Summer: Opting out of a Bus ride.

So today I took the morning as easy as one could, till a gentle reminder on my phone reminded me that hey, I had a meeting in 10 minutes. Of course 10 minutes later I was fully dressed up at University enjoying myself a nice bout of confusion since I did not know where, one the meeting was being held and two, if it was being held at all since no one was answering their dammed phone.

Meeting finished, I realised I had no point and nothing to do most of the day just let time pass by. A concept which I have not had the pleasure of enjoying in the past few months. So I do what I do best and decide to go shopping again, but alas no shoe would fit thy princess feet; although some would say my hobbit feet are not of a princess grad but I digress.

So now I am sitting down in a place that could have easily been one of the nicest belvederes in Malta but due to either some brilliant planning or more probably lack there off. Ended with a ledge that is too high to leisurely look over, but one has to rather strain their back. Could be also my inexpiable need and desire to slouch over while I am writing this blog.

Where was I, yes view, the view is just glorious I wish I could show it to you guys but, again I am greedy and wont share. Rather why don’t you all go out and enjoy the lovely day we are having, even to those who are still studying stepping outside the house and catching the last few rays of sun is indeed something that is and should be a priority. It does help you to relax, then again a cocktail which I am about to have, helps me more; yet sharing this piece of information with you guys somehow does not seem to make you happier.

One last thing, why is this titled opting out of a bus ride? Well you see I met someone who I quite look up to, a celebrity of sorts, I said hi, as one would. Panicked from meeting a person I admire and wanting to look cool I ended walking till Sliema. Why? because I was at first too shy to go back to the bus stop, then I released it was such a beautiful day and I was in the mood for exploring. So I guess thanks man for making my day just that much better, I found beauty where I wouldn't have expected.

Summer! : Gozo,Wine and Pastizzi

So I do not know if you heard but I finished examssssss (Ok I still have a lab report to write but bear with me.)

BUT yes a

FREEEDOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

 of Mel Gibson proportions is needed to start of summer. Thus came the obligatory night of shots, pitchers and PV, but that is not what we are writing about are we.

Well well well, nice to meet you.

NOPE, we are going to be writing about my return to the island of islands. Gozo and family, it was nice seeing them in a relaxed frame of mind and for once humanly communicating with them using words rather than a selection from an assortment of grunts, puffs and the occasional roaring thunder. While all of this was going on, (Side Note: At this point I am still hung over from Saturday and this is me functioning on 3 hours of sleep.) I started gaming and going into the per annum summer mode.

Yet something felt missing, so I messaged a dear friend of mine, and told her LETS RAMPAGE THE STREETS OF GOZO. Show them a bit of party, as they say. Once I did that, I realized I had nothing to wear, and I ended up going on a panic shopping spree that had me call three of my friends, begging them for fashion advice, for which I must especially thank The Cat, she knows who she is *OBVIOUS WINK* and the other two who helped me in my moment of dire need. Which ended up with me owning a rather snazzy pair of shorts, and a lovely shirt.

Classyyyyy.

After gearing up for all of this, night happened and the night happened like this

• Drinking Wine in the Car park like little old hobos we are,
• Moving on to Snazzy cocktails and then realised we were falling asleep at the late old time of 11.30
• Going to drive around the island like maniacs to feel alive.
• Going to hunt for Pastizzi IN GOZO at midnight. 
• Ending finding the last few stands in Xewkija's village feast. 
• Walking around dancing in the moon light.
• Driving home and someone ending in a secluded area looking at the stars.
• She gets the shit scared out of her due to some crickets
• We drive back.
• I get home
• I crash in bed.

A happy Alex is a full Alex.

What heaven must look like at midnight.

SUMMER HAS STARTED!

Common Room #4

Its about time I send a rant about those lovely people that I share my pain, misery and above all else the sweet suffering of exams. The new faces, the friends, made though the close quarters (often very smelly) of common room are endless. Honest friends, who show your their true colors by raging and screaming at you, break down crying or melt into a puddle at any given moment of time.

The first group that I would like to start with, those who have been at my side, or rather, me stuck to theirs almost consistently for the past month. Working together to try and make this semester pass, are the odd fits. A lovely group of people, who are made of the eternal bitch face, a person that scares the living willies out of anyone, yet when needed she pops up and helps all those around her as best as she can. Then you get the M&M, the stretchy one and the obnoxious one, I owe them that I am found in this group now. They have been nothing but supportive of my daily meltdowns and hours of wailing and complaining about my life and studies and DID I MENTION I HAD A PAPER CUT TODAY WHY DOES LIFE HATE ME. Talking about annoying, there is the annoying one, a puddle of hugs and love, caring like a mother hen about her friends more than anything in the world.

I just realized I left the guys out of this, well you got the Scottish pastor from the middle south american bible belt, who was born and raised in Malta. Enough said about him, more about the bun dude, who is quite a quiet guy, yet when pissed off he shows enough emotion to make a passing comment. You're weirdness knows no bounds, and yes I did write you're, bloody grammar Hitler, I KNOW YOU ARE LOOKING AT THIS and I do NOT CARE I WILL STAND AGAINST YOUR IRON RULE. (This guy, lets call him Toupee dude has a love for Medicine and correct Grammar.)

So after getting rid of the core of annoyance in the room. We really should move on to the medicine students, rather the small bunch of medicine students who are known for sporadic laughing and long chats in a rather loud manner. Making sure everyone around them knows how hard their subject is. With all of their elite nature, they are honestly a sweet group of people, and the long chats about medicine and science while smoking outside are quite honestly something that I look forward to.

The last group for this blog (more will follow later this is getting to long), would be the rabble, or rather the procrastinators extraordinaire. THEY MANAGE to make anything in a lovely break, be it play hearthstone, basket ball, football, smoking, sitting, watching episodes. You name it, they do it. It is really incredible, and yet somehow they still manage to get all of their work done, effortlessly and be chill when exam times comes up.

Last side note, Hail Caesar, you know who you are :)

To be continued....

The Glass

Is the Glass half full or half empty?

An age old question often used and interpreted in a myriad of ways. Supposedly making us think about our personality, if we are optimists or pessimists. However, I never heard someone say, although I am sure I am not the first to think of this. It is just a glass with water in it.

We have such an obsession to classify things, separate and divide into facts of information. We need to know. We need to put everything into its category, and get that fix for our "OCD" as many would say. Yet as I said, why cannot the glass be just a glass of water? 

From our own perspective it is just a glass of water, but from someone else's point of view it is definitely going to be described as something different. This is because we do not see the same things, we do not see the world from the same perspective. We do usually have a tendency to have a very similar, with almost identical perspective that is heavily influenced by the culture that we live in, the people that we grow up with, or those that we call friends. Yet it always impresses me how people from different cultures, different education backgrounds or simply different ages tend to see the world.

Do we all ways see everything we have around us?

I used to work as a waiter and this put me in contact with a large amount of tourists who always gave me their own take on my culture, coming from Gozo. I had this idea, a very close minded and small perspective of how the world was or so I thought. When I traveled I understood those people I used to meet bewildered lost in my culture. All it took was me brushing up someone else culture. Having lived just one month in America and then having been in a relationship with someone from London, which resulted in me living the odd week over there every few months. Showed me how differently we see our world from each other, and in a way opened my mind to so many different possibilities of seeing anything. Including that glass of water.

In a manner, I don't see a glass of water, or rather don't want to see a glass of water. I want to see what others see, because that is in itself just as interesting and intriguing as the eternal debate of the half full, half empty glass, because in doing that I believe that I might be able to understand much better how others think and feel.

Walking. Running. Jumping.

Recently I started, being much more on the active side of life. I realised that my body needed some looking after, this after spending an entire year depriving it of sleep, stuffing it with the unhealthiest of foods and above all else depriving it of movement. 

Naturally, I choose to start practising, a very mild version of Parkour, because why not?

For those that do not know what Parkour is, 

"Parkour is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training. Practitioners aim to get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. This is done using only the human body and the surroundings for propulsion, with a focus on maintaining as much momentum as possible while still remaining safe. "

Basically, this yet an other one of my many impulses to try out new things. That said the number of people who took the piss out of me, when I told them what I was tyring to learn, was only over come by those who could not comprehend why I had choosen something like that over, more conventional methods of training. I could not awnser them, not when I was told by a dear friend of mine. 

"I did not laugh, because your going to try and learn how to practise parkour, I am laughing because it is so unusual and so strange for someone to go for that." 

He is absolutely and completely right, it is strange for us to do what the majority of us do not do. What am I getting at with this post, you have guessed it is. They are not my new endeavours. Rather what I learnt from them, that we have all of these social constructs that stop us create invisible walls, that make no sense why they should exist. 

Yet, here we are in the morning, waking up and following a routine, that we made or imposed on us. This routine, is so dangerous that people will not notice anything about it. I could not believe it myself, but when I was recovering from one of my many runs, I landed badly and was tyring to catch my breath so I could keep going on. I found myself between two paths, which to get from one to the other, one had to take a 2-3 minute walk around the building. Yet if you were to just run and jump across a three meter gap, it would take you 20-30 seconds at most. 

No one, not even myself got the idea to walk across that small gap, rather we always prefer taking the long way  around, because its what is socially acceptable. What we believe that we have to do, because it is what others do. If we do not do what others do, others will look at us weird or worse, think we are strange. 

None of that happened, with me, breathing heavily, I was all of a sudden invisible. No one stopped to look at the weird person standing where he shouldn't be. Why? Because I should not have been there, because it was illogical for a human to be there. Thus, we do not look in places like these. Yet these places are the most amazing of places, that I am currently looking for, not just physically but also in my life, how I do things. I am constatnly tyring to find new and novel ways to act, live and most importantly of think. 

Thinking outside of the box, coming up with ideas that no one could think of before, and implementing them or talking about them. More often than not, people think I am insane, suggesting the most outrageous of ideas. Concepts, which people tell me, we are not yet ready to make a reality. The thing is, we are never readyto do anything, unless we try. 

Now I am just rambling, but it was a thought that I had, and wanted to share with the rest of you. Been thinking a while how to write this, but as it turned out just sitting down and starting to type my ranting here rather then just telling myself how can I go around it. This has worked out pretty well.

So, my question to you.

Do you see this as well? Our constraints, that we put on ourselves, acting in ways not because we entirely want to, but because others act like that and thus we must conform.

Photos on instagram,

Facebook posts,

Blogging even, 

Tweets, 

Dress code,

Food.

The list is infinite, some might see me as a hipster, since what I propably comming off as one in this post (I really am not tring to be), I would like to share a thought, is it not, that our much loved individuality is just all but, a collection of characterisitcs that we pick up form those around us, in the most random of fashions. Begging the question to be, what does really make us individuals?

For me, it is the fearlessness not to be normal. What's yours?