts which make me, me.

• I have more musical instruments than I do fingers (this is a comment on my abnormal number of instruments, rather than my abnormal number of fingers)
• I have played guitar since I was 4, over 75% of my life. That figure will only rise
• I have my own blog. Obviously, but do you?
• I have very little sense of embarrassment. This is coming from someone who thought vlogs were a good idea. And plans to do more.
• I dropped maths, the only subject I was actually good at, for A level. This isn’t really an interesting fact, it’s just a stupid decision.
• None of my family have ever heard me swear. It went from being scared of them hearing me, to it just being a point of interest as to how long I could keep it up. They swear at me all the time. My dad calls me some very horrible things.

If everyone in the world were like me

I read somewhere that everyone is the protagonist in their own life, which I really like. Reminds you that even if people are doing something wrong or annoying, they are not doing it to annoy you, just trying to improve their life somehow. On giving my not-particularly-renowned relationship advice this afternoon (I don’t seem to get better the more I give), I found this person presented with the conundrum of having been effectively asked out by two different boys at the same time, giving an annoying but yet pleasant problem of who to disappoint. Both were described to me, the first lovely, kind, probably quite naive at potentially a rubbish boyfriend, but through lack of practice rather than anything else. Fair to say, I would probably get on with him quite well, we are very similar. The second, from the limited information I have, bit of a player, bit of a tool, not exactly the kind of person I’d get on with. Which made me think, if I were another person, would I get on with myself? And what would the world be like if everyone were like me?

If you’ve gathered one thing from this blog, I’m a big fan of list;

• There would be no more small talk. It is one of my pet hates. I don’t have a problem with it in principle, in fact I am happy to admit that the only reason I don’t like it is because I’m rubbish at it. A phatic conversation (small talk) is bad enough with one of me involved, so with both sides being as accomplished as I am at small talk, most conversations would go like this

“Hi”
”Hey, you alright?”
”Yeah I’m good actually, what about you?”
”I’m pretty good too, thanks”
”…………………”
”Well, see you around anyway”

• Parties would be the most civilised places on Earth. I am a really polite drunk, losing my inhibitions doesn’t cause me to want to do things with people I wouldn’t normally, but it does help me display that gratitude that I had previously been too shy to do. Mainly aimed at the parents whose house the party’s in. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a mum-charming machine.
• There would be days when nothing is said. Some days, I’m just not in the mood for people. I’ll just stay in and read a book, or just think about thinking until I’m too tired to think. People tend to assume that something terrible has happened to me to shut me up for such long periods of time, but I am often at my most happy when I’m in these moods. But what if the whole world had one of these moods at the same time? Well among other things, nothing would get done.
• No one would ever win any sport. I’m not particularly unfit, and I’ve got good hand eye coordination. The only obvious reason that I am particularly bad at sport is that I don’t tend to bother. I don’t really get much from winning, so I don’t tend to try. Imagine a 100m Olympic final where no one really wanted to win that much, it would probably take at least 20 seconds, or they’ll just agree to sell the medals and use the money they earn to share out unholy amounts of candyfloss.
• There would be no more arguments, because I would be right about everything. I mean I already am, but I wouldn’t have to persuade people I am.

I have been warned

When universities research their applicants, they take many precautions. Obviously, they’ll check to see if I’ve got a criminal record, and check to see if I’m off that register that naughty men go on when they forgo their responsibilities as a scout leader. I have also been warned that, in this modern day and age, they Google their applicants. Which in my case will lead them to reading this. Just in case this does happen in the future…

HELLO UNIVERSITY PEOPLE!
Please let me go to your university. I promise I’ll be good, and I swear that my inevitably disappointing A Levels are only a minor glitch in my otherwise prosperous career.

This is assuming, of course, that they have got the right Ben Baruch. We’re not as scarce as you might expect.

Other Ben Baruchs include

1) Ben Baruch

The author of the “Shabbot 6000” cartoon strip. With such hilarious jokes as:

“I went to a gay Jewish wedding. One of the grooms ended up with a broken foot. There was some confusion over who would be breaking the wine glass!”

I know, comedy gold. If you don’t understand it, you probably aren’t Jewish enough.

2) Meir Ben Baruch

Lived 1215 to 1293. Unsurprisingly, also Jewish.

He was a major author of the tosafot on Rashi’s commentary on the Talmud. I don’t know what that means.

3) Ben Baruch

Polish singer whose only available recordings are from 1949-1950. Specialised in traditional Jewish songs. Who’d’ve guessed?

The name Ben Baruch hasn’t exactly produced many great people, given that the fourth Ben Baruch I found was me. Interestingly, there are hundreds of Ben Baruchs on facebook. Some are boys, some are girls, some live in America, some live in Israel. In fact, the only strong pattern that can be seen is the sheer number of Ben Baruchs wearing Jew-hats in their profile pictures. And I use the phrase Jew-hat reluctantly, knowing that no one would’ve known what I was talking about if I gave its proper name. Because you are not Jewish enough, we’ve established this. 

KONY 2012

Oh dear. Serious alert.

This blog is supposed to be light hearted, fun, and just a bit of practice writing. And I don’t get annoyed very easily. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get annoyed at the KONY 2012 campaign, I got annoyed at the reaction to it.

The backlash by supposedly rational people has been extraordinary. This is a campaign about bringing to justice someone who abuses thousands of children, but apparently it’s not important because AIDS exists. And people are dying from malnourishment. So what does it matter if one little girl is sold into the sex trade, or one little boy is shot in war when he should be at school? We need to get our priorities right, don’t we?

This is the viewpoint of a staggering amount of people (ok, apart from the graphic descriptions I’ve put in to make them sound stupid). We should not be looking for Kony, because there are other, admittedly bigger problems in the world. Malnutrition claims the life of (warning: badly researched statistic) 6 million children every year, that is what we should be worried about. Anyone who thinks this is sensible and has  a sense of perspective. They have also massively missed the point.

Before today, or whenever this Kony thing started, everyone knew about malnutrition. Of course people are starving in Africa, that’s how it’s been all our lives. No one had heard of Joseph Kony. He is an atrocious man, no one is denying that, perhaps aside from him and his 60 wives and 42 children. He is also a problem that can be solved with one, well directed bullet. World hunger is not. Anyone who says that America’s priorities are misguided has probably not put a second thought into it.

I don’t like to sit on the fence, but I do love to shoot both arguments down. What good is it for a middle class 16 year old from England to watch a video about a terrible man, given that I have no idea where he is, or how to find him. And I’m certainly not going to help bring him to justice. Sometimes, raising awareness is futile. Raising awareness for AIDS is important, for I may someday catch it myself, raising awareness of world hunger is important because next time I want to buy a book, I will go to the Oxfam book shop, rather than Waterstones, knowing that at least some of the money from my Dilbert book will go to helping solve world hunger. I have nothing to do with Kony and knowing about it isn’t going to help.

So everybody who is saying that this campaign is pointless because there is still hunger in the world, do something to help solve it. Since 2006 I’ve ‘adopted’ a Gambian boy, although I had to leave him there because he was too heavy to go in my luggage. But I still pay for his food and schooling. Nothing will be helped by moaning about someone else’s charitable causes. And nothing will be helped by watching the Kony video either, although at least it has stirred up some interesting debate.

There are better videos to watch on youtube, some that will at least do some good. Like make you happy, make you laugh. Here’s one. It’s simply entitled “Fat People Falling Over”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNupRTfpM9s