How do you do this, again?

So as you may well have noticed, I've not properly blogged since BEDA. In fact, truth be told, I've not done a whole lot anywhere voluntarily since BEDA. I've worked a bit, I've gotten into uni, and I've obtained an organ, but I had only a modicum of free will in any of those activities.

This, no doubt, is going to lead to problems in future. I rarely do anything voluntarily unless I have people chasing me up about, unless I feel like I'm definitely achieving something, and unless there is a definite and tangible sense of failure if I don't complete it. Here lies the problem.

Because as I mentioned earlier, I've recently gotten into university (actually that's a lie, I got into university a year ago, I just thought I no longer had a place and forgot I applied for a deferred entry). Kingston University, to be specific, to study music. After that, as many of you know, I want to go on to become a musician and writer.

Already, I hope, you can see the problems. Firstly we have university, where as everyone tells you, it's 'down to you'. I had serious issues (like handing in my coursework to my teacher just as he was about to post them all off to the exam board) at school, where it wasn't down to me, it was down to a team of teachers all of whom were hired to get the best, or at the very least some, work out of me. This attempt, it is widely believed throughout both my family and my school reports, was a complete failure. Even when I had teachers sitting in my room next to me to make sure I worked, I still managed to avoid doing anything constructive. I will actually go completely out of my way to avoid work.

So far, not so good.

Then after that, we have 'the big wide world'. Looking at the list of conditions under which I will work, you might feel I am best suited for a career in an office somewhere. Where I've got a manager hassling me and the other members of my team to get sales, or to crunch those figures, and where the tangible sense of failure comes from being fired for not working hard enough.

But no! I have instead decided to choose a career in music and writing, where until you reach a stage where you're controlled by labels and publishing houses, all pressuring you to finish your album or book, you're on your own. No one pushing you apart from your under-nourished family, and no one but your own sense of shame to tell you when you've failed.

I am, as they say, completely fucked.

Until of course, you realise that you're reading this, and so, some how, I have at least attempted to achieve some of my goals. Despite the distraction of losing my inspirational can of Coke (long story, don't ask), I've still managed to get back onto the blogging bandwagon. This, I guess, is what keeps musicians playing and writers writing. Rock bottom.

Not that I'm anywhere near it at the moment. I am doing fairly well for money (so much so that I'm actually lending it to my parents now..), I've a well planned-out future, and 7 discs of The Office left to watch. You could argue that life is dandy.

I guess it is, as it usually is, a mixture of fear and hope that keeps us (me, at least) going. Fear that I will hit Rock Bottom, with all the strings on my bow old, torn and tattered, and Hope that by uploading an if-I'm-honest-pretty-shit Beirut cover onto my MySpace will in some small way,kickstart my dreams of playing it to a baying crowd of thousands.

So really, God only knows how this is going to go. I might well stumble my way through uni, try music and end up writing for a small-time music website that's struggling to stay alive by the week, or I might well eventually get motivated, start working, and in five years time be telling this story to a smiling mob of teens before launching into 'The Ballad of Bone-Idle Baggott'.

I'll keep you posted.

xo

gb