.........5 minutes sat there, eyes blurred, sweat forming on the brow, stomach churning, fear growing. The words of Roger Waters echoing around my mind...'And as the fear grows, the bad blood shows and turns to stone'. Then like a switch had been flicked in the central processing unit of the brain, I picked a question and thought...'fuck it ...in for a penny...' .
Is Shame a serious concern-based construal?
I could have answered this with one word. Yes! Or maybe no!But of course more, much more was expected. As I started to write the answer started to get mixed up, my arguments faltering on mixed references but eventually the ship was steadied and the words started to flow. One hour later, two packets of Dextrosol consumed, question done. Too late to change it now.
Is any version of the definition of creativity immune to counter-examples?
Not to an argumentative gobby shit like me. That's the answer I'd like to have given but of course couldn't. Two questions down and 55 minutes left.It's bladder time. Hold up hand like a schoolboy and get the disapproving nod of the invigilator, who for the day thought he was a German labour camp guard.
Does Descartes offer any good arguments for substance dualism?
Well he fucking ought to as he was the person who first championed this view. Hmm.....not really an answer either, but with 50 minutes remaining I knocked out a mind map and wrote an answer. Mission accomplished. 3 questions from 10 in 5 sections, 2 per section. Phew.
By the time we walked out, and despite my new varifocal glasses my combination of tiredness and eye strain meant everything was like looking through frosted glass. Add some right hand RSI to the thumb and forefinger after 3 hours of solid (ish) writing and the journey home was very slow and very careful. I was working from home afterwards but the truth is all i did was go through emails. By 17:00 I was fading fast and the evening was spent flitting in and out of jumpy sleep. By 22:00 I was in bed and for the first time since the bloody accident, my body gave in and slept solidly through the night.
That exam ended a sort of seminal year for me. A year of ups and downs and a near death experience that has made me re-evaluate how i live it. A year whereby my golf suffered through lack of practice due to injury (intercostal muscle), shite weather and studying. A year whereby my beloved bikes barely got a trot out because of injury, shite weather and bloody studying. A year when I worked under 3 different bosses as the breaker waves of organizational transformation battered the hull of Good Ship Jack. A year in which my orthodontic appliances or braces as we know them went from humiliating (elastic bands clamping the jaws together for fucks sake) to a stunning end result of straight teeth and the gradual realisation that i no longer had to put my hand over my mouth to smile. A year in which outgoings went up and real income dropped. A year in which I survived a car crash that even a month later defies logic with and end result of the family surviving when that is the least likely option on the pick list of outcomes after being hit by a 44 tonner.
And then today. Despite my best efforts to eat like a fucking rabbit, avoiding red meat, avoiding sweets and biscuits I go for my annual blood pressure check (fine - 134/77) , asthma check (better lung power than last year despite the off Cuban cigar) and flu jab (well, proper flu has been a stranger for a few years) only to discover cholesterol levels are as bad as they could be. Bad cholesterol is HIGH - over 5 apparently. Good cholesterol is very low - 0.58 apparently which is the Doctors worse this year. Weight - 94kg, slightly up on last year.
Despite my protests of eating well and healthily (most of the time!) it appears that my liver might just break down food that way. It wouldn't matter what I ate
if that's the way your liver functions then it'll never change - fucking genetics conspiring again. And so to add the cocktail of pills, Ramipril and Bendroflumethiazide, a daily fish oil and garlic tablet, plus the Becotide inhaler I will now also be taking something called Simvastatin until I drop dead. And that last drug means never having Grapefruit or Grapefruit juice again! Another avenue of pleasure closed down!
Great.
And so, its time to put the year behind me and start concentrating on things I want to do. So I hereby resolve to lose weight by exercising more, and so its back to the gym where Hellsbells works for yet another induction course. Its time to resume the swimming. I used to be very powerful at swimming. And the bikes have to come into use. It's winter so the bike I bought from Strings is being dusted down and bought into service as a winter road bike. I will start from 3 exercise sessions a week and build it to a daily routine, perhaps with Saturdays or Sundays off, depending on whether football is on. And golf? Well I need to find a golf partner as everyone I know only wants to play early Saturday mornings, but maybe if I stop the Friday Guinness then that won't be a problem.
Do I cut out my Friday night Guinness? Does that really make that much difference? I'll hold judgement on that. Surely life has to have some pleasures that don't involve physical exertion or rabbit food? My new year starts this week, I hope it's more fun than it sounds.
Later, GJ
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