I've not had much of a muse for writing these posts, I've been pretty busy with everything, and I just don't really feel like writing here, at least as much as I did when I started, so, as the title says, this will self destruct, when I feel like posting a little more, I apologise for not posting as much, but I really just want to work on some other projects of mine, more specifically the 3 writing projects I have on the go, and try and finish a couple of them.
I will see you when I get back from this sort of hiatus
-Craig
Friday 18 April 2014
Sunday 16 March 2014
Review #2 Looking for Alaska, by John Green
I seem to be going through all of the John Green books, which is fine by me, he's a good author and I've read a lot of his books, well all of them apart from Let it Snow, which was one that he worked on with 2 other authors.
Today I shall be reviewing my favourite book of his, the first one that I read; Looking for Alaska, which was also his first book to be released.
Let the review begin.
*****
Firstly, this book is incredibly well written, and the story flows very well, the character development is also very good.
The plot focuses around the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, who moves into a boarding school, where his room mate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin is already in a friend group, which Pudge soon joins, meeting Alaska, a wild girl who The Colonel is in love with, it's debatable whether Pudge is as well, or not.
Pudge has a knack for remembering the last words of famous people, which is a the topic of conversation the first time that him and Alaska are in private together, where she teaches him a new set of last words. A recurring theme for the book is the last words of two people, Thomas Edisons ("It's very beautiful over there") and Francois Rabelais ("I go to seek a great perhaps") both of which create conversation in the book, mostly between Pudge and Alaska, who spend a great deal of time together.
The group are smokers, drinkers and users of profane language, all of which were highlighted for Miles not to do, by his parents when he was leaving in the opening scene. The group are also all prankers, and are keen to carry out one of the largest pranks their school has ever seen. This is where another character is introduced: Takumi Hikohito, a friend of the group, keen prankster and owner of the Fox hat, he and Pudge are tasked with setting off numerous fire crackers, waking up a lot of the school, but mainly the principal, who proceeds to chase after them, letting the Colonel and Alaska sneak into his office to carry out their part of the deal, changing a group of student's grades, and also putting hair dye into the shampoo of the students.
The book is set up well, however not in the usual chapter format, however, in a set of sequences running up to the turning point in the book, an event that changes the course of the story, of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you, you can read it for yourselves.This event, is near the end of the book, so there wasn't much afterwards, but everything changed; everything ended up in trying to find out the cause of the event.
The book resolves, which is always good, however nothing was quite the same following the incident that the first 2/3 of the book was leading up to.
The book is, as said, very well written, everything is good about it, I can't really find any bad points about it, and I will also highly recommend that you read it, if you haven't already.
Today I shall be reviewing my favourite book of his, the first one that I read; Looking for Alaska, which was also his first book to be released.
Let the review begin.
*****
Firstly, this book is incredibly well written, and the story flows very well, the character development is also very good.
The plot focuses around the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, who moves into a boarding school, where his room mate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin is already in a friend group, which Pudge soon joins, meeting Alaska, a wild girl who The Colonel is in love with, it's debatable whether Pudge is as well, or not.
Pudge has a knack for remembering the last words of famous people, which is a the topic of conversation the first time that him and Alaska are in private together, where she teaches him a new set of last words. A recurring theme for the book is the last words of two people, Thomas Edisons ("It's very beautiful over there") and Francois Rabelais ("I go to seek a great perhaps") both of which create conversation in the book, mostly between Pudge and Alaska, who spend a great deal of time together.
The group are smokers, drinkers and users of profane language, all of which were highlighted for Miles not to do, by his parents when he was leaving in the opening scene. The group are also all prankers, and are keen to carry out one of the largest pranks their school has ever seen. This is where another character is introduced: Takumi Hikohito, a friend of the group, keen prankster and owner of the Fox hat, he and Pudge are tasked with setting off numerous fire crackers, waking up a lot of the school, but mainly the principal, who proceeds to chase after them, letting the Colonel and Alaska sneak into his office to carry out their part of the deal, changing a group of student's grades, and also putting hair dye into the shampoo of the students.
The book is set up well, however not in the usual chapter format, however, in a set of sequences running up to the turning point in the book, an event that changes the course of the story, of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you, you can read it for yourselves.This event, is near the end of the book, so there wasn't much afterwards, but everything changed; everything ended up in trying to find out the cause of the event.
The book resolves, which is always good, however nothing was quite the same following the incident that the first 2/3 of the book was leading up to.
The book is, as said, very well written, everything is good about it, I can't really find any bad points about it, and I will also highly recommend that you read it, if you haven't already.
Tuesday 4 March 2014
Two in two days? that's madness
Yes, another post, this time another poem 'The Listener' inspired heavily by the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and is also designed for spoken word
-Craig
-Craig
Listening, is a skill we all have although, let’s be honest not everyone uses that skill equally, some like to talk more and some like to listen more
that is where people tend to fall into two camps; you have the listeners, and you have the talkers. Everyone knows who the talkers are, they are the ones with the group of friends in the school playground, and you can often only hear one or two voices; the two prime talkers in the group, or if the talker is a little more friendly, more voices may be heard, but not everyone knows the listener
listeners are more quiet and don’t tend to join in discussion, another name for a listener is, a Wallflower, which is what we are, things that tend to stay outside of social groups, listening, rather than talking, and what we do say, is often more thought out and precise than what talkers say, however, wallflowers are often 1 or 2 conversations late, or can be.
I tend to fall in the middle, for me, it’s a social thing, if I’m with people I like and know, I’m definitely a talker, however, throw me into a situation in which I don’t know anyone, I will tend to be a wallflower, is there a name for someone like me? someone in the middle, who is a socially controlled talker?
can we make one?
please?
Monday 3 March 2014
'What made you realise you were bi?'
Well, I've escaped doing one of these for sometime, but I figured I'd give the story to those who were interested in it, my coming out 'story'
So, I came out to myself in the summer of 2012, however it goes back a few more years, actually, to about 2008/9, so that is where my story shall begin
So this is going back to early secondary school, at least year 8, maybe more realistically year 9 or maybe even year 10, so from 13-15 years of age for those of you outside of the UK, there was one lad who had joined the year group in year 8, and he was alright, somewhat of a good friend although a little too argumentative in my mind, I think now, looking back at it, he had a small case of small man's syndrome (Google it if you are unaware of what it is) but either way, slowly, I sort of developed a sort of attraction to him, nothing major, just your typical early highschool crush, he was good looking, not going to lie, he was good looking, although nothing developed out of it, it was pretty clear that he was straight, and of course, I didn't want to be seen as different, so I kept on going, not really thinking much on it. That is where this story freezes for a few years
We moved up from London to Norfolk, in July 2012, just having finished my GCSE exams, and since the whole incident with my friend, finding him attractive and all, I was starting to look at other males and finding them attractive, although no one from my school or anything like that, more just sort of actors and musicians (Notably, Chris Evans (Human Torch, Captain America)) and I started to pay a little less attention to females, and then in the summer of 2012, I was perusing through Tumblr, and I found a couple of LGBT blogs, and they sort of opened my eyes to bisexuality and what that was and such, and I realised that the crush I had on my friend, was a little more than I thought it was; it was my brain telling me that I was in fact a little bi, and as time has progressed, I've found that I'm a lot bi, I like to think of it as at least 75:25 males: females in terms of my attraction to each gender.
I started coming out to some close friends, those who I could trust, and those who I knew I could trust, and I eventually came out to my parents in mid 2013, they were supportive and still are, although they don't really talk about it a lot, which is good, I don't really like talking about it to them, although I will do with friends.
So yeah, that's me, that's my somewhat story, a little uninteresting, but whatever, it's what I have and it's what I'll be using when people ask me the question that is in the title of this post.
-Craig
So, I came out to myself in the summer of 2012, however it goes back a few more years, actually, to about 2008/9, so that is where my story shall begin
So this is going back to early secondary school, at least year 8, maybe more realistically year 9 or maybe even year 10, so from 13-15 years of age for those of you outside of the UK, there was one lad who had joined the year group in year 8, and he was alright, somewhat of a good friend although a little too argumentative in my mind, I think now, looking back at it, he had a small case of small man's syndrome (Google it if you are unaware of what it is) but either way, slowly, I sort of developed a sort of attraction to him, nothing major, just your typical early highschool crush, he was good looking, not going to lie, he was good looking, although nothing developed out of it, it was pretty clear that he was straight, and of course, I didn't want to be seen as different, so I kept on going, not really thinking much on it. That is where this story freezes for a few years
We moved up from London to Norfolk, in July 2012, just having finished my GCSE exams, and since the whole incident with my friend, finding him attractive and all, I was starting to look at other males and finding them attractive, although no one from my school or anything like that, more just sort of actors and musicians (Notably, Chris Evans (Human Torch, Captain America)) and I started to pay a little less attention to females, and then in the summer of 2012, I was perusing through Tumblr, and I found a couple of LGBT blogs, and they sort of opened my eyes to bisexuality and what that was and such, and I realised that the crush I had on my friend, was a little more than I thought it was; it was my brain telling me that I was in fact a little bi, and as time has progressed, I've found that I'm a lot bi, I like to think of it as at least 75:25 males: females in terms of my attraction to each gender.
I started coming out to some close friends, those who I could trust, and those who I knew I could trust, and I eventually came out to my parents in mid 2013, they were supportive and still are, although they don't really talk about it a lot, which is good, I don't really like talking about it to them, although I will do with friends.
So yeah, that's me, that's my somewhat story, a little uninteresting, but whatever, it's what I have and it's what I'll be using when people ask me the question that is in the title of this post.
-Craig
Sunday 23 February 2014
Lack of updates
I've been lazy with updating this, which is annoying because I want to use this in the future to look back and see what I was doing at the time of each post, so yeah, a little annoying, but oh well.
So, I've been on half term, if you're outside the UK you probably won't know what that is, but if you wanna know, I'm sure there's a google search you can do to look up the British education system. On this half term, I've been thinking a lot, and watching a lot of martial artsy stuff. For those who don't know I've had 12 years of martial arts experience, Karate and Taekwondo, and my most prized possession and greatest achievement to date was getting my black belt in karate, it took 10 years of training, and also two attempts, but I got it, and it wasn't at a private black belt grading either, like my first attempt, it was at a public grading with the whole class watching me, it was such a nerve wracking thing for me, since I was the only black belt grading, and there were at least two of each other belt grading, so all eyes were on me, it felt like it lasted a lot longer, but at the end of the couple of hours I was presented with a certificate, and my belt, and it's still with me today, and I'm still super proud of it. I've just been thinking about what it'd be like to do the Taekwondo system as well, go through the seminars, go to the grading with loads of other red belts and black belts from schools all over the country, seeing some of the biggest names in british taekwondo, it's just something I really aspire towards, I think it'd would be incredible to do and I can't wait for it to happen.
I've also been working on school work, which has lessened my time on the internet for personal interest, like filling out this blog, or working on writing projects, but still, I feel like I've done enough to get away with writing a little post, here or there, which will be coming more frequently, whenever I get the time or ideas, as I've also been suffering a large case of writer's block, which as been not only affecting my writing projects, but also coursework for school as well, which is never good.
But still, more posts will be coming out over the next couple of weeks, maybe even a photo or two, of the black belt, and other such things if I can find them.
-Craig
So, I've been on half term, if you're outside the UK you probably won't know what that is, but if you wanna know, I'm sure there's a google search you can do to look up the British education system. On this half term, I've been thinking a lot, and watching a lot of martial artsy stuff. For those who don't know I've had 12 years of martial arts experience, Karate and Taekwondo, and my most prized possession and greatest achievement to date was getting my black belt in karate, it took 10 years of training, and also two attempts, but I got it, and it wasn't at a private black belt grading either, like my first attempt, it was at a public grading with the whole class watching me, it was such a nerve wracking thing for me, since I was the only black belt grading, and there were at least two of each other belt grading, so all eyes were on me, it felt like it lasted a lot longer, but at the end of the couple of hours I was presented with a certificate, and my belt, and it's still with me today, and I'm still super proud of it. I've just been thinking about what it'd be like to do the Taekwondo system as well, go through the seminars, go to the grading with loads of other red belts and black belts from schools all over the country, seeing some of the biggest names in british taekwondo, it's just something I really aspire towards, I think it'd would be incredible to do and I can't wait for it to happen.
I've also been working on school work, which has lessened my time on the internet for personal interest, like filling out this blog, or working on writing projects, but still, I feel like I've done enough to get away with writing a little post, here or there, which will be coming more frequently, whenever I get the time or ideas, as I've also been suffering a large case of writer's block, which as been not only affecting my writing projects, but also coursework for school as well, which is never good.
But still, more posts will be coming out over the next couple of weeks, maybe even a photo or two, of the black belt, and other such things if I can find them.
-Craig
Saturday 8 February 2014
Finishing things
Hullo
One of the main pieces of advice that I've been given as a wannabe writer, from a few authors, is to finish things. That may seem obvious, but of course, that may seem obvious doesn't it?
you want to be a writer, you have to have finished manuscripts to send off to your publisher.
Finishing things isn't just about having a manuscript to hand over to your agent, or to the publisher themselves, finishing things is about tackling and completing a challenge and can be applied to any thing in life, not just a manuscript, are you a musician? finish your album, or the current song you're working on, rise to the challenge of finishing your next step in life, could be a life changing thing such as a manuscript or an album, or it could be a simple thing like a piece of homework or coursework, either way, the act of finishing things makes you calmer, as it's one more thing done, it can also make your next piece of work better, going back to the art of storytelling, if you finish drafts, if you finish paragraphs, if you finish the whole story, it will make the next one better, because you're learning the art of writing, you're learning how it all fits together, how each sentence pieces together to create the overall idea or scene, or character development, now, I use the storytelling example a lot, because that's what I do, I tell stories, and I need to learn to finish things, and I am planning on finally finishing my zombie apocalypse short(ish) story, which I may put online for digital purchase through the Kindle Marketplace. I may even read it a chapter at a time and put it on bandcamp for you to listen to, if that seems like a good idea. I plan to have it done by the end of the year, fully finished, and ready for publishing, if my artist can finish of the cover idea for it, it'll all be good, and then I will publish it through the Amazon Kindle publishing, and I am seriously considering a little audio project with it, recording on to bandcamp.
This may have been some elongated post about me planning to finish my zombie story, or it could be some sort of philosophical idea about the art of starting and finishing a task, but oh well, take it as you want to, as long as get something out of it. Whatever you decide to interpret this post as, I hope you get something out of it, whether it makes you strive to complete more tasks, or even finish a piece of homework you're stuck on, or whatever, that would be nice, I would see this post as completing its task; getting you to finish yours
- Craig
One of the main pieces of advice that I've been given as a wannabe writer, from a few authors, is to finish things. That may seem obvious, but of course, that may seem obvious doesn't it?
you want to be a writer, you have to have finished manuscripts to send off to your publisher.
Finishing things isn't just about having a manuscript to hand over to your agent, or to the publisher themselves, finishing things is about tackling and completing a challenge and can be applied to any thing in life, not just a manuscript, are you a musician? finish your album, or the current song you're working on, rise to the challenge of finishing your next step in life, could be a life changing thing such as a manuscript or an album, or it could be a simple thing like a piece of homework or coursework, either way, the act of finishing things makes you calmer, as it's one more thing done, it can also make your next piece of work better, going back to the art of storytelling, if you finish drafts, if you finish paragraphs, if you finish the whole story, it will make the next one better, because you're learning the art of writing, you're learning how it all fits together, how each sentence pieces together to create the overall idea or scene, or character development, now, I use the storytelling example a lot, because that's what I do, I tell stories, and I need to learn to finish things, and I am planning on finally finishing my zombie apocalypse short(ish) story, which I may put online for digital purchase through the Kindle Marketplace. I may even read it a chapter at a time and put it on bandcamp for you to listen to, if that seems like a good idea. I plan to have it done by the end of the year, fully finished, and ready for publishing, if my artist can finish of the cover idea for it, it'll all be good, and then I will publish it through the Amazon Kindle publishing, and I am seriously considering a little audio project with it, recording on to bandcamp.
This may have been some elongated post about me planning to finish my zombie story, or it could be some sort of philosophical idea about the art of starting and finishing a task, but oh well, take it as you want to, as long as get something out of it. Whatever you decide to interpret this post as, I hope you get something out of it, whether it makes you strive to complete more tasks, or even finish a piece of homework you're stuck on, or whatever, that would be nice, I would see this post as completing its task; getting you to finish yours
- Craig
Monday 3 February 2014
The day out in Norwich
Hullo
I thought I'd say a little about my day, nothing too riveting, just talking about the day out that I had as part of a sociology trip.
Well, it was supposed to be a sociology trip, a trip to Norwich, Norwich Crown court to be exact. We were going to the court as part of a unit 4 which is Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods, which if you do Sociology you probably would understand that, but for now, the sociology course is broken into 4 units, over the 2 year course, 2 units in year 1 and 2 in year 2, we were on this trip for unit 4 which focuses on crime, deviance and punishment, and in that the legal system and our teachers saw it useful to go to the crown court as it was a free trip and we got to be public witnesses in a few court sessions.
So with background out of the way, lets get into some details about the trip, after the 1hr long car journey in which a bunch of 17/18 year olds were playing eye spy (yes, we're that cool) we finally got to the court and we were taken into one of the courts (court 3 of 4) to have a general overview of the runnings of a court case and who was involved and where they all sat and things like that, after which we were split into groups and were able to go and have a view in to one or more of the court sessions, me and 3 others decided to have a look into court 4, which was one of the smaller courts and one of the most productive. n the space of about an hour we went through 7 cases, although not in detail, a lot of postponing until further notice, due to lack of evidence, due to lack of witnesses, and all sorts, so we learnt that court officials are very negotiable, and also very busy. I also observed that loads of them had lots of paper work, large amounts of it, for each session and case they were present in, a few barristers had macbook airs, which would have been a lot more easier to work with and I feel that a lot more barristers should swap to a laptop as it would be so much more practical than carrying around so much paper work, which would take forever to organise and shift through. there were a few laughs in court 4, although I feel we lucked out as court 3 had a very interesting yet sensitive case, which a few people got to watch.
After that, we had a look in court 2, which was much the same as court 4, but a little more interesting, being told that we'd get to see the swearing of the jury in which the jury either swore an oath on the bible or made a promise. We were told that they would do that a 12, so we went at 12 and then that was postponed to 12:45, so we came back at 12:45 and we sat in the session, hearing the fact that the Jury would not be needed, so we sat through the case either way, which was a somewhat interesting.
After that we decided as a group that we had had enough of the court sessions and we went for lunch, having a relatively short walk in to Norwich itself, splitting up again and finding areas to eat, my 'group' went to Subway, having had Subway we had about 40 minutes in which we could explore and go have a wander until we were needed to go back to the minibus to go back to school, we went to the Dr Martens store and then to the very large HMV store before heading back to the group and back to the bus, having another 1hr journey in which I went to sleep.
That was a quick run through of my Sociology trip, into Norwich
-Craig
I thought I'd say a little about my day, nothing too riveting, just talking about the day out that I had as part of a sociology trip.
Well, it was supposed to be a sociology trip, a trip to Norwich, Norwich Crown court to be exact. We were going to the court as part of a unit 4 which is Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods, which if you do Sociology you probably would understand that, but for now, the sociology course is broken into 4 units, over the 2 year course, 2 units in year 1 and 2 in year 2, we were on this trip for unit 4 which focuses on crime, deviance and punishment, and in that the legal system and our teachers saw it useful to go to the crown court as it was a free trip and we got to be public witnesses in a few court sessions.
So with background out of the way, lets get into some details about the trip, after the 1hr long car journey in which a bunch of 17/18 year olds were playing eye spy (yes, we're that cool) we finally got to the court and we were taken into one of the courts (court 3 of 4) to have a general overview of the runnings of a court case and who was involved and where they all sat and things like that, after which we were split into groups and were able to go and have a view in to one or more of the court sessions, me and 3 others decided to have a look into court 4, which was one of the smaller courts and one of the most productive. n the space of about an hour we went through 7 cases, although not in detail, a lot of postponing until further notice, due to lack of evidence, due to lack of witnesses, and all sorts, so we learnt that court officials are very negotiable, and also very busy. I also observed that loads of them had lots of paper work, large amounts of it, for each session and case they were present in, a few barristers had macbook airs, which would have been a lot more easier to work with and I feel that a lot more barristers should swap to a laptop as it would be so much more practical than carrying around so much paper work, which would take forever to organise and shift through. there were a few laughs in court 4, although I feel we lucked out as court 3 had a very interesting yet sensitive case, which a few people got to watch.
After that, we had a look in court 2, which was much the same as court 4, but a little more interesting, being told that we'd get to see the swearing of the jury in which the jury either swore an oath on the bible or made a promise. We were told that they would do that a 12, so we went at 12 and then that was postponed to 12:45, so we came back at 12:45 and we sat in the session, hearing the fact that the Jury would not be needed, so we sat through the case either way, which was a somewhat interesting.
After that we decided as a group that we had had enough of the court sessions and we went for lunch, having a relatively short walk in to Norwich itself, splitting up again and finding areas to eat, my 'group' went to Subway, having had Subway we had about 40 minutes in which we could explore and go have a wander until we were needed to go back to the minibus to go back to school, we went to the Dr Martens store and then to the very large HMV store before heading back to the group and back to the bus, having another 1hr journey in which I went to sleep.
That was a quick run through of my Sociology trip, into Norwich
-Craig
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