Wednesday 31 December 2014

New years ambitions

I've been thinking what I want to come out of 2015, and so I came up with this list of resolutions ambitions.

I think the most important thing is to get into a university to study audio engineering, specifically into either of my top choices; Cardiff or Liverpool.
To me, university seems like a good way to get out into the real world more, live independently, get to know more people, study a subject i'm interested in depth...there are lots of decent things about it and I just feel it's a logical step to take in progressing..through life?
Of course, I'll need to get decent grades for uni, so good A level results are by default an ambition.

Passing my driving theory test is also an important thing for me to do next year, mostly because of living in the middle of nowhere, which means relying on buses all the time. Being able to drive will also help with getting out and meeting people more often, as every time I go out, it's often a dilema of 'Why am I spending £5 on a bus fare to go out for half an hour" to exaggerate. Plus I need to be damn certain the plans i've made are going ahead, otherwise I may as well have chucked the £5 away..
I've booked my first (and hopefully last) practical test for the 9th of February, so i've got two months or so to bug my parents to come out driving with me!

Another thing I want/need to do is get a fucking job. I've been lazy about it this year. Tried looking around some local pubs, but they didn't need any staff. After that I got a bit lazy about it, but now that i'll hopefully be driving soon, it should give me more freedom in terms of looking wider for jobs, and not being tied to using public transport to get to them.

Musically, I want to practice guitar more often, and do more composition, maybe even have another shot at forming a band?
Also, more importantly I really want to get more recording done (of bands, sing-song artists..whatever I can do really), considering i'll be going to uni to study audio engineering, any experience will be good.
One thing I know that will be happening, is one of our music BTEC modules where we have to do Foli work and general sound design for a film or TV clip. This will probably be a good challenge, and i'll probably see if I can lead a few people from our class as a team, and go around collecting recordings for the project. We could always use copyright free samples downloaded off the web, but it seems i'm often prone to wanting to do things the hard way.

Right now, my last ambition of 2014 is to find something to do tonight for new years..

Friday 26 December 2014

Car

In my last blog post I said that I would upload more and better photos of my car.

So, as promised:







Also I should mention that I'm hoping to take the practical test around the end of January! That is if I can persuade my parents to come driving with me often enough..

Sunday 14 December 2014

Lack

I haven't been doing much of late. I can  pretty much summarize the last month by saying: gaming (lots..too much?), driving, lack of being social at weekends and being lazy with college work.

Being unemployed at the moment (At the moment, isn't necessary, and not that easy to find decent shifts, am likely to look for a job again in the new year), I find I have a lot of time over the weekends compared to other people working. This means it's not that easy to make social plans, so I haven't been going out many weekends. I can deal with it, but I find after a while I feel like I need to get back on track and regularly meet up with friends and hang out. I've also been slacking on college work, not to the point where it's hard to catch up (in most cases), but i'm not preparing ahead of time, and i'm starting to mentally feel that i'm not doing enough, which is probably true...

I've been using a fair bit of this up free time gaming, no-lifeing on World of Warcraft (usually two 4 hour nights a week at minimum, not counting the casual playing, which at a rough guess is more an hour or more per day?) which while it's kept me busy, lately i've started to become a little burnt out by it and sometimes thinking 'Why not play? I've got no particular things to be doing at the moment, and I don't feel like sorting out college work just yet'. I don't feel like quitting the game or gaming in general, however I feel like I should be changing my priorities in terms of the work/gaming balance and also spending much more of the times when i'm not gaming/doing college work socializing and meeting people.

I pretty think that I need to be more proactive. I've given myself enough time to laze out, now I need to get my life a bit more on track. 
...I could start by deep cleaning my now 2 months dirty room for fucks sake..

The positive thing that i've been doing is driving. I started lessons back at the end of September, and at the start of November, my wonderful parents brought me a car! This was both to start up an insurance premium, given how expensive it is for young drivers, and also to allow me to practice driving more. I now drive to college every day, which has benefited me a lot in terms of practicing routines and general driving skills. It's been nice to be able to drive in, as it means I can wake up later, and there aren't any repercussions if I don't get out of the house quick enough, which before would mean missing the bus to college. That said, because of this i've started to become very lax in my morning timekeeping, seemingly getting out of the door later and later as the weeks go by.

The car they brought me is a Toyota Yaris. It runs well, taking corners smoothly at speed, and generally in good condition over all for its age. Looking at the insides, you wouldn't think it was 12 years old. It's also really comfortable to sit in and all very straightforward to use. My only complaint about it is the fact that it's a two door car. Given that when i'm driving, someone is always in the passenger seat, I always have to shuffle the seats about to fit things in the back..but well, it's a minor issue, and frankly i'm lucky to have a car as it is...
I'm hoping to get the test out of the way around next January, so I can drive to and from college easily, it'll allow me much more mobility in terms of being social, and also in terms of jobs, I could then not be so restricted by assessing whether I could apply for a job based on it's distance from a bus stop.

Here is a rather shitty phone camera picture of my Yaris. I'll probably upload some decent pictures at some point in the future.