Beatbox journey to the Caribbean - Part 1

Well, it's been a while but I'm back!

I've been to the Caribbean. That's always a time of introspection. I guess that's what happens when you go back to where you grew up after along while.
I've got a few videos documenting my trip in a very light fashion (beat boxing all throughout pretty much). Just uploaded the first one.
I might upload the deep soul searching monologue ones too....MIGHT!

Faith = Credulity? Part 3

PROPHECIES

I went on Wikipedia and looked at the heading “Prophecy”. You can check it yourself but this was an interesting comment which I think is shared by the majority:

“According to skeptics, many apparently fulfilled prophecies can be explained as coincidences (possibly aided by the prophecy's own vagueness), or that some prophecies were actually invented after the fact to match the circumstances of a past event ("postdiction"). Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes,

One point to remember is that the probability of an event changes as soon as a prophecy (or divination) exists. . . . The accuracy or outcome of any prophecy is altered by the desires and attachments of the seer and those who hear the prophecy.^”

Really?

Let's see.

 Each confession tends to have its own prophecies. Even the ones professing believing in the bible have their own interpretations. So let’s take something we can all agree with.

Once upon a time the bible was translated from relatively recent manuscripts and one could question whether they had been gradually changed over time and become completely different to the original (written version of Chinese whispers).

Then the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 1947 and surprisingly, although at least 1000 years older than other copies,  no fundamental changes were found. Just spelling and grammar variations. The scrolls are digitalized now so you can actually see them http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ .

I will focus on the Isaiah scroll which is dated circa 125 BCE (so clearly written BEFORE the events).

Interestingly, Jesus was not considered to be the Messiah foretold in Isaiah by most of his contemporaries as they were not waiting for a son of carpenter. They were expecting a leader that would deliver them from Roman rulership But most converts to Christianity after Jesus ‘ death became so after studying the book of Isaiah. One of these is the Eunuch Ethiopian in Acts 8:32 who read a passage of Isaiah saying “As a sheep he was brought to the slaughter, and as a lamb that is voiceless before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.” He wanted to know if Isaiah was talking about himself or somebody else. His answer came from Philip the Evangelizer who in verse 35, “ starting with this Scripture, declared to him the good news about Jesus.”

This is one prophecy about how the Messiah would be silent before his accusers. So OK. Say Jesus would have known this scripture and strove to keep silent. Fair point. Let’s delve a bit deeper.

What other scripture might Philip have used? Just a few more from Isaiah, maybe:

Buried with the rich                               Isaiah 53:9    applied to Jesus Matthew 27:57-60 (How could he have any control over that?)

Descended from King David                Isaiah 9:7    applied to Jesus in  Matthew 1:1, 6-17 (Again, you either are or you are not, the Jews would have known if he wasn’t)

He would not believed in.                    Isaiah 53:1     applied to Jesus in John 12:37, 38

I find interesting that the Israel Museum’s only comment about Jesus is that the manuscripts do not contain “Messianic prophecies" per Se.  It’s ironic, they themselves are fulfilling this prophecy about Messiah not being believed in.

However, there are numerous Hebrew Scripture texts that do not specifically mention “Messiah” but were understood by the Jews as prophecies applying to that one. Alfred Edersheim located 456 passages to which the “ancient Synagogue referred as Messianic,” and there were 558 references in the most ancient rabbinic writings supporting such applications. (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1906, Vol. I, p. 163; Vol. II, pp. 710-737)

When Jesus was around but had not manifested himself as such yet, the people in Palestine were in expectation of the Messiah (Luke 3:15 “Now as the people were in expectation and all were reasoning in their hearts about John: “May he perhaps be the Christ?). There is a prophecy in the book of Daniel that said that “from the going forth of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks.” (the 70 weeks prophecy, Daniel 9:25). So the timing had to be right.

There was a total more than 300 prophecies regarding Jesus, including his place of birth, the killing of babies after his birth, his betrayal by one disciple for 30 pieces of silver, his being struck, spat on, accused with false witnesses, abandoned by his disciples when struck, things Jesus had no power on.

300 vague coincidences? You be the judge.

Some go as far as argue that Jesus did not exist. Was Jesus only referred to by Christians? No. Cornelius Tacitus, a respected first-century Roman historian, wrote: “The name [Christian] is derived from Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” Suetonius and Pliny the Younger, other Roman writers of the time, also referred to Christ. In addition, Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, wrote of James, whom he identified as “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” 

MY CONCLUSION

The Evolution theory has yet to complete all the steps of the scientific method so it simply does not qualify as a scientific fact. You can call it anything you wish but saying it’s true science would be incorrect. Just a passing comment, if you can will something into existence as suggested by the second statement at the outset, we would have found several conclusive missing links. There are enough evolutionists looking for them and believing they will turn up.

As there is true science and pseudo science, there is also true faith and pseudo-faith.

True faith has a basis that can be defended. Pseudo-faith cannot defend itself, it just is.

Evolution does not connect all the dots for me. In my opinion, it has too many gaps, it belittles our humanity, does not give us meaningful purpose, or provide satisfying answers to the big questions that strike sooner or later : “Who are we, where do we come from and we are we going?”

On the other hand I find that creation explains all of this. And amazingly, true science and true faith are not at loggerheads. One complement the other.  What makes them look incompatible is human error and vested interests.

FAITH = Credulity? (Part 2)

LANGUAGES

I have always been fascinated with languages. 

There is something magical about them. By opening our mouth, uttering a few sounds with our lips in different shapes, we can communicate feelings, emotions, knowledge, an epiphany, even an entire world view directly to someone else’s brain. Even more extraordinary is that this transfer can occur through the written word and access dozens, thousands, even billion other brains, without our being physically there with them.

And then there is philology, the comparative study of different languages, which has helped us unlock the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphs and open the door to the world of the Pharaohs.

We take it for granted but language is still quite a mystery. How do we acquire it so quickly at a young age? And why have we got so many of them (over 6000)?

Anyway, if we have evolved, it's only logical to think that languages have started with grunts then gradually became more complex. It would also logically follow that this trend should continue.

But what does the most ancient recorded language reveal? Sumerian, the oldest written language (dated about 4000 BCE I believe), is more complex than modern languages with its infixes, suffixes, prefixes.

Also is language becoming more complex? New words enter language, but some turn obsolete and are dropped. Grammar stays generally the same. One would argue, however, that languages tend to be bastardised, rather than complexified. Abbreviations, lazy grammar and pronunciation, text-messaging language are preferred to the contrivances of correct syntax and fully formed sentences. Am guilty ov it 2. C wht I mean, dnt ya?

Joke aside, Ancient Greek which is one of the languages the bible was written into, causes problems to translate into our modern languages. Some Greek words do not translate. Take a simple word like “LOVE”. In Greek, there used to be 4 nuances of this word: "agape", "philia", "storge" and "eros". Most of us would only recognise “Eros”. Eros is just romantic love. There are 3 other types of love. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) but we only have one word for "love" in English, French, Spanish or German. If we are talking of a less intense feeling, we have another word ("like", "aimer bien" "gustar" "mögen"). But we have no real translation for the other nuances. We have to deduce which type of love (friendship, family love or unselfish principled love) is being described by the context in which the word is used.

The trend I am seeing is simplification of languages. It doesn't seem to fit the evolutionary model.

Linguists are searching for the ancestor of languages, but they have not found a simple language with characteristics of all modern languages yet, however hard they have tried.

The bible’s reason for this is that God skilfully confused the languages in Babel, around the second millennium BCE. This means there was one language at the very beginning; then at Babel, God suddenly created several so people would have to disperse to the 4 corners of the Earth and populate it . It was not a gradual process; otherwise they would still understand each other and would have stayed in one place.

Mad thought?

Have you tried learning a different language? It's quite hard. You have to adopt different rules of syntax, grammar and pronunciation that generally do not seem to make sense, you just have to absorb them. This is the conclusion I have drawn only from my experience of Roman or Latin-based languages, which are considered to be the same Linguistic family..

But what about Arabic and Chinese? Where is their common denominator with our Roman alphabet? Why do some languages require writing from left to right and others from right to left? It seems far-fetched to think that all of these evolved gradually from one common language. Why do some languages have an alphabet and others have logograms, pictograms, phonograms or a combination of these? Did someone decide in each case that they were fed up with the universal way of writing and speaking and invented a completely new way? How did he/she convince people to embark on this mammoth task and lead them to success? How long would the education programme have taken and what would be the cost to the community?

I can imagine a riot about a smaller change than this. It’s human nature, we resist change. We need a pretty good reason to embrace it. And even when we do, societal change is usually slow unless we have no choice in the matter.

One would expect that we could find records of this change happening. But as is true with the fossils, languages seem to appear in a short period of time, fully formed, all different. No record of transitional period.

So far the linguists have no scientific alternative to the Babel account to provide and yet they reject it.

A last note: we tend to think of ancient civilisations as archaic in their thinking, not civilised. Maybe they were in some ways. Maybe they did not have our modern technology, maybe they didn't know so much about the universe as we do. But how did the Sumerians build their Ziggurats so efficiently without cranes, calculators and Computer-Aided Designs? What about the Egyptians and their immense pyramids? These were beacons of mathematical precision and architectural genius. Some of their work endured millennia. Maybe our ancestors were not as dumb as we think. In fact, I am sure they had insights that we have lost.

If you have read this far, I am impressed! Thank you!

And if you feel so inclined, go there where I finish off with a little piece on prophecies. I'll be talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

:)

FAITH = CREDULITY? (Part 1)

I won't be obnoxious, I promise.

On either side of the argument (there IS a God, or there IS NO God), it seems to me that there is a tendency to stick to one’s guns as it were, dismissing the other side’s view without even trying to gauge it. It transpires in comments like “I don’t have to prove anything. I have FAITH, you don’t” or on the other side “you believe in NONSENSE, it’s been proven”.

If you are willing to read further, I will share with you my take on this.

First, blind faith is not true faith. The bible’s definition of faith is this: "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld" (Hebrews 11:1, New World Translation)

 Or, as the Common English Bible Translation puts it: "Faith is the reality of what we hoped for, the proof of what we don't see"

The bible doesn't encourage believing without sound foundation, believing just anything we are told (credulity). Instead, it tells us

“Put all things to the test.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, Today’s English Version)

I did this and this is the first part of my thinking process. I will blog the second part and my conclusion next week.

OUR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Celestial bodies follow mathematical laws so their movement is predictable, which is why we are able to send probes into space and make sure they hit the right planet/moon etc…Every celestial body (except black holes I believe) moves around in ellipses. We are part of a gigantic ballet. I say "ballet" because it seems quite graceful, well executed and beautiful. We don’t see many collisions on our blue planet. One would have thought that with so much debris in space, we would have been on a deadly collision course with something much more often (apparently, we have Jupiter to thank for that).

The second law of thermodynamics stipulates that anything left to its own devices will fall into disarray. So why is the universe still so orderly after almost 13.8 billions years?  Should it not be ostensibly more disorderly? Also, the universe is expanding but the pre-existing order doesn't seem to be affected.

The famous equation (E=MC2) suggests that energy is transferred into matter and vice versa. The abundance of matter around must therefore have originated from tremendous energy. Where did this energy come from is still a mystery for Science. The fact that the universe is also expanding at increasing speed puts this energy problem in sharper focus. 

Since Louis Pasteur, we have proof that spontaneous generation does not exist on Earth. Life only comes from pre existing life. There has been no experiment proving that life can come from the inanimate, only inconclusive attempts so far. 

WHAT MAKES US HUMAN: FEELINGS 

If  there is no God and that survival of the fittest is what drives us, what is the reason for our sense of justice, fairness, love? What is the problem with killing or robbing someone weaker? Were feelings an accident of evolution?

Physician Dean Ornish said “love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well”

If feelings were an accident and therefore not belonging in our evolution path, should we have survived that long with them? What's the use of laughter too? Beauty? Music? Do they make us fitter for survival?

We don't just live, we enjoy life or at least aim to do. We are definitely driven by something else than pure survival of the fittest. Well, at least  I am. Are you?

THE MISSING LINKS

The fossil records is still being scoured for “missing links”. I remember the last big fuss that was made after a scientist thought he found the missing link, round about August 2009. It was quickly abated when counter evidence showed that the specimen found could not be proved to be one of our “ancestors”. The media hype is unfortunately all that is left in people’s mind. I had to research the truth afterwards to realise that the media, in an effort to make sensational news, had blown the truth out of proportions.

In fact, there is no real convincing evidence that we have slowly evolved. Darwin’s theory of evolution was produced at a time where many discoveries were yet to be made. No idea about microscopic life at the time, spontaneous generation (the fact that life can just appear out of nothingness) was viewed as a fact of life.

But now we know that life is much more complex and organized. Since Louis Pasteur, we know that there is microscopic life and that life only comes from life (For instance, corpses don’t generate worms as previously thought. Flies lay their invisible eggs which hatch and release the devouring little beasts).

A little digression here. With the advent of the microscope, the more we looked, the more complexity we found. That would have surprised Darwin. People thought that the building blocks of life would be very simple. What was later called “cells” were little more than greasy blobs in their eyes. How far from the truth they were.

Cells are where lies a complex library of genetic code.

I haven’t found any solid evidence that species evolved into another. All things seem to have a master plan in their cells: the DNA. This also prevents a species to perpetuate a hybrid race with another species. Changes, mutations occur, but are very limited and only in movies do they result in super species.

For instance, donkey + horse=Mule. Mules are infertile. Tiger + lion = Liger. Bigger than lions or tigers but their lifespan is shorter and they are very prone to birth defects.

Another thing. If we evolved, then our ethics should have too. But have they?

EVOLUTION OF ETHICS?

Some time ago, I heard on the radio that Ofsted reported children aged 4 to 6 were exhibiting what was deemed “sexual behaviour” for which some were expelled from their school. (A couple of months later, I saw it myself. A little boy in my neighbourhood, probably aged 8, was showing his penis to all people driving by, cheered on by his mates, including a girl)

I found quite surprising how one official (I think a doctor) appeared to belittle this behaviour by saying those children were probably bored or looking for attention and not being sure about what is socially acceptable, being unaware of the boundary between things you do in private and things you do in public. More to the point though, another official said that those children were fed this behaviour, probably through TV and the Internet; the official added she was amazed at the crudeness of some material that children can be exposed to. 

The bible says that morals would decline (2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13). Most people that I have spoken to (who have lived much longer than me) confirm that they have.

The next post on this theme (Part 2) expands on one of my favourite subjects (languages) and the one after (Part 3) deals with prophecies.

The most unscientific belief EVER...

I got sucked into a debate on Youtube [i] a few days ago. It disturbs me how people can claim holding scientific views and still voice them in such an unscientific, obnoxious and downright vile manner.

I am not a scientist. But I respect Science, am fascinated by it. I have an odd personality that seem to account for that: I have a drive to understand the meaning, the underlying value of things. I am an “ INFP “according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), if you believe such things...

Anyway, I digress, here’s a memory more to the point:

My biology teacher in secondary school drove into us that the scientific method of inquiry is this:

1          1-      You observe a phenomenon, say life. You ask a question about it, say "how did it get here?"

2          2-      You do your research, go deeper into what you are observing.

3          3-    You postulate one or more hypotheses to explain what you are observing, say "evolution,  creation"

         4 - You devise experiments to measure whether your hypothesis/hypotheses is/ are true and carry them out.

4          5-     You evaluate the results

6          6-      If, and only if the results confirm your hypothesis, then that hypothesis becomes a scientific fact (and you can shout about it on the rooftops and expect receiving accolades from all over the world and maybe even a Nobel prize!)

5        

This is of course a simple outline. It doesn’t cover everything you have to do but these are the crucial, basic steps before you can shout “Eureka!” and share your scientific breakthrough. That is why I respect true science. It supposes rigour, a sincere desire to get to the truth and be able to demonstrate it to be so without a shadow of a doubt.

Not a single one out of the people I was debating with was familiar with this method and blimey, it certainly showed in their comments. It was a plethora of verbal abuse, bullying tactics only sprinkled with pseudo scientific thinking . The only valid points that they made were the following:

When scientists use the word “theory” as in the phrase “theory of evolution”, they mean the set of principles on which Evolution is based. The phrase “theory of evolution” isn’t a confession that it is an unproven idea. My mistake.

I also learned that Michael Behe is a creationist. Therefore I was mistaken when I thought “Here’s a chap that doesn’t believe in God but still points out the pitfalls of evolution. Surely an evolutionist would consider his views at least worthy of attention”. My bad.

But none of my other arguments were countered rationally. Coming back to the scientific method mentioned earlier, Evolution hasn’t completed all the steps. Nobody has been able to recreate the evolution process in its entirety on a small scale in laboratories (or any other scale for that matter). As far as I know, scientists have only been able to recreate the “primordial soup”. No living thing has sprung from it. What about the supposed “missing links” that seem to come to the rescue of Evolution every now and then? They all turn out to be insufficient evidence after reasonable scrutiny. So why is Evolution taught as a fact? What happened to the remaining steps? Swept under the carpet? How is that scientific? One would argue that it is impossible to recreate something that has taken billions of years to happen. Well, surely having millions of scientists trying to help the process in their laboratories would cut this time short? Or more to the point, how do we KNOW that the process took billions of years? Carbon dating? Lately this process' reliability has been called into question. 

Now, I said it before and will say it again: I make no apology for believing in God. I have my reasons albeit not measurable in test tubes; I have researched them, assessed them, re-assessed them in the light of new insights and I still think that you can be scientifically minded and believe in God. Believing in Evolution is not a guarantee that you have a rational mind at all. Otherwise the individuals I debated with would have preferred reasoning to the use of expletives and all manner of verbal abuse.

Conversely, believing in Creation does not necessarily mean one is irrational. Otherwise why would pillars in Science like Isaac Newton (he was a theologian as well as a scientist) and Albert Einstein (author of the famous quote “God doesn’t play dice” with the world) believe in God?

Here is the worst though: if Evolution has not yet gone through all the steps of the scientific enquiry method and come out on top with the facts and figures, the missing links, the experiments, peer reviews etc, it is NOT an established fact. Saying it is does not MAKE IT science. Not true science anyway. Not the sort one can entrust one’s lives with unreservedly.

 I sincerely hope that science does not jump to conclusions like that in other fields like medicine...
I reflect a bit more on faith in other posts. I wrote a series I called "Faith = credulity?", if you want to delve deeper on the subject.

---

[i] Find my comments posted as “DidyJay” under the video "Creation / Evolution debate on Michael Corel Show"

Stuck in the past yet somehow stretching towards the future?

We go about the world seeking new experiences,  ideas and insights but somehow  we  remain attached to the outdated an awful long time.

Columbus went  exploring .Went round the globe the unconventional way  and stumbled across the Caribbean  but  he called it West Indies. But this was no western India. Yet the misnomer has survived to this day.

One would have thought that the fact that Columbus didn’t fall off the edge of the world was enough to lay to rest the idea that the Earth was flat. Yet some still hang on to the idea to this day.

Recently, another kind of explorer emerged: the banker, closely followed by the trader.  All kinds of tricks were conjured up to make fortunes. Bankers became intoxicated by the opulent lifestyle. Then the recession hit. Yet  the industry resists any attempt to sober  up and adapt.

 A couple of generations ago, it was common to have a job for life. You didn’t even need to have particularly good grades. A generation later, it became very important to have a degree or at least good grades to land a good job.

But nowadays, going to University is no guarantee to get or keep A job, let alone a decent one. Yet we are still aiming to go to Uni, rack up a huge debt we might never be able to pay back. I would favour the entrepreneurial route myself.

We leave our lives in the hands of institutions that are up to their eyeballs in mud. I don’t think they can help us as much as we can help ourselves.

One other reason why I say this.

I suffered from arthritis and psoriasis for a time. I tried all the medication prescribed by the NHS. None worked as much as when I looked at my diet, did my research and took responsibility for my own life (with the help of good friends). Everyone around me was amazed at how I turned my health around but they still cannot accept the fact that I succeeded where trained doctors mostly failed.  The fact of the matter is, no matter how good a doctor is, s/he hasn’t got much time to make a diagnostic and listening to all your symptoms is a luxury s/he cannot afford nowadays. And most importantly, doctors are not trained in nutrition. They are, and it pains me to say this because I still think they mean well, little more than drug pushers.

Yet,  we still resist. When will we stop resisting and start existing?

New single out " Greater things"

What are you doing this glorious day? I've just done some jogging. Crazy huh? First time in absolute ages. No wonder I'm aching.

But you know, today reminds me of the day we recorded "Greater things". It was as hot and sunny as today, and I was as much of a nutter as I am today. here's proof: here's a video and here's the song

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIo-CyDagDw

:P

Rudiano is now on Soundcloud!

You can check my cinematic tunes here, my proper Caribbean oldies there or my top 5 tunes over here.

At the moment of re-editing this, there's a bug on Soundcloud. If all easle fails, enter this address in your browser:

http://soundcloud.com/rudiano

Yes, I composed and performed them all (sometimes with fellow artists).

Sit back (preferably in a hammock), relax (with glass of wine, liqueur...or rum - even better) and enjoy!
:P

Everyday I'm DA-BUH-LING, dabbling, dabbling

It's been a while, life has been rather tumultuous and exciting at the same time. Lots of opportunities, choices to make...I need to be more than one Rudiano to do all I wanna do!
So for that reason I have no other choice than working on my writing projects unconsciously (by this I mean they are on the back burner) for now!
Just an update on the Summer hit in the making: it's going to be recorded at the end of this month, all being well.
I will post more about this later.
Why not listen to some music while you wait? :P
Here's a LINK to my 2006 album and ANOTHER of the video for one of the tracks.
If you like, you know what to do!

;)

"Let's re-invent Zouk!"

That is our  erhm...modest goal.
You probably don't know Zouk...Or perhaps the kind of Zouk I'm referring to. If that is the case, here's a LINK OR 2 to what I mean  and what MY VERSION OF IT of it sounds like at the moment.
On " Good Friday", I travelled to my partner in crime's (Dal) and arrived fashionably late. In my defense, I had had a long day and virtually no sleep so I was quite slow. When I managed to get myself ready and on the road, I got stuck in traffic (okay, enough with the violins)
So when I finally reached his doorstep, it was no wonder Dal just wanted to crack on. I suggested that we have a listen of what Zouk sounds like so we can deconstruct it and revamp it. We listened to a few Zouk songs, Zouk compilations for inspiration. Then we set about our task.

Dal wrote a catchy base line. I wrote a beat. He added strings. We listened.  Not enough Oomph so I re-wrote the beat. We were both happier. He added brass then we add libbed a few melodies and lyrics to see how the song might go. We settled on a bridge, chorus and first two lines of the first verse. We will write a verse each on our own then meet again to collate. There's gonna be some rapping too.

Stay tuned, we want this to be a summer hit. We'll need lots of support for this!!! Are you down?

Variety, the spice of life

I love dabbling. Been working on my various music pages, spacebook and myface pages...er... You know what I mean, right? Been working on my upcoming summer release. Got the general melody sorted out.

I also enjoyed doing lawn treatments yesterday. We had good weather, so what better than some useful physical activity outdoors? Better than the gym,right? Caught much needed sun rays on my face and got paid for it!

My writing projects are on the back burner at the moment but I just can't help having several things on the go... I love it!

Rudiano's single out 22/12/2011

It would be good to hear your constructive criticism, because I intend to do another one as soon as I can.
Thank you please!
;P

Quick update

I've been working on an album for two years. But the amount of time I could devote to the project was reduced because of my addiction to doing many things at the same time! But here it is. This saturday, I'm recording my single.... A bit nervous!!!Why? Cause firstly I haven't exactly rehearsed as much as I would like - I'm leaving some room for inspiration that the studio may trigger - and secondly, I'm not sure yet how I will get there as my car's fan belt has decided to snap yesterday...Oh that brings a third worry: how much will it cost me. Mmmmmhhhh. Don't care, I'm recording in a studio for the first time ever! I'll walk there with all my gear if I need to!
Yeah mon!
:P

"I'm gonna make a change"

I’ve been doing Nanowrimo (National November Writing Month)again this year. The aim is to write a novel (50000 words) by the end of the month (for details, go to www.nanowrimo.org). Last year, I was working full time in a stressful job (truth be told, the job wasn’t nearly as stressful as the workplace) so when I gave up at 1000 words or so, I could blame it on the huge boulder in the way. This year I am much freeer and yet I see more hurdles to clear. They are smaller though so they are easily negotiable. It seems to take more from me because it takes little and often. The world is full of distractions. One day I will have planned to do this and that and the other but a minor crisis here and there will throw a spanner in the works.
Right now while I’m writing this at the library, a group of kids is entertaining themselves by repetitively hitting a table leg. So much for trying to get some peace and quiet cause I can’t get it at home !
I heard it said that when you try to change something in your life the universe tries to fight you back before it cooperates. I don’t think that’s exactly what happens but I certainly share the sentiment.
But anyway, I’ll break the 10,000 mark this weekend. Then 40 more to go ! I will have to keep going because I fear that if I take too long to do the first draft I will lose interest soon. That’s what happened with my previous projects. In the words of the late king of pop MJ, in the intro of his song Man in the mirror, « I’m gonna make a change, for once in my life »

Seasonal Rambling

Acclimatising is not for me, it seems. 10 years on British soil and I still can’t stand winter. What were they thinking when they called this climate « temperate » ? There’s nothing temperate about going from baking hot (however rarely that happens) to freezing cold temperatures within hours. If it was up to me I’ d rename this climate "extreme" and give the "temperate" title to lands in the tropics. Admittedly it's hotter there but at least, because it's nearer the equator, the day length and temperature is about the same all year round. You know, it's pretty regular all the time. Well, OK, I’m leaving hurricanes out of the equation.. Minor detail! Even in hurricanes the temperature doesn't get anywhere near zero so the ups and downs on the thermometer are still negligible compared to over here.
Anyway. What a whiner, eh? I should go back to the caribbean eh? Nah. At least I love Autumn. You don't get that in the tropics. Colours everywhere, golden and red leaves carpetting the ground. It’s got something magical and warm about it. If you happen to see this through mist then you are looking at giant surreal paintings. It feels like stepping into a new dimension almost.
I do love summer for the heat but I think I love Autumn as much if not more, for its visual spectacle.
Begs the question « How could all this artistry be a product of blind chance ? » Mmmmhh :P