Fesoes.net

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
- 1. Respect for self
- 2. Respect for others
- 3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Again, I’m writing this from Microsoft Office 2007¹, because I am an amazing person, and in my wishes to get some revision done – in which I have – I’ve blocked my own site on Firefox thanks to LeechBlock, and figured it was easier to use Office than open up Chrome and go through all manners of crazy things to get to my site to use the limited editor. I think I’m throwing the rest to the day away to frivolous things, each revision sessions gets to me more and more, and I believe I’m saying things that I wouldn’t normally say to people. I’m sure that I’m sounding like a right nymphomaniac to a certain group of people, as a boring whiny angster who has nothing interesting to another group, and as extremely distant, inattentive and repetitive to those last few not covered by the others.

I can no longer deny that I am not a part of democracy. Actually, I couldn’t do that before, but today feels like it’s on a grander scheme.

Yes. I voted. As I’ve said to others, I won’t be telling you who I voted for, but I’ll tell you that I’m ashamed that my first vote was such a challenge to pick. Since I wasn’t voting at home – I had been registered for Middlesbrough² I had to contend with Durham’s candidates. The campaigning styles of some made me reluctant to vote for the party whose leader I’d really like to see walk out of 10 Downing Street. It was a horrible balancing act of ‘my vote will count for’ against ‘but my values are’ against ‘but I don’t want someone like that representing the region’. So I’m not too happy, but at least I have voted, and that is that.

I can’t be the only one who is sat on the edge of my seat waiting for these results – even knowing it’s going to be quite some time before the results come in.

Anyway, might go do some maths. Revision is depressing,³ but revising maths makes me slightly happier. Failing that, I’ll try on the new boots I bought today, make myself a cup of tea, and watch some more Bobobo while eating nutella straight from the jar. Then I’ll pad out the dwarf and Halfling, and rewrite the first mini comic so that it’s actually funny. Oh procrastination.

And because a blog post isn’t a blog post on here without a picture;

Meet the Sparkly Good Fairy, sans lipstick. Whoops.

1. how do you tag things in this thing? seriously [↩]
2. but my housemate so kindly registered me at the Durham house without asking [↩]
3. and amplifies everything I dislike about myself [↩]

26 mins for a 16 min journey, and I still managed to miss my connecting train, even with an oyster card. I didn’t count on the platform steps in Waterloo to be closed, and the insane amount of steps and escalators needed just to get through Kings Cross.

The trains are also insanely busy! Stupid volcanic ash, its all your fault! Here I was, gloating because it wouldn’t affect me, and it did. Ah well.

I’m almost home now.

With the scars of my last attempt at travelling away from Darlington still fresh on mine and my father’s mind, we left early to get to the station. It only took a mere 2 minutes to get there, leaving me with a good half an hour to do the things I needed to do; get money, refresh myself, and drink tea. In that order.

There was nothing to suggest that things would potentially go wrong. Maybe finding an elderly couple in my seat would have been pushing it as a sign, but they left the next stop, and I had my seat, and everything was perfect and on time. Till we hit Doncaster. Cue 20 minutes delay, and me beginning to wonder if I’ll make it to my next train – but decided that yes, the time inbetween trains was sufficent enough, and then we left Derby, and came to a screeching halt.

Why? There had been reports of children on the line. Another 10 minutes delay added while they made sure the line was clear.

Instead of the lovely 35 minutes I would have had to grab lunch and get my next train, I had 3 minutes of running through Birmingham New Street, screaming ‘SORRY BUT EXCUSE ME!’ at poor people who were about to stroll into my path. I’d have paid money to see what that looked like. I did catch my train, although I was worse for wear once I’d managed to sit down. Poor guy next to me.

Still I’m in Southampton now. My niece is fast asleep, and my bro-in-law trying to keep himself occupied¹ until little niece wakes up, so we can go shopping for food.

Having looked at my timetable for heading back – it looks like I haven’t escaped the rushing. Waterloo to Kings Cross. 35 mins to do so, providing there’s no delays. 24 minute Tube journey. 5 minutes either side. Wish me luck.²

1. and amused by my speed of touch typing [↩]
2. I think I’ll really really need it. [↩]

Wow. As I write this, I’m not even in Glasgow, in fact, I’ve just about reached Newcastle from my starting point of Darlington, and I’ve already had a crazy morning.¹

It starts at 09:10. The station is 5 minutes away. My train leaves at 09:28. I’m taking my bags to the car when the massively lovable and yet extremely irritating oaf that is Charlie² will not come back inside. So its about 09:20 before we’re sat in the car, heading towards the station. Anyway, short story even shorter, I missed my train by about 30 seconds.³

Panic ensues. The station guards⁴ do all they can to help me out. They make me talk to East Coast, whom declare that because my train has left, the proof of purchase is now void⁵ and I have to buy a new ticket if I want to get to where I want to be later than expected and I don’t even have the chance to get a direct train for a full two hours. I know this is really how the advanced ticket things work, but I somehow, I still feel that East Coast could care less about customers once their trains have left the station.⁶

The station guards try talking to the guards on the next trains, who refuse to accept the ticket. So now, completely upset at the entire thing, play with the thought of not actually heading to Glasgow. Still, my dad, who had phoned earlier to see if I actually got on the train and then again to see what was going to happen next, agrees to pay me back for the new ticket⁷

So here I am, not even at my destination, £50 out of pocket, annd about to increase it a little bit more because I really want some tea and biscuits, and now have to head to the cafe bar.⁸

At least I’m going to attempt to get my moneys worth by taking full advantage of the Wi-Fi and sockets for computers and phones.

1. At least I’m keeping to my promise of trying to have a more interesting life in my 20s [↩]
2. A 6 month year old German Shepard puppy. Doesn’t look so puppy-like anymore. [↩]
3. The most irritating thing in the world – outside of other people – is missing a train by about one minute because all your clocks are set weirdly. Double-annoying if you’re like me and always book in advance. [↩]
4. You guys were so wonderful. This is why I love travelling from Darlington. [↩]
5. Basically: we have your money, and have had it for months now, fuck off. [↩]
6. Hi, would you like me to ride East Coast again, because Cross Country looks really really nice too you know. [↩]
7. since he felt at fault for not actually leaving a bit earlier. [↩]
8. Whatever happened to the standard class trolley service East Coast? [↩]