The Tragedy of an Oxymoron

I am a shy attention seeker. This is something I have come to realise recently and wish to do something about. But first, the background:

I have always been the quiet one. The one who stands in corners, doesn’t raise his hand. The introvert. When I was younger I used to say ‘mm’ and ‘mhm’ instead of yes and no; I would mumble words in the presence of adults. I grew out of that, but never quite got over the fear of speaking to strangers. I still get nervous when asking for things in shops and am infamous for not answering the phone. I guess some of this is a little unusual, but I             manage to get by in the world despite my differences. Except that this is not enough for me anymore.

I have also always been quite talented: I was the arty one, the musical one, the clever one. At an early age I enjoyed this and spent many hours doing extra things for which I was praised. But the older I got, the less special I became. Others surpassed me in and out of the classroom; I became lazier. Eventually I pretty much gave up trying to advance in the arts, resigned to my fate as a jack of all trades. I stuck with the education for mainly legal obligations. But the spirit never died in me.

More recently, I have been feeling particularly creative inside. I have had many ideas and even some forms of inspiration. Despite this, I have as of yet failed to create. My fruits did not flower or flourish; my wishful works wilted. I seem unable to substantiate my creative energies in any form other than mere thoughts. Doubt I did not, however, as I know the power of a metaphorical seed sewn in the minds of others. Words are my weapon.

Which brings us back to the present in the chronology of my narration. The here and now. The what and why, and the how. I want to put myself across, I want to share my thoughts with others and have feelings and beliefs reciprocated. But I am too shy. I am not willing to draw the necessary attention of others in the right form. So I hide behind words on a screen, hoping they might one day catch the eye of somebody willing to break that barrier and let me out of my bubble into the real world.

I Need To Write A Blog

I need to write a proper post. I really do. But I just don’t have the time. Well I do, but when I have the free time I can’t be bothered, at all. Not to neglect my *loyal readers*. I mean, I have even worked out what is going to happen (vaguely) in my story updates, but I lack the energy to write. Even typing this is strenuous. So I hope you will forgive me and continue to check for something, anything new. For now, I provide you with an on-the-spot poem:

Tired,

eyes like steel shutters.

Wearily, wearily,

heavy hands tapping

on plastic pieces;

my alter ego.

🙂

I Want to Be a Vlogger (kind of)

I must admit, I am a regular viewer, subscriber and general fan of some of the most popular YouTube vloggers, Charlieissocoollike, nerimon and communitychannel to name a few (well half really). I love their styles and personalities, plus the stuff they talk about is easy to relate to. And I know I am a bit emotionally attached sometimes (see Emotional Endings post) but they seem like the kind of people who I would like in real life.

This makes me wish I was part of that community. One major obstacle, or three, is that I am shy, socially awkward and kind of paranoid about peoples’ opinions, which means I doubt I will ever be a real YouTuber. I am too scared to talk to myself, never mind filming it and posting it on the internet. Why do you think I have  a blog? Anyway, I have recently started posting some videos of everyday things in slow motion with my new high-speed camera. Needless to say they are haphazard, poor quality and very little known. But I still want to do something noticeable.

Being a fan of Charlie and Alex Day, who both play songs in the form of Chameleon Circuit and solo singles, I have been kind of inspired to try to write songs. The fact that I play guitar (5 years but not very good) and piano (a few months) helps, but even so I have trouble. Looking at the chords for some of the songs that spurred me on, they are mostly very simple and I am able to play them fine; even doing harmonies and melodies isn’t too much hassle. But the problems come in two forms: vocals and layering. I cannot seem to write song lyrics without being unbelievably cheesy. Plus I get the feeling that if I could layer some tracks together, like a beat, chords, bass line and melody it would sound all but finished. The way I really want to do this is split screen video, but even just audio would be fine. The problem is that I don’t have the recording equipment to get more than one decent line; I have a digital camera which has pretty poor sound, as does my webcam. There is a digital recorder, but I don’t have the drivers to plug it into my PC and it can only play back one thing at a time. So I find myself unable to record and/or listen to more than one part of my so-called song.

This is why I want a Macbook Pro- for iMovie, Garage Band, and just generally because my laptop is awful and freezes constantly. If you are rich, can I please have £1200 for one? Thanks.

/self-indulged moan>

OMGWTFBBQ!

I haven’t written a blog in two days. Or been on my computer, pretty much at all. Now I feel like I am completely unaware of what is going on in the internet world. Not that I was aware before.

Anyway, there are three reasons why I have been inactive over the past few days. So in true internet style, if slightly pathetic, here is a list:

1. I have been doing school work/coursework

2. I have started back at my running club

3. I have been watching Scrubs constantly (and am doing so right now)

And finally to the point of this post. I have been working on a blog for the last couple of days that is a little more complicated than usual. It is supposed to be a four-way split screen music video, consisting of one part drums, one part guitar, one part piano and one part ukelele. The problem is that I have no video editing software, so as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to compile the four parts of pre-recorded video with sound into one screen.

So meh. When I work it out, or one of you helps me, I will have it ready and will then return to normal blogging activity. ‘Till then…

Poo! (A Short Dedication to my Readers/Critics)

Hi to all of you that apply. Well if you’re reading this then you do apply. Anyway, just a quick mention to the people who have read my blog and fed back to me:

-My brother Matty, who told me “It’s lovely, honest.” This blog has a poo theme in honour of him;

-My friend and fellow blogger Andrew, who provides more frequent, funny and relevant posts than me. Check out his page;

-Another friend and proof reader, Megan. She corrected the misspelling of ‘recommend’ on the 15th Jan post. Vital;

-Anybody else who has read and/or commented on my blog. Thanks!

So there we go. If you need a reason to bother reading/commenting, here is one. I will show gratitude and appreciation to you all.

Goodnight.

Trivial Thoughts of a Teen

Tonight I can think of absolutely nothing of any interest to write about. I have updated my blog once a day since I started it out of a desire to share my thoughts, but after a mere 4 days my mind has reached its capacity for imaginative prose. So instead, I am going to ask you, my loyal fanbase of Andrew plus one, to write my blog for me. Only not so directly. I am going to write a small paragraph of fiction, to start off. Then I would like anyone who reads this post to add their follow-up paragraph in the comments section. Hopefully this will be an ongoing thing, for a short time at least, that makes my blog more interesting and more interactive for the reader. So here we go…

Walking through the park at dusk, as crisp autumn leaves rustle in tall trees overhead, I glance over my shoulder every so often. Just in case. I have learnt to be cautious around here, especially when heading out in darkness. But however anxious I might be, I must do it. I have no choice in the matter, after all. If I don’t find them, they won’t stop until they find me…