Six Years, One Degree, Worthwhile.

It’s Thursday 20^th August 2009. I think it’s 06.00. Maybe it’s 06.30. I want to say it’s dark, but perhaps my curtains were closed, it is a late summer morning after all. Whichever it is, I’m awake for the same reason as thousands of other eighteen (or thereabout) year-olds in England. It is A-Levels results day. I’m awake in my mum’s house or, back then, home. I’ve long-decided that I’ll be logging into UCAS on results day morning, rather than waiting until 10 or 11am to go into school and receive my results. Though UCAS will not display results, it can tell me one of three things:

A)    Unconditional offer at my first choice university

B)   Unconditional offer at my second choice university

C)    Clearing

I am expecting a confirmation of option A, and that I’ll be going to Queen Mary University of London to study Law, straight As the requirement. At worst, I expect option B, to study the same course at Kent with a requirement of ABB. I log in to UCAS. It is incredibly slow, but I’ve been warned it will by those who have gone before me. One of the thousands attempting to access a system that is probably poorly equipped to deal with this once-a-year surge of users attempting to access their servers all at the same time.

I’m in. The page has loaded. The status of my university application has changed. Clearing.

Positive Start

On the final day of 2012, I posed a question on facebook and twitter: 

What was your proudest achievement/biggest moment of 2012?

In hindsight, I think it would have been better wording had I gone for 'proudest moment' and 'biggest achievement' instead. Moving on, the responses were beautiful and wonderfully positive and I'm always happy to hear of good things happening in people's lives. 

At the end of the year, there tends to be an air of cynicism as people begin to look forward to the year to come. This cynicism tends to be aimed towards, but not limited to, two types of people:

1) 'this is my year' people

2) 'new year, new start' people

Online Consumption Filter

Like all good things, the general rule is that, whatever it is, it should be in moderation. This is no different to the internet. It's an amazing tool but with it comes an incredible amount of garbage.

Specifically, I wield the sword of opinion upon social networking. Even more specifically, Twitter. Ever since I joined Twitter (just over three years ago), I have always been very conscious about who I would and would not follow (I currently follow 192 people). This goes for celebrities, friends and even strangers. I don't follow some of my favourite celebrities nor do I follow some of my closest friends. Why? In short, because I have no interest in what they have to tweet.

Keep Ya Head Up, Keep Your Head Down

Dear Hakeem,
I see your struggle and it can't be easy
Seeing everyone around you doing big things
Feeling like your hardwork might all be vain
Wondering when you'll get your own break.
Keep ya head up
It's yours if you keep chasing
Keep your head down
Because their story is not yours.