Reflections on a year.
First, a cliché: It's been a year of changes for me, some very subtle, some very not so subtle.
I began 2006 very sober, and ended it the complete opposite.
This year I have:
- Struggled through the final half-year of secondary school, battling with teachers and preserving some form of personality and character, which thankfully survived the robotisation of such educational institutions.
- Passed my A-levels with three A's, and in my English grade I didn't drop one mark, across two exams and one piece of coursework.
- Been to Greece with my friends and had a fantastic week in nightclubs and sun without much sleep and heaps of fun. The highlight was potting the white ball on the hotel pool table, and, as is tradition, running a lap with my pants down.
- Begun a short-lived affair with a lass a bit older than me, who I liked, but it could never have worked since I met her six weeks before I left for university.
- Went to Turkey for our family's annual sun-drenched resort holiday. It might be the last time I go on holiday with them, but there remains a slight chance of a trip this year to Mexico for a cousin's wedding.
- Been to see DJ Shadow, twice, once with Cut Chemist before hand and another as part of the same tour but in a different venue, five months apart. I also saw DJ Yoda. And Jools Holland and his rhythm and blues orchestra, with Lulu guesting. And of course José González, who blew my socks off.
- Begun university, and remember with amusement, as I knew I would, how I posted on here before the summer saying I could not in any way see myself living away from home, or even living beyond the year. I have been back two weeks now and go back to university in another fortnight, a semester down and a scholarship up.
- Directed five short films, two documentaries and starred in and edited another. Two of them were shown at Newcastle's Northern Lights Film Festival in November.
As for the details of New Year itself:
Last night I drank a lot of John Smith's in a very shot amount of time, catching up with a lot of people from school, most of whom were and are complete wankers, in a local bar chocked full with chavs, tramps and outright troublemakers. But alcohol is good in allowing you to overlook the fact that people are tossers, and generally get on with everyone. I even got served at the bar by an older lad who once broke my nose with his elbow in a fight. I also proved myself to be promiscuous, twice. My girlfriend had visited me and met my parents and stayed at my house for two nights on the way to Edinburgh; she left yesterday morning, and, being absolutely sloshed, I found solace last night in kissing two different girls in the same bar. I am dreadfully ashamed, but what can you do when things have been done? I am very nervous with guilt, but it will pass.
And so if I begun 2006 as a very assured, mature young boy, I have begun its successor as a very muddled and rather immature cunt.
If there is one thing I am good at it is intellectualising things, to treat trivial matters with revealing logic and big issues with peripheral insight. It allows me to detach myself emotionally from most of the events I am surrounded by, and it also makes me interesting to myself in a cold sort of way.
According to a character in Godard's Détective (1985), there are two kinds of men. The first, he says, washes his hands as he enters the toilet, so as not to get his cock dirty; he thus keeps his cock clean. The second, he says, washes his hands after touching his cock, so as not to dirty his hands; he thus keeps his hands clean.
And so I begin 2007 wondering, which sort of man am I?
I began 2006 very sober, and ended it the complete opposite.
This year I have:
- Struggled through the final half-year of secondary school, battling with teachers and preserving some form of personality and character, which thankfully survived the robotisation of such educational institutions.
- Passed my A-levels with three A's, and in my English grade I didn't drop one mark, across two exams and one piece of coursework.
- Been to Greece with my friends and had a fantastic week in nightclubs and sun without much sleep and heaps of fun. The highlight was potting the white ball on the hotel pool table, and, as is tradition, running a lap with my pants down.
- Begun a short-lived affair with a lass a bit older than me, who I liked, but it could never have worked since I met her six weeks before I left for university.
- Went to Turkey for our family's annual sun-drenched resort holiday. It might be the last time I go on holiday with them, but there remains a slight chance of a trip this year to Mexico for a cousin's wedding.
- Been to see DJ Shadow, twice, once with Cut Chemist before hand and another as part of the same tour but in a different venue, five months apart. I also saw DJ Yoda. And Jools Holland and his rhythm and blues orchestra, with Lulu guesting. And of course José González, who blew my socks off.
- Begun university, and remember with amusement, as I knew I would, how I posted on here before the summer saying I could not in any way see myself living away from home, or even living beyond the year. I have been back two weeks now and go back to university in another fortnight, a semester down and a scholarship up.
- Directed five short films, two documentaries and starred in and edited another. Two of them were shown at Newcastle's Northern Lights Film Festival in November.
As for the details of New Year itself:
Last night I drank a lot of John Smith's in a very shot amount of time, catching up with a lot of people from school, most of whom were and are complete wankers, in a local bar chocked full with chavs, tramps and outright troublemakers. But alcohol is good in allowing you to overlook the fact that people are tossers, and generally get on with everyone. I even got served at the bar by an older lad who once broke my nose with his elbow in a fight. I also proved myself to be promiscuous, twice. My girlfriend had visited me and met my parents and stayed at my house for two nights on the way to Edinburgh; she left yesterday morning, and, being absolutely sloshed, I found solace last night in kissing two different girls in the same bar. I am dreadfully ashamed, but what can you do when things have been done? I am very nervous with guilt, but it will pass.
And so if I begun 2006 as a very assured, mature young boy, I have begun its successor as a very muddled and rather immature cunt.
If there is one thing I am good at it is intellectualising things, to treat trivial matters with revealing logic and big issues with peripheral insight. It allows me to detach myself emotionally from most of the events I am surrounded by, and it also makes me interesting to myself in a cold sort of way.
According to a character in Godard's Détective (1985), there are two kinds of men. The first, he says, washes his hands as he enters the toilet, so as not to get his cock dirty; he thus keeps his cock clean. The second, he says, washes his hands after touching his cock, so as not to dirty his hands; he thus keeps his hands clean.
And so I begin 2007 wondering, which sort of man am I?