Sunday
18th January 2009: 7.39pm, and it's my annual
birthday entry - yes, I have become thirty-one years old now. Thirty-one
is a silly age in my mind: it's not thirty, and it's not thirty two.
Thirty-one is somehow in between everything else - even
thirty-one's Wikipedia page is significantly shorter than
thirty's or
thirty-two's!
It's been a long year, and much to my surprise I can once again say
for the third year in a row that I did not feel any depression at the
lack of things accomplished in the past year. Unlike
in
last year's entry where the successes were fairly metaphysical, this
year my accomplishments are definitely more material:
- Graduated from St. Andrews
Much as a degree is irrelevant, graduation did definitively mark the
end of the St. Andrews movement: what we all began some four years
beforehand passed a point of inflexion, and for the next few years
we will all reap the consequences of what we sowed plus of course
begin new movements which sweep us away from the St. Andrews
experience. In three years or so, few if none of us will still be in
contact, and even if we were we will no longer have much resonance
with one another's lives and therefore the connection will have
passed. Those of us who are lucky will find new connections to
propel them on into the future, however most of us will be consigned
to quite a few years of loneliness and self-suffocation, surrounded
by people we know but with whom we do not resonate.
Depressing? Maybe. However, had I not reacted to that they way I
did, St. Andrews would not have been what it was for so many of us.
And I certainly wouldn't be dating Megan right now!
- Wrote a book
A lot of people dream of writing a book someday, many start a book
but few finish one. Of those, most won't find a publisher and even
of those who do, very few will have any success.
Now, I know from the accruing feedback from the first draft that the
entire damn thing is going to have to be rewritten from scratch this
summer break - which is pretty painful, but at least I can publish
the existing thing online for those masochistic enough to read it
with perhaps advertising support as the revenue stream. I knew that
it would be unlikely I would hit the button on the first attempt,
and the feedback does suggest that I have attempted too much for one
book to have any realistic expectation that anyone will invest the
requisite effort to read it. I mean, if even my close friends won't
invest the time to understand it, then I certainly can't expect the
average time pressed member of the public to do so.
However, at least I now have a starting point from which to base a
set of much more honed & focused books. Perhaps a set of rapid fire
quick release eighty page books like a machine gun? Certainly
improves the revenue stream and keeps an author in the limelight. I
need a publisher first of course - that's the next step.
- Moved with Megan to Ireland
Prosaic as it may seem, "I got me a girl to come be with me" and
she's a super girl at that. And despite the long hours and the
pointless hoop jumping willy waving courses we are both on, life is
comfortable enough even if we still don't have a clue what we're
going to do next. We certainly could do with some more money given
the fairly ridiculous number of hours we work doing other people's
shite. Both myself and Megan are getting sick & tired of being cash
poor & time poor, but I suppose we have just ten weeks until
lectures end and hence, some freedom to choose our days!
Regarding the book, we have an improved book cover whose blurb shall
be theoretically tantalising the publishers:
As you can see from the watermarks, the first back cover is for
European markets and the second is for the US - and my thanks to
the ClearScale utility from Harvard for generating such lovely &
clear thumbnails which use LCD RGB interpolation. So far so good - we'll
see how things go!
All in all, not a bad thirty-first year of life: stuff has wrapped up
fairly nicely for some of us. Much as with last year, my thoughts are
with those for whom it did not wrap up nicely and is rather like a
weeping canker. And my especial thoughts for those who think that they
are very happy, but are utterly deluded and have a horrible year of
returning to ground to come in 2009.
Happy 2009 to you, and may you and yours be happy!
English