Spontaneity

Okay, bad news guys (why am I talking as if I have an audience? No one reads my blog lol as if anyone cares about my life pffft). Where was I... Oh yeah, bad news. Today, I got as much work done as I did yesterday, i.e. um... nothing. DUN DUN DUUUUUUN. YES, I know; it's terrible and I feel awful and I feel like a lazy muppet. Okay, I should have done at least some work today.
Good news is, I had a good reason for the majority of the slacking off I did today and shall now expound. (Also, for clarity's sake, I totally don't feel bad about getting no work done today which is probably a bad thing.)

Anyway, for those that don't know, I'm working towards a degree with the Open University. The main component I'm studying is Child Development but, just for my personal interest, I'm doing a beginner's Italian course and that's going okay. But the courses are what's called distance learning, i.e. you do it at home in your own space. The only problem with this is that it's easy to get the feeling that you're trapped. If you don't do anything to stop it, you can easily feel like you're stuck in your home with no escape. Which is totally not true; if anything you have a lot more freedom to just have a chilling day or something like that. But it's pretty easy to get into the cycle of study like mad, wear yourself down, panic that you're not getting enough done, work like mad, wear yourself down, panic that you're not getting enough done. Ad infinatum.
Which I think is what I've done lately. I've been getting so worked up about making sure I get enough work done to finish this course that I've forgotten the reason I started it and I've forgotten to live! I've forgotten to be me, to get out of this freakin' house every now and then. And so, today was a welcome relief. Mum had to go out to this big craft place in the sticks just outside of Norwich and I went along for the ride. I didn't really have any interest in the place but she said we'd go to the little café nearby and get something so I thought ah, what the heck; let's live dangerously here! I mean, I knew it was a deadly rebellious move to make but, you know, that's just the sort of person I am. The journey to said crafty place cause one of the many good things of today; my phone came along with me and along with my phone came Pokemon. Through an epic gaming session of Pokemon on the journey there (in which my Charmeleon evolved into Charizard!) the battery of my phone died. Sadly, I put my phone into my pocket to await the return home.
Mum's errands were run, coffee was drunk, scones were nommed and after a while the suggestion of a trip out to the coast for the afternoon was raised by mum. The question that hung in the air was whether or not I could affords the time out.
Live dangerously; that is my new motto. Off to the seaside town of Sheringham we went. I had no phone and no iPod; this was probably the only day I could say I was glad that I didn't have either.

Today was the best day I had for a while and it was blissfully simple. The journey there was as pleasant as the destination. We travelled through several little villages tucked out of the way of everyone with little terraced houses, classic thatched cottages, old farm houses and tumbledown barns. With perfect, blue sky overhead and the window wound down I relaxed and breathed. That something I've been forgetting to do; just breathing. Letting to world tell you that everything's OK and nothing's gonna happen. Then when we got to Sheringham it was Sun, scenery, a look at the sea, chips, orange juice, a new Doctor Who book and no technological interruptions. I know this is starting to sound like some new age, tree hugger type post, but looking back on it, it was like I'd rediscovered my senses. I felt the sun on my neck as I smelt that salt-and-vinegar tang from my chips and heard the crashing of the waves mixed with the odd call from one of the gulls drifting about. None of it spoiled by my attention grabbing phone or my concentration stealing iPod. There was one thing I missed and that was the connection with my girlfriend. That much is true. I missed the little texts sent to when she has a moment between lessons; to a guy who doesn't get to see his girlfriend very often, those little texts mean a lot. There were texts waiting for me which I had missed when, on arrival home, I plugged my phone in to charge, but for the sake of my sanity, I could let it off... Just this once.

As we were travelling through the country side, passing through loads of quaint little villages with lovely old houses and magnificent barns over fields with the empty blue skies over our heads I thought how glad I was that I'd decided to take this day out. I'm realising that, yes, I need to have a level of commitment and self-discipline with my courses, but equally I can't let them rule and ruin my life. What's the point of doing the courses if I don't live? If I spend all of my time indoors with my face in a book panicking that I haven't done enough to finish my latest assignment then I'll miss so much actual real life that's just drifting by outside my window.
Sometimes I think I just need to stop and smell the roses, proverbially speaking.

So long, sucka's.