Regular as Clockwork

August 18, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have heard recently, that an active blog should be updated a couple of times a week. This doesn’t inundate readers with daily posts, but it let’s them see that you are still active. Okay, it was advice on Vlogging on YouTube, but I guess the same rules could apply to blogging.

Usually, if I go on a kick and blog EVERYDAY, I will do it for so long, and suddenly stop. It’s like I have overdosed on it, and then can’t find anything else to say. So I go from blogging daily, to not blogging for a month. I thing part of blogging is habit, if you get yourself out of the habit of posting, then it is hard to get back into it.

I think that writing 2 blogs a week is a good target. Something that seems a little bit easier to do that blogging every day. But, we’ll see. Hopefully, if I get back into the swing of things, there shouldn’t be too many more blogs about blogging. 🙂

Be Your Own Hero

August 8, 2012August 8, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Change is hard.
But change happens.
Accepting change is difficult.
Enforcing change change can seem impossible.
But to be successful, a person needs to be able to change things. No matter what your status is in life, you will have some bad habits. Things that you do without thought. It may effect your life dramatically, it may just sit in the background of your life.

Sometimes, just to feel empowered and in control, you need to change something. Whether that is losing weight or going to college, change is good. I want to find control. I am not happy with my shape, so I am going to try and exercise more. I have spent the majority of my life beating myself up because of how I am shaped, and that is not a good place to be.

So I hope to change my mindset by getting fit. This will hopefully help me become more positive. And be the end of these selfish ramblings.

Or maybe not. 😉

Looking For Sue

July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 ~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I am the kind of person who has always thought for herself. Mostly because I have always spent a lot of my time on my own. Also, because I had no one to really ‘bounce ideas off’, I just came to my own conclusion on things.

When I was younger, I struggled with it. I struggled that the person who I wanted to be was not the same as everyone else. I just wanted to understand the workings of the world a bit better, and find a way to contribute to the world. Whereas everyone else at school, had decided at 12 what they would do, and we’re going to stick to that path. In fairness, all my friends that were that focused on their future career, got what they wanted. And for that, I am proud and have a lot of respect that they ‘stuck it out’ and got where they wanted to be.

I just wasn’t that focused. I thought that there had to be more about life that just getting a great job. I visited museums and art galleries on my own, I just tried to find out who I was. To me, being the person I wanted to be, was more important than any vocation. Which is why I maybe flunked college when I went. Twice. But I look it those ‘failures’ as character developments. Both times I attended college, I discovered a lot about myself, and continued my search to find the person who I wanted to be.

I became so focused on me, my relationship status rarely changed from single, which is still the same today. But I found a person I am happy to be, and that is more important to me. The only relationship that should have all your attention, is the one with yourself. Because if you don’t love you, how can you expect anyone else to?

I try to educate myself regularly. I love reading books on history and politics. And I have recently taken to teach myself French (after I attempted it at school, but have forgotten 99% of it). I feel that over the last few years, I have moved greatly towards the person I want to be. I just cut my Mohawk again, for the first time in 6 months, and I feel like me. And from someone who has struggled with herself for most of her life, this is a revelation. It makes me feel successful, although people looking at my life, may disagree.

I am the kind of person who: is compassionate, has kick-ass music taste, ponders a lot, reads 3 books at once, puts subtitles on movies because I want to listen to music at the same time, has a strong dislike for the colour pink, interested in politics, interested in science, grrl gamer, is intelligent, is a bookworm, opinionated, is accepting, non-religious, argumentative, childish, queer, tattoo addict, fashion reject.

All these things make me who I am. What makes you who you are?

I’m Addicted To You

June 28, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I was watching some show on TV last night, that talked about how easily people can become addicted to things. Be it narcotics or sky diving, people get addicted the good feeling, that comes with a particular activity. Everyone has something that they are addicted to. Whether it is watching Coronation Street without fail, having a whiskey every night or topping up your fake tan. There is something that you can do every day without thinking, something that you do because it makes you happy.

If that is the case, why do people like drug addicts and alcoholics become the most hated people in modern society. They aren’t really any different to you, except they just ‘get their kicks’ in a different way. It is just their addictions can lead to problems with their own bodies, and behaviour problems that effect the general public. So the final outcome of their addiction may be problematic, but do they deserve the damning that the majority of people give them.

I don’t think so. If you expect someone to accept that you are addicted to looking and feeling a certain way, surely alcoholics and drug addicts are no different. They, like us all, are just looking for something to help through life, and make things easier. Everyone has something that makes life a bit easier to cope with it. So why demean others for doing the same thing?

Attack! Attack!

June 28, 2012 ~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

Work and life has been a bit rubbish.

And I am feeling rather nervous about posting personal things online because I seem to be getting lampooned a lot for it. The usual Internet troll crap is something I can live with, but now people who I accept as friends and family are hating me for it. They don’t understand why I want to ‘tell all’ and post it online for the world to read.

On one hand the criticism doesn’t mean too much, because these people have not a lot of experience of Internet geekdom past Facebook and YouTube. And as a reaction they attack what it is they don’t know about. It’s a natural response i guess.

But on the hand, I don’t understand it. I have had problems with depression and talking about things online has helped me cope – bit. And the fact that these people are attacking my coping mechanism and they know how hard the last few years have been for me.

I guess it sucks. There seems to a stigma that is becoming attached to publishing things on line generally. Which is strange because blogs about clothing, food and tech seem to be very popular.

The worst thing is that I am cutting back on what I am posting, to try and please those around me. Which is not something I should have to do. *sigh* What a pain!!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Initial Aspirations

June 10, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

When I started this blog, I had many ideas and thoughts of what I would use it for. It would be a creative blog, where I would post images of what I had made, and use it as a promotional tour for my business. In retrospect, I think I aimed a little high.

Firstly because being at college, and struggling through a few years of forced creativity, has lead to me going from one artistic mental block, to another. Secondly, I just am far too scatter brained to make my blog about one thing. I maybe should organise it better, but nothing in my life is very organised, so it maybe wouldn’t reflect ME if it wasn’t a bit of a mess. Some excuse, right?

I have always been an over thinker. A person who seeks importance in the most stupid and trivial things. My interests in things can get intense, but will also suddenly wane after a short period of time. I want to express my love and experience so many different things, that I always find myself looking for ‘something else’. Whilst some things such as favourite bands, movies and books will stay with me, I can’t exclusively care about a favourite thing. I think that liking new things can be a challenge, a challenge that should be welcomed.

Because I try to be interested in so many different things, I find that what I want to talk about changes every day. One day I will want to talk about Benji Madden sneaking into Scotland without my knowledge, the next day I’ll be talking about some political land mine. Whilst this leads to me being very sporadic, I like the idea that I have a place to express my thoughts in a accessible manner.

So whilst my initial plans for this blog haven’t come true, I still am happy with it. I have made this blog my online ‘home’ for the last few years, and I have become very attached to it. I find that WordPress is a great blog host, and find that is the best managed blogging site on the net. Trust me, I have tried almost every blogging site going. I like everything from the multiple platforms you can blog from, to the twitter feed. I think that the simplicity of using the service, has been crucial for me staying here for so long.

I guess I am feeling very retrospective. Whilst the majority of people I know say I waste my time writing a blog, I will always scoff in their faces. If a person has the freedom to express themselves without fear, no matter how they do it, they will never waste their time.

The Idea Of Deserve

June 5, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Some people work for every little thing they get, and some thing that they should be gifted things without work. After some thought on the topic, I was left wondering about how everyone has some kind of expectancy that they feel that they should be entitled to. But are we entitled to all we thing we deserve?

I started thinking about this topic, after a discussion I had via Twitter, where a discussion on the Royal family, ended up with comments of ‘they don’t deserve the luxuries they have’. It made me wonder, who is anyone, to decide, whether someone is deserving of a certain lifestyle. Do homeless people deserve to rot, because they are possibly drug addicts and are responsible for the mess they find themselves in?

I like to think that people are responsible for what happens in their lives. That, what life you lead, is decided by the actions that you do. And by that belief, I have to do any task to the maximum of my capabilities. If I don’t try at something, I feel that I can’t complain if it all goes wrong, and I don’t get the result I want.

I find that a lot of people don’t work at something, so they look at others, who are ‘better off’ than themselves, and berate them. Say that they are not worthy for the privileges that they have. These insults don’t change anything, the privileged person is still privileged, and the insulter just ends up bitter about their own situation. So complaining about those with more than you, is counter-productive. It does nothing, but make a person feel worse about their own life.

Another point about people’s ‘observance’ of those more privileged people, is that most of the time, the observer knows nothing about the person they berate. They have no idea what that person does day-to-day, or what they get in return. It is a pointless and wrong observation.

More people need to be concerned more about whether they reach their potential, rather than complaining about others. If you put all your energy making yourself successful, you won’t feel the need to waste time tearing others down. Yes, it may seem a tad self-obsessed, and you may end up contained in a ‘bubble’ on your own, but it is better for a person’s well being. Being obsessed with those who has more than you, just takes your focus off your life. Think about how you are privileged and work so that the things that you admire in others, is something that you possess.

Check Your Sources

May 26, 2012May 26, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

In a world where news is dominated by what is on the news overview onGoogleand the trending topics on Twitter, it is becoming harder for more traditional news outlets to remain relevant. Do people have to pay for what they want, or is free news part of a person’s rights?

I have just watched Page One: Inside The New York Times, which as someone with an interest in media and it’s progression, was something that I have been meaning to watch since it came out last year. It shows a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at one of the world’s most established and popular Newspapers. It was not what I expected. It showed that the Journalistic giant had made mistakes, and that it was struggling in the world of modern day media. But for a printed paper, created in 1851, the fact that this publication can still sell over 2,000,000 copies in a day, is phenomenal, no matter how you look at it.

The one thing that was highlighted in the documentary, was how the drop in advertising revenue, and the reader’s want to get free news, was damaging the paper. It is said, that papers who print, lose money with every copy of a paper that they publish, as the cost of the paper needs to be affordable, for people to buy it on a daily basis. In the past, this loss was covered by the money that advertisers paid to be included in publications. As the Internet has become stronger over the last 10-15 years, companies began to start up their own websites for promotion, which was cheaper and began to lean less and less on the traditional printed media. In a world, where profit margins are becoming thinner and thinner, you can see why companies would follow the path of self-promotion.

This caused a problem for newspapers, like the New York Times, which found that their main source of revenue was disappearing. It meant that changes needed to happen, and the paper and it’s journalists would need to be more interactive with it’s audience to try and stay relevant. This involved an introduction of a website where journalists could record corresponding videos with their articles. Readers were invited to comment, and share their views, and the company began to catch up with it’s competitors in other media, such as TV. This way of publishing stories helps newspapers get a broader, even worldwide audience. Whilst this seems like a more affordable way to spread the news, but there was still a big gap in revenue, due to advertising loss. This is where the site installed a ‘paywall’, which would ask heavy users to pay a fee to continue using the site. This model has proved very successful for many online services. And has helped plug the gap in revenues, created by the drop of advertising.

And that is what a lot of people have a problem with. Why pay for something when you can Google the news for free. Google is a site, which like the way newspapers used to operate, is funded mostly by advertising revenue. The issue with advertising revenue, is it gives the reader the belief that they are viewing something that is free. Accept, it isn’t really free. Google gets paid by how many people use the service, as advertisers will pay accordingly to feature under certain searches. When up to the ‘top 10’ of results you get on google, have paid for that high ranking, you begin look further into what you’re using. That every click that you make on a google site, is collated and sold to marketing companies. You then begin to wonder, are sites like Google really free?

Another problem with the internet, is that the source is not as important as it used to be. You search for a news topic online, and will click on the one with the snappiest headline. More often than not, the photos and story may come from a single source, a source which be mentioned somewhere at the bottom of the article, if you’re lucky. And this mixed nature of ‘search engine news’, means that all sources and all work just becomes a big muddle. Where as in print, you can sometimes say, ‘I’ll read the Daily Star, because I want to read nonsense’. Or the Independent for more serious news. That definition between different publications isn’t so relevant when you Google search, and just pick one out of hundreds of results. It’s like written journalism is losing its definition.

Where this causes a problem, that whilst the bigger publications like the New York Times and The Independent can sent journalists to specific areas to cover important stories, smaller, less serious publications can’t. This means, that you can get ‘piggy-back reporting’, where smaller outlets will rehash another publications story. They report news and events, without any first hand coverage. This leads to second hand stories, which can lead to inconclusive reports and no checked sources. The only way that true, first rate articles can continue to be published, is if people start to pay attention and pay for what they read.

Because when all the newspapers go under, a loss in advertising for Google, could send them down the pay route that News outlets are currently used for. Nothing in life is free, especially not the Internet.

So check your sources, and help them, or they will stop being reliable.

Love/hate

May 20, 2012 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Opinions. It is often said that ‘like assholes, everyone has one’.

And they do, every single person has their own mind, to help them decipher the world that we live in. Depending on a person’s experiences, their opinions will be different.

And I think that comes into play when you talk about likes/dislikes. Depending on where you are in life, what you do, who you are, you like different things. And a big part of you expressing love for something, you should appreciate that other people should have the same levels of expression that you do. So if you want to express your love for Metallica, your peers should be able to say that they love One Direction.

The other side to this is dislike. If you teach yourself to appreciate what other people like, then you should also appreciate each others’ hates. Likes and dislikes are not something decided to offend a certain person. Easy to understand, right?

You’d think so. But you will still get death threats for saying you don’t like a Lady Gaga album. This isn’t your fault. It is other people, who expect people to put up with their continuous love diatribes to a celebrity, but refuse to except that not everyone feels that way.

Acceptance is something I talk about a lot on here. Just because I think it is so importance. And I think that if I want my voice to be valued, I have to value the voice for others.

Cool Original

May 10, 2012 ~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

What do you think is cool?

I ask, because no matter what you feel, there will always be someone out there who disagrees with you. Liking and disliking things are feelings that are part of our personality, part of what makes you, you. I always remember being told as a kid, ‘if everyone liked the same thing, the world would be a boring place’. Which is true.

I am glad we don’t live in a world of clones, where everyone thinks the same things. I like the discussion with other people on a variety of topics. I like persuading people why a particular album or book is brilliant. I like the fact that people could recomend things that I may like. If we were all the same, then there would be none of that. And I think that it takes the excitement and sense of adventure out of life.

But with people having a difference of opinions, then there is also the people who don’t appreciate the free-will of others. They have the belief that their viewpoint is correct, and everyone else is in the wrong. And it is this lack of understanding which causes a lot of problem in our society. Be it religion or politics, peoples’ lack of understanding that other options exist causes wars and conflict. It is unnecessary. People have this part of their personality, which gives them the ability to comprimise and reason. Too many people do not employ these qualities, and prefer to dislike those who differ in thoughts to themselves. And think about it, to do that can lead to a person segregating themselves from everyone around them.

I guess I just think, that if I am allowed to think in a certain way, everyone else should be able to think they way they want to. Fair is fair.