Life Flash: July-August Update

Wow. Where to begin. Its been almost a month since I've done any proper blogging and you'd think that during my less busy summer holidays, that I would have more blogging time but thats not been the case! The summer has been busier than I thought it would've been with work and planning for my church's first Youth Summer Camp that I will be helping run this year. I've also been working on a "major" website project which, unfortunately isn't for marcoka-chunng.co.uk. I know that my site needs a bit of an upgrade but upgrades need time and money and the latter is no where to be seen!

Now, originally, today's blog was going to be: "Digging Deep: Should we live life to please others?" which has been sitting as a draft for almost two months in my dashboard but then as I started writing the start of today's blog, I realised that if I wrote an update with the original topic, it would be too long! Not that many people take the time to read these anyway! (Not sure if there should be a sad face here). Instead, I'm going to leave that Digging Deep article for later on this month.

So, if I remember correctly, the last time I blogged, I still hadn't written up my trip to Switzerland. It has now been two months since I've been to Switzerland and I just can't be bothered to write anymore so its just photos that everyone will have to settle for.

Over the past month, I've been trying to get myself to start getting active again. But apparently, active doesn't go well with me and as of 15:58pm today, I've still not done anything to get active! I'm not sure what I need to get motivated but there's just no motivation around me at the moment to get me down to the Sports Centre.

Having returned to work after getting back from Uni, I actually dread going in the days I do. The atmosphere has changed significantly since last summer and I can't point my finger at why. People just don't get along and they just don't care anymore. At times, I wish everything hadn't changed at all but having said all this stuff before, change is supposed to lead to good things. Even if they start off bad. There are times, however, that work doesn't feel like a chore (and those of you who know me well will know that I used to enjoy working at WHSmith) but those are relatively scarce now. I think its kind of a sign telling me to move on. And I think I will, although rumour has it that I'm wanted back at Christmas. For me, thats too far ahead to decide now.

What's disappointed me this summer is that I've not yet had a chance to go back to Manchester and see family. The last time I was there was in February and that turned out to be one of the unhappiest trips I've taken with the news that my Grandad had passed away. But I guess not being there this summer will probably be made up by being in Manchester even more later this year because there's no doubt that I'll be visiting Laura when she starts her course later this year.

Looking ahead, in just under a month, I will be back in Coventry with the guys in a new house with a new job. The house is pretty much all sorted apart from the fact that I have to pay rent every month...a ridiculous amount of rent. The new job is pretty recent news to me as I only got the job on Wednesday. I'm not sure what it is I'll be doing exactly but it does offer better pay and flexibility to go with my second year at Coventry University. I'm not quite sure how I'll find the second year and I'm hoping that this years results of 77% overall won't encourage me to relax a little. On the bright side, I've qualified for a scholarship this year which should make life a little easier.

To round off today's blog, I'm going to introduce an old friend's new vlog. Give it a look here and give him some feedback!

For now...

'House' boss on Huddy: 'I don't think we have a Sam and Diane problem'

'House' boss on Huddy: 'I don't think we have a Sam and Diane problem'

Come September this year, there will be a whole new series to be following for me. Season 7 of House MD. Season 6 left off with House and Cuddy getting together and Season 7 looks like its going to be a good season!

Aviation Notes: New Virgin Atlantic Livery

Its a redo of the redo of the Virgin Atlantic livery! The livery was showcased on Virgin Atlantic's G-VROC.

The forward branding of each aircraft will be changed to a larger but thiner custom font and looks to be targeted at more stylish travelers. The change in livery will coincide in what seems to be a branding refresh for Virgin Atlantic with the new branding to be rolled out on all signage, aircraft and advertising. The aim is to refresh the airline fleet before the introduction of the Airbus A330s and to make aircraft more recognisable during take off and landing.

Digging Deep: Focusing the Picture

It's weird. I sometimes see life as a movie or a set of photos and I'm sure that some of you may have seen it this way before too. When life's busy, we get a lot of action, drama or comedy (maybe even a bit of horror) but when life calms down ever so slightly, it becomes less exciting and the movie slows down and becomes boring. Its good to have some down time in life to give ourselves time to rest and reflect but becoming to relaxed can make us lose focus in our lives.

I believe that our lives aren't here just so that we can live them. We need to find ourselves an aim, a purpose and try to achieve it. If we have too much of a busy life, we might get caught up in it all and forget about things such as the goals that we've set ourselves to reach certain checkpoints on the way to reaching our aim or purpose. Similarly, we can be too relaxed and become idle - unable to bring together energy to even attempt to reach our goals. Here, the right balance needs to be found. We need to right mix of activities in our lives so that we're not too busy and that we're not too relaxed.

Think of it as a photo that you want to take with a camera that you have to focus manually. Too much and the image is blurry, too little and the image is blurry too. But somewhere along the way, there is just the right setting for focusing the picture. The right setting that will achieve us the best image possible. We just have to finely adjust our lives to get the right setting for reaching our aims and goals - whether they're personal, academic or professional.

For me, I think I aim to make life worth it and to enjoy the world but also to achieve the best I can. I personally find it hard sometimes to find the right setting for life. Sometimes I feel that I have too much on my plate and sometimes I feel that I'm really just here to sit around and wait for something to happen. I admit that there is still a lot of work to be done before I even get close to finding the right mix in life. And I don't think there is a right or wrong way of achieving the right mix. As long as we're pleased with life and we're not feeling stressed, worried or useless, we're pretty much at the right setting.

Life Flash: Recently...

Wow. 2010 is officially my year for not blogging. Its now June (so, we're almost halfway through the year) and I've only written 12 blogs! Maybe the creative side of my brain has gone a bit mushy since I've started Uni? Who knows. Today's blog is really just a rant so enjoy...

Anyway, since my last blog almost two weeks ago, I've still not finished writing up about my trip to Switzerland although all the photos are now on Facebook. There are over 600 photos and took me quite a long time to upload especially when our internet is breaking up half the time.

Last week, my first web design project went live at http://www.slac.org.uk/. It is only written in HTML with some Javascript and may look a bit boring to those who are IT savvy and more artistic than I am, but it is good to see something that has taken almost a year to plan and write, finally be put to use!

Now, I'm not a very sporty guy (but I was sports captain at school!) but England's performance in the World Cup this year does seem a bit rubbish. The first game that I sat down and watched all of was the England vs. Algeria game and what a waste of my time that was! I wish I never sat down to watch it! But being British and all that, I still have my fingers crossed for a winner of a game on Wednesday.

The coming week should be interesting as I deal with the people from BT Broadband who have royally screwed up with our internet. After four years of complaining, they finally decide that there is actually something wrong and that they'll try and fix it. I'm not putting my hopes up though. I'll probably still have an unstable connection this time next year.

I also begin to lose my Saturdays again as I return to my usual shift at work. I'm actually quite glad that I'm working here than in Coventry because I'll actually get paid here. That's right, my employer has screwed up my pay owing me over £300...I won't be going back there in a hurry!

Anyways, that's it from me for tonight. I'll hopefully have something more interesting soon. Maybe something special. Look out for it soon! For now...