Silent Worker

For a few months now, I've been working on a project.

I, if you believe the credits on it, am the compositor and visual effects person in a DVD that promotes the extending entitlements for young people and making them accessible for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

I'm not going to talk about the actual project or what I've done. I'm going to talk about the upcoming launch. It's in a few days, and those in work suggested that I'd ask my parents to attend the DVD launch.

I asked a few days ago, stressing that they didn't have to go considering it's on at a time where my father is working.

Half an hour ago, my mother came up to me, telling me that my father managed to get the day off, and they can come to the launch.

And my first reaction to her saying that was that similar to someone who was not pleased.

It's not that I'm not proud of the work that I've done in the project, I suppose the stuff that I've done is of a decent level and at least it's been beneficial to my course in university.

The thing is, and it's something my mother found highly confusing, I despise having anyone from my family watching anything that I do, and likewise vice versa.

It's not that I think they feel obliged to come to whatever I'm a part of, and they must tell me how my work is brilliant and wonderful and not even seventeen pixies who have been working for Bill Gates for three decades can do a better job or whatnot, it's just that... I find it highly awkward when a family member watches something that I've done.

I honestly felt horrible when my mother said that, along with my father, she would be coming to the launch. And besides, it's not worth my father taking the day off for. Him being in work is far more important to the family than some DVD that I help to create.

I know this probably sounds extremely childish or whatnot, but the fact remains - I don't want them to come.

And when I said that to her, she had a bamboozled face. Like I'd slapped her in the face with a can of motor oil while chanting Blink-182 lyrics.

I then gave her examples of times when I felt uneasy going to performances where at least one family member of mine partook in. When MkIII was in university, her last assignment was to perform in piece about something based in Roman times.

I really didn't want to go, so I said that to my mother. She, thinking I was just a sulking teenager, made me go. For the whole time, I really didn't want to be there.

It's not the fact that I thought the performance was bad or anything. It's just the fact that my sister was in the performance.

This has happened many a time, where my parents have thought I was just some soppy teenage prick who only wanted to listen to music that would make me understand the world better or some weird shit like that.

But it wasn't like that at all. I honestly felt highly awkward when seeing anything my sisters were in. I even felt wrong going to see my sister's graduation ceremony.

And before any of you ask, I have no idea why.

I thought I was in the money, considering what my course is about. There's not going to be some show where I ask my parents to come see what I've been working for. But unfortunately, the time has come, and I really don't want any family members to go.

I know, I'll look at this post a few days/weeks/months/years from now and I'll still think that I'm being some self indulgent piss pot. Hopefully my attitudes will change in the future, but I doubt they'll change that much in such a short amount of time.

Ah well.

- I got a bullet with a FIN on it, bullet with a FIN. 

21-Up

Today was my birthday.

Officially, if you abide time and stuff, I will be twenty one once the clock strikes 11:30pm on November the second of this year.

No, this is not me begging for people to wish me a happy birthday or anything like that, I was just stating a fact.

This morning, I woke up and was greeted by my mother. In one hand, she held a card, and in the other a thing that I didn't really think about. I opened the card, and it was the usual fair; "congratulations on living, we're rather fond of your existence" type of thing.

I was then given a gift. Since we're not a well-off family, I assumed it was just a filler, something that she wrapped up just so I could open something on the day of my birth.

I opened it, and it was a ball of bubble wrap. Fair be, I thought.

I then began to open up this ball, which at its centre was an iPod Touch. It didn't matter from what generation it was, an iPod's an iPod at the end of the day.

My first thought, and the first thing I said, after realising what they bought me was are you sure you can afford this?

My mother said they could. She bought it in a sale and slapped it on the credit card. She added that she thought it would be better for me to have a dedicated MP3 player than using my phone, as my old iPod died a few weeks back.

That statement has stayed with me all day. My family have spent years saving up for things. I remember for months, if not years, we were living in a house where we could have no electricity or heating for hours or days. The first computer we had was this weird franken-computer from old pieces years after they started to be big.

For my past few birthdays, all they did was give me some money. Nothing major, just a tenner, or maybe fifteen if things were looking up. So, for them to get me an iPod Touch for something such as my twenty-first... I don't know why, but that hit me big time.

I've never really valued money in the same way as others seem to do. For me, money is not something to just flitter away for a cheap laugh; it's a necessary part of life where it must be treated right.

Maybe some people will look down at me, think I'm just a hoarder, someone who would rather see the colour of money than happy days or whatever. That's not the case. I just never want to be in that situation if/when I have children. Same goes for anyone I care about.

I'm getting off topic. Anyway.

My mother then asked if I had anyone on Facebook asking me why my birthday's not visible. I just said that I don't see the point advertising my birthday to everyone, just so they could quickly write something simple on my wall. I find that just as awkward as someone coming up to me and making me sing happy birthday to a stranger.

I can't explain why, it is just like that for me.

That's why, if I ever wish someone a happy birthday, I always do it via textual communication, and even if I do it would be later in the day.

Anyway, safe to say that only family members have remembered. Which is fair enough. I'm not complaining, considering I've never really publicised my birthday at all.

In work, towards the afternoon, they planned a little thing, which ended in me taking home a piece of cake (which my parents ate, I'm no fan of cakes m'self), a card with all nice words from the people who work there and an A3 piece of paper that has Happy 21st Birthday Gareth! Promo love you. Oh, and the memory of the accountant trying to serenade me. I'm pretty sure I'll never say that again for a long while.

But other than being pre-occupied with the thought of my parents getting me something I thought they wouldn't and what had happened in work, it was a rather normal day.

Which is was my birthday is, really.

So, twenty-year-old me is now dead. Hopefully, twenty one-year-old me would have better luck with everything.

Have a good'un.

- FIN times eight. FIN. FIN. FIN. FIN. FIN. FIN. FIN. FIN.

Dandelion Mind

In just a few weeks, I will be twenty-one.

If you want to be absolute, I'm already twenty-one. You know, considering I was living in my mother's womb for nine months. Good thing she never asked for rent. But for the case of reason, logic and sanity, I'm twenty-one in a few weeks.

For some reason, the same thought just keeps coming back to me...

I don't like where I am in life.

Now, that has nothing to do with my work, my friends or anything like that. I really do like working where I am, and I have a good time with the people I see on an irregular basis. It's just, looking at where other people are in their lives, it makes me wonder if I am in the right place in mine.

When I say that, I don't mean that I look at the people who I went to school with and see how varied their lives are. I mean, some are already married, some have kids, some are working in the industry they want, and some have wealthy parents who can buy everything for them to have an easy life.

And then there's me, still confused as to where I'm heading in life.

As I said, it's nothing to do with the people I know or what I do. It's all about me.

And that, my improbable reader, is something that will make me sound like some attention seeking whore who wants nothing but attention. Didn't need the second attention there, yeah? Seems I need a lesson in grammar (orly?).

I look at myself and think, what can I do? And yes, I mean both skill-wise and personally. If that makes sense.

And I don't like thinking like this.

You know, where the only thing you can think of is your own worth in the world. Whatever I can do, there are at least three people I know who can do it better, faster and the like.

I know, comparing yourself to people is looked down upon. The whole it doesn't matter what or who you are, as long as you're you or whatever bullshit that gets spilled out to people. It's obvious that it does matter. Would you employ someone who has no skills in the required field just because their honest with themselves? I highly doubt it.

For the most part, I know that everything is relative. Like my ability with the Welsh language. To those who have no clue of how to speak Welsh, I am a font of knowledge, but to those who speak the language fully week in week out, I must look like a right amateur.

As I said before, it's not just about skills. It's about me as a person also.

I have probably used up a quarter of my life, and what have I done? Nothing but stay in my room and try to get better at the things I like to do. Some might say that's a good thing, meaning that I'd develop into something that can only mean good things for me career-wise. And in a way, they're right. I mean, if it wasn't for the abundance of my time just spent lying in bed, watching After Effects tutorials, I'd probably be slightly worse than I am now.

Shit, this is gone into skillsets again. My apologies.

Anyway, those twenty-one years have mainly been spent in my bedroom, the smallest room in my house. Everyone else my age has probably spent most of their lives outside, doing what young people do these days, whatever that is.

At first, it was because none of my friends lived close to me to meet up. Then, when I found someone who actually did, I didn't know how to start socialising with them. That story started roughly thirteen years ago, and has repeated itself from the start about two to three years ago.

Anyway, as the social began to be more social, experimenting with drink and money, I did what was natural to me; stay home and waste my time power-leveling characters in games or thinking about pointless subject matters like my own mortality.

And that has made me into the person I am right now; someone who I don't really like.

I mean, considering my profession of choice, I will need to talk to people and possibly maybe teach people. A good example is of today, there was a work experience girl who had no idea how to use Photoshop, so I was asked to teach her something basic.

I did so, but I could feel my voice shaking. It was like I had developed a stutter in the two minutes between being told I had to do it and actually needing to do it. She did it, but it didn't help that I seemed like I had no idea what I was on about.

I mean, if someone was teaching you something and they were bloody nervous doing so, would you really trust what they were saying?

Fuck.

In other news, the closer November comes, the more apparent my thoughts of death appear. I don't know why this happens, but for the last few years or so, the closer my birthday comes the more I think of death. And I don't like it.

And before anyone says otherwise; I am trying to change. I am trying to be someone who isn't just a rat in a self-built cage. But every attempt that I do, it seems to backfire on me.

C'est la vie, apparently.

- Satan, laughing, spreads his wings. Oh lord, FIN.

Night Shift

I discovered something last night.

Well, I discovered many a thing last night, but only one I'll discuss.

Yesterday, it was my friend's birthday party. He's twenty-one in a few days, but had a celebration yesterday.

When I was there, I was on form. And by that, I mean that everyone was drinking and being merry while I stayed in one spot, noticing things that others didn't. This time, it was about the green lights that where on the wall. First, some didn't move, then some vibrated to the bass. What a fuckhead I am.

Anyway, that's not what I discovered.

When I was home, I tried to go to bed. Well, I succeeded with actually going to bed, it was just the process of sleeping that I had trouble with.

I'm not sure if I was dreaming, or if it was just my brain was in a stasis of rest while my entire body was awake, but for about an hour, I remember working on this DVD that I'm helping with in work. The only difference is that I was using a programme that was a mix between Premiere Pro and DVD Studio Pro, and the other person who I was talking to about the work wasn't a fellow worker, but the girl who I have feels for.

In that hour, all I remember that I was working on the DVD, feeling weak, as if every little change took the maximum of effort. The girl was pissed off with me for some reason, either because I was fucking up the work or she just felt awkward and ashamed to be forced to work with me. Every wrong thing that I did resulted in me banging my head on my bed. So, I was conscious to know what was happening, but unconscious enough to not being able to stop myself from being in this state of delusion.

The thing is, I don't understand why this happened. It's not like I'm stressed about work, because I'm honestly not. The work, albeit time consuming, isn't difficult. There are setbacks, yes, but nothing that I haven't encountered before. I had to use DVD Studio Pro in one of my assignments last year, and I had a decent mark in it, so I know how to work it and that. Premiere's just Premiere.

Maybe it's about her.

Maybe I'm just being a fool.

Yeah, it's definitely the later.

Anyway. That's another thing that confuses me. This is the first time where work and my personal life has merged, and it's in a dream (or whatever you call it). I've always kept my different lives separate. I mean, my work, university, family and personal lives are just that, four separate aspects of my life. Granted, there are some overlaps (Clic, for example), but on the whole, I try not to merge the different aspects of my life.

I have no idea why this is the case, it's just always been like that.

Anyway, you might be wondering what I discovered.

It was about three in the morning, when I came around from the dream-that-probably-wasn't-a-dream-because-I-wasn't-completely-asleep dream. I was wide awake, and I only wanted to do one of two things.

The first one will make me sound like a soppy arsehole, so I''ll forever keep it to myself.

The second is, I'm much better suited to working than socialising.

I mean, look at the evidence. The only real time I feel somewhat comfortable is when I'm doing work. Whether it's something I can do off my own back (like designing a banner for Wicid, editing video footage, writing and editing articles) or something I have no idea what I'm doing (like photography, anything administrative), at least I'm doing something constructive. Or at least trying to do so.

When I'm socialising, what am I doing? Nothing. Most of the time, I'm just awkwardly being there with  nothing of substance to add to the conversation. Well, unless they're talking about something I actually have confidence in, like anything multimedia or how to effectively kill bosses in Final Fantasy X, but let's be honest how many times with that happen?

I don't know. It just seems that I was not bred to talk. I was born to work, even if my chosen career will help humanity as much as a dog shitting in the woods would add a loving ambience to a political convention.

Most pointless description, ever.

Before I stop writing this idiocy, I have one question that might make my sound like a right numpty. I don't suppose that any of you have an idea how to escape from yourself for an hour or so? And I don't mean ways to have time off from work and just relax. I mean, actually separate your thoughts from your brain for even a moment, just so you can think about something other than the usual stuff?

So yeah, that's a thing.

- And this is a FIN.