Week Away

So now I find myself on a week of annual leave, with the house to myself. Honestly? I am getting a little bored. I know only boring people get bored but, well, that sort of answers itself. I guess without work I can become bored. How someone with such a good protestant work ethic became an atheist is beyond me.

I have been looking up some interesting topics. Idlers, Freeman-on-the-Land. They seem to be a mystery to me. How do they eat? Do they collect unemployment benefits? It all seems a little dodgy to me, particularly as some of the forums use phrases like "fuck work!" Some kinds of work can be enjoyed, those towards a desirable outcome - the exact definition of "desirable" to be determined by the individual. I find programming to be good in this sense, as if there is something that I really want to do I can work towards it and have an outcome I can use. I code, I compile, I use. It's that simple.

The above brings me to something else: creativity. I have never really paid any attention to my creative side. I can't draw, paint, sculpt, play an instrument, sing, dance, act or do anything remotely creative. I don't know whether these shortcomings are a reason for not indulging my creative side or a product of my non-indulgence. I am considering trying to take a period of time to try and be creative - somehow. Try to write a novel, or poetry or just try to be somehow creative. Because usually I don't create just for creation's sake, if I do create it is for a purpose. I often wonder if art can be useful. Surely designing a good car engine is a sort of art, it is just that it can be used. What about architecture? The skill it takes to create something useful must render its creator a sort of... "technical artist". I don't know, smarter men than me must surely know.

So onto more down-to-Earth matters - I bought some more albums! And books. I have more books than I can read. Actually why don't I have a "Books I Need to Read" list? I have so many that I have bought. I'm not sure I will ever read every single one of them. But either way I bought The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde and In Search of Lost Time 1: The Way By Swann's - Marcel Proust. I'll add it to the quite enormous amount of books I need to read. I have them, I just haven't read them yet. I also bought Errors - Come Down With Me, The Postal Service - Give Up and Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister. I should get an award for all the brilliant albums I buy. I bought those on the 2nd of this month, and once I deflated my head I bought Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, TV on the Radio - Dear Science, The Temper Trap - Conditions and Vampire Weekend - Contra. Haven't listened to any of those last four yet, been listening to the Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo podcast. Mark Kermode deserves so many plaudits for his reviews, his rants are epic - his Sex and the City 2 and Pimp reviews were brilliant. As much as I like hearing about films he loves, we all love to hear someone passionate about their topic taking major issue with examples that are an insult to it. I don't know why that is - why is it more entertaining to criticise than to praise?

Anyway I am currently trying and sort of failing to get my placement report written. Need to get right down to the work this week. See, full circle (sort of).

Edit: Totally forgot to say I watched Unthinkable, How To Train Your Dragon and Any Given Sunday. Unthinkable is an interesting moral ride with Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Sheen giving A+ performances, How To Train Your Dragon is a charming family adventure that ticks all the right boxes and Any Given Sunday is in-your-face intensity. The last one isn't really my kind of film but I enjoyed it anyway. Unthinkable was a good film, it came across as quite brave for a Hollywood film with a very well-known lead actor to discuss the legality and morality of torture - even if it did have some slightly gory bits. It isn't an easy watch but it blends some action with some loud discussion of ethics. Well paced and not overly long, it is not a mind-blowingly fabulous film but it is a very solid film.