Local Hero

This morning was any usual weekend day when I had work. I woke up early around 8 am and had a long hot relaxing shower to wake me up. I packed my bag which I bring with me to work religiously because you never know when you will need a pencil-case full of stationary or a note pad! I put on my head phones as I walked my bike out the front of my house. I gazed up at the taunting sky thinking "will I make it before the heavens open". As I kicked my three speed into gear and peddled my way towards work, I felt a dot of moisture hit my only just dry sky and realised I wasn't going to make it into work dry,


Half way through my local park which is beautiful is a big pond or a small man made lake I guess. It was starting to rain heavily enough at this stage so I took shelter under a group of trees as I always leave for work early so I could try and wait it out for a break. Through the trees I could see a German Sheppard and a mixed breed dog struggling at the edge of the pond. Now to fully understand this I wouldn't even be able to get out of the pond as the ledge is really high and doesn't allow for grip. I stood there unsure whether I was seeing this as there was clearly no owner about, I wheeled my bike over to the dogs and was thinking how can I sort this out. At that very moment a man with a dog just walked right by the two struggling dogs and continued on his walk. I was aghast this person could have helped me with the dogs and clearly saw even if I was the owner struggling. I walked towards the German Sheppard to help lift him out but he growled and bared his teeth protecting himself and his little buddy. Instinctively I ran the police (who else do you ring when your panicking). The police station is literally 2 minutes from the park and they said they would be there as soon as possible. They arrived in true police person fashion to save the day and braving the elements (I was completely soaked at this stage but my main focus was the dogs) they lifted the small dog out straight away and encourage the German Sheppard to use all his might to escape his impending doom.

I left the scene then and cycled the rest of the way to work. I arrived frazzled and saturated, the thought that someone would just walk by two dogs that were relying on humans for assistance and he himself owned a dog and therefore felt the same connection to dogs that I would.

Elastic Band Life

So I was cycling to work the other day and I really like cycling to work firstly because it dries my hair and 9/10 I don't have time to dry my hair after a shower (because its always nice to smell nice before work!). And when I cycle I generally put some upbeat music on my phone and bob along with it and let my mind go blank.


However when I say I let my mind go blank it actually goes further from blank then actually possible. I think about the important things in my life but with a serine outlook, like "I should start putting aside more than €200 a month for my future" and "Instead of getting a iMac and thinking of all the ways that I can get the money as fast as possible I should focus on making my bosses think I am fantastic for future promotions". It is the same level of serenity you get before you go to bed and you have something important in the morning and you realise you really need the sleep but you go into "closed eyes but can hear everything and you're not asleep". I just find these times when you perceive something to be of the upmost importance and you need exactly 8 hours sleep prior to this event happening it puts things in perspective.

Anyway the wind was blowing through my hair and the day was beautifully sunny for Dublin and I cycle through our local park which has beautiful bridges and ducks and swans and I was in my perfect mind-free zone where I could put everything in folders and files and arrange by importance and then I pulled into work with this level of purity and then stepped into work where everything becomes organised chaos of me.

I'm an incredible organised person if I do say so myself and I like to be busy which is the reason I have always loved being in college 30-40 hours a week and working 20 hours a week and then I get bored on the weekends and this has always led to my family and friends thinking I need to detach myself sometimes and "have a life" but I like being busy and like checking my works Twitter at home and doing extra work for college when unnecessary and over thinking simple facets of my life like "I could do a part-time Information Technology diploma at night" which then I think em, when exactly am I supposed to sleep and ever the most organised person can struggle and stretch themselves to thin.

So I sit here on my break in work wondering when exactly will this elastic band that is my life snap and I become a disorganised mess who can't achieve anything because I was always so busy that I'm just relaxing now.

Diamonds or Rubies?

So I am a trainer where I work, which is Customer Services. I love my job, cliched I know, factual though it is. So I have to train agents who I work with on these things called Soft Skills, they are basically things that make you more human and friendly and empathetic on calls. So I love doing that, now I am not going to claim to be Mr. Positivity believe me I'm not but little things like watching people using the stuff I teach them on a call and it working gives me this Champaign feeling, that is all bubbly and excited.

So I don't have to make any major life decisions at the moment of time in my life however there is always this niggling feeling in the back of my skull saying "Backup Career" which would be amazing because I love it (obviously) however when is it that you have to make the decision of 'I want to be a ...'. When I was younger I always wanted to be a Teacher (I know one of the standard replies children give their parents) and then when I was in school I decided I wanted to be a research scientist which was a big jump from Teacher.

Now I am at that point in my life where I want to have a decision made for the decision I will have to make. Research Scientist, Teacher or Call Centre worker. I would scoff at my brother who worked his way up through Paddy Power and is now a manager in an IT division, and I always refereed to him as a "lifer" and now a days I see myself more likely to stay within the company than him. I get to use Twitter on a daily basis for work purposes... remind anyone of Codex from the Guild working in Cheesy Beards? Well it's not a grimy and way more fun!

But when do you make that decision in your life where your going? Last minute gut feeling decision or well thought out blog angst filled decision. Well either way I am sure I'll land on my feet but I want to land on my feet after a double summersault with a pirouette.

The Glamour is gone

   
Where to begin, trying to decide where to start of this journey into the inner mind of 20 something year old is a difficult decision. I'll start with my name, which is John. I have always found formal introductions incredible ostentatious in which people compete to make themselves the alpha male/female in the beginning of a conversation so I think it's better to leave this introduction to the type I like, where I babble on mindlessly and subject you to my personality and let you decide on what my introduction would be like.
 
 
What happened to the yester year where lives were so glamorous and smoking was sexy and a ivory skin was chic, now its all about Sally Hansen unnatural golden glows, shiny surfaces on all your belongings to show how much income you or your parents earn.  
 
 
I do honestly believe we have lost the glamour of life (not smoking that is a thoroughly disgusting habit) but the fact that by fist pumping and having GTL as your hobby your a celebrity...  
 
 
I decided to finally sit down and start a blog as I hit the refresh key on my laptop for Facebook then Twitter for the umpteenth time in a 5 minute period and I wondered why was I waiting for other people to Tweet or update their status' when I am itching to explode with a plethora of stories which I wanted to document.  
 
 
I always saw blogging as a two way street you had the Bloggers and the Readers and I was firmly in the Readers lane and I didn't have time to indicate into the Bloggers lane and of course I am no where near as grammatically sufficient to put words in a post and hit the "Publish Post" button. So I bit the bullet and it was over the passing of a very moving nerdfighter who was younger then me but wiser then me.
 
 
I would like to look back in a few years and see the anecdotes I but down and remember the feelings I felt, the thoughts that fleeted through my mind and the way I have grown (or will grow?).