---- brief life interlude ----

ok big time serious stuff now. i've got to get my life together. for three years i've been killing time acting like my big awesome future's just going to go drop right into my lap as soon as i leave uni but that's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. i don't know why i'm so complacent. almost everyone else seems to have some idea of what they WANT, even if they don't know what they want to DO to get that. but for me... i've always felt like there's something very definitely wrong inside me: that i just don't want stuff. that's the one part of me - the paradox i've also always implicitly BELIEVED that i'm gong to GET a whole bunch of things: money, a good job, posh holidays, great house etc. etc. but i've never even STARTED to parse those ambitions into achievable tasks, i've just fossilised the place i want to be then hung it up to admire but never become.

there's a big fat fig tree in front of me and i'm sitting down under it. and then maybe, i think, the reason i never stood up to pick a fig is because i'm scared that if i try to i'll find out i'm not tall enough. i gotta start LISTING what i want and then LISTING what i've got, and then let's do some CONNECT THE DOTS to get me started. but first, what do i think my options are.

OPTIONS:

law conversion
mba
linguistics course
fco job?
consultancy or something city-ish, start at the ground
languages somewhere


SKILLS

languages
figuring people out
fixing things
(writing) used to be good but then it atrophied
...

what the fuck else am i good at? i can't think of anything more. and i've got sod-all experience too

EXPERIENCE

ubs
parliament
jury?

only two items on that list could be passed off as real experience, and i did them SIX and FOUR years ago. when the fuck did i fall off the career wagon? i've been at a fucking IVY LEAGUE school for a year, and living in london for two, all these opportunities and possibilities and influential people around me, and i've done FUCK ALL to capitalise on that. i NEED to get some real work experience in ny this summer through steve, and then i NEED to get a job for some ngo or SOMETHING in london to go along with my final year. and then i really need to spend some time volunteering or something to get my cv filled. why the hell didn't i go to new orleans with mel to build houses or shit like that? i've done NOTHING in three years.

and still all i do is whine about it rather than actually make a plan. ok then, MAKE A PLAN

PLAN:

work in manhattan this summer (phony job)
get a job in london when i get back: ngo/consultancy
do BLOODY WELL in my last year (need a first)
volunteer abroad in the breaks? xmas etc?
SHOOT FOR THE HARDEST THINGS FIRST
so that means some kind of corporate job, fco, or an mba

this time next year i need to have applied to AT LEAST FIVE companies, and the fco, and maybe an mba too. yeah, that's a good idea. then if they all go tits up i can do an ma or a linguistics degree, or go work in europe.

oh yeah right that's something else that's key: i need to get a job that's going to let me TRAVEL AROUND. there's no use having these language talents if i don't use them. and i really really want to get some MONEY.

i think this all hinges of steve and an internship this summer while i'm in the us. but i don't even have a suit! it'll work out. then a week in california, go to tj for the visa, come back via new orleans maybe and then chill in florida, get back to london and work on getting a job or maybe try and find somewhere to work in paris (who can i work to make this happen?) so i can live with sam for two or three weeks there. yeah, i think that could be good for the ole c of v.

then, final year stuff. live in the house in borough with louise etc. that way i'll meet new people and i'll be far enough away from ucl that i'll have to go in often to get work done. then i have to get a job that's good for me. no more pissing my time away listening to records and smoking, i've done that enough and it's NOT good for me. maybe i will work in the corporate world for a bit. and that means COURTING THE GRADUATE RECRUITMENT PEOPLE.

ok ,so, three prong plan:

work in manhattan
do something in paris
live in borough
get a job in london
do graduate recruitment

well that was more than three prongs but whatever.


only thing left to do now is this SHITTY ESSAY. actually, i think it'll be really easy once the gay library guy hooks me up with some old cat to interview. then i'll just do net research. yeah, i can do that while the old folks are around. as long as i get the interview done asap... god i hope they can do it tomorrow. fat chance. why the fuck didn't i........ no, hang on, none of that. lamentation doesn't get me anywhere, it's all about IMMEDIATE change and improvement.

ok, cool.


maybe now i can sleep.

mail writers many use well syntax not

The most awkwardly phrased headline ever?


I've been in Van Pelt for a long time, ostensibly working on the 15-page paper that I promised myself I would hand in tomorrow. Whoop, calendar check: today. That really is goddamn sucky because the parents are arriving on Saturday (check: tomorrow) and it would have made things a lot easier if I could have removed my hand from my ass on Monday and starting doing this shit. Now I probably can't even interview someone until next Monday and I'll have to waste loads of time that could've been spent with parents and family on writing this bullshit.


I really have nothing to do but moan.

stay hungry, stay foolish

Thomas Sugrue was born in Detroit and studied history at Colombia, Cambridge and Harvard, wrote books on civil rights and the urban crisis, and was an expert witness on a few Supreme Court cases before he wound up lecturing about the 1960s to me and 60-odd other students at Penn. Apparently we're not the only people to realise he's a gifted speaker because according to his Wiki he often talks at commencements and that kind of thing. That's why I wasn't surprised when he asked us to observe a moment's silence before class this morning in honour of the Virginia Tech massacre, which took place a year ago today.

It was one more example of this force at work in America that I keep trying to get my head around. They're very good at things like that, the Americans. They have this talent for formality, which is pretty funny when you think how much they mock us Brits for the stiff upper lip and all that, but they really do it better. You can see the same process at work when they're singing the national anthem at baseball games, or asking people in the military to stand up at Sea World, or making their kids pledge allegiance to the flag in school; it's this impulse to regulate common activity, ostensibly to derive some greater benefit from it. In all honestly I'm still a long way from understanding it, but for the moment at least it suffices for me to realise that this is something totally alien to my experiences growing up in the UK. Yeah, I've got to think about it more before I can work out what they're up to.


In other news I have to start writing again and I'm planing on doing it here. I've taken shit for granted for way too long. Sooner or later I had to wake up and realise life ain't gonna be handed to be on no plate, sister. Hugh McLeod said something ages ago that slipped into my memory somehow and I wish it would go round in my head all the time as ferociously as it's been doing today: 90% of the difference between the people who are successful and the people who aren't is hard work. If only this would catalyse me into jumping up and doing something productive with my time instead of sitting in this room listening to Marianne Faithful. I swear I'm stuck between one mind 3 years younger than my body and one that's 13 years older. This is going nowhere. Well, it's a good start. Nobody ever struck an honesty well after one day of digging.


Bah.

revolutionary technique

i just came across this:

I was loosely circumcised at birth: I have a long inner foreskin remaining (about 2 inches), which spends most of the day folded up behind the glans. If I am sitting it usually covers the corona. The inner foreskin secretes smegma, and, especially in the hot weather, there is a noticeable odour, as well as moistness. Although I do not produce anywhere near the amount of smegma that I imagine an uncut man would, still I produce an amount which, during the summer at least, is inconvenient and unwanted. I think that the problem would have been obviated had I received a slightly tighter job: if the doctor had removed either more of the inner foreskin (possibly another inch or so) or if he had removed more of the shaft skin, resulting in a high-and-tight.

I had a room-mate some years back who had a low-and-tight cut, with very little inner skin, and a very smooth shaft. He never produced any smegma whatsoever.

The moral is, I guess, circumcision cures smegma-problems, but some styles (high and/or tight) cure it better than others.

Brad (from circlist.com)

wow, that's really interesting brad. you know, i've actually heard of another way you can deal with your 'smegma problem' that doesn't involve expensive surgery, weeks of recovery, and the loss of 80% of the nerves endings on your penis. i think it's called WASHING YOUR DICK.