Archive for the “Day to Day” Category

In recent weeks, I decided that it would be as good a time as any to work on shedding some kilos. It did take some encouragement from various quarters but I decided to give it a whirl – my way. I would not exactly call myself obese, I consider myself rather proportionate, thank you very much; however I do recognize that I would look and feel a lot better if I were to shed some ballast.

So I took a step back and wondered what could be adjusted. I had a very good idea of what dietary habits were worst hurting my overall chances. My excess intake of bread and cheese products would rank highest, followed closely by my non-aversion to the regular midnight meal. When you lack personal time management goals and commitments, the hands on the clock and the date on the calendar cease to hold much meaning.

Well I made a number of changes but by far one of the most pleasant changes was the agreement to try out light yoghurt. In doing so I was skeptical, expecting a few experiences of forcing down a bitter sour sweet tasting mulch with bits in it, and then moving on to higher calorie foreign imports.

I was expecting Strawberry, lemon or Kiwi and fruit mix. What I actually had looked nothing like a traditional Benna yoghurt other than the cup format. The look had completely changed and the changes weren’t just cosmetic. New flavors popped up. Banana, apple pie, lemon tart, vanilla light; they seemed alien to me and even as I scraped off that layer of yoghurt that generally encrusts the tin foil lid I had a pretty good feeling that I was in for a pleasant surprise.

And I was.

The flavor of the light yoghurt was ‘Apple Pie’ and moments into the first teaspoon I understod why. While it lacked the crunch of apple the yoghurt had an ever so slightly grainy yet smooth biscuit texture to it and the after-taste of apple pie was certainly in there. Moreover the yoghurt lacked the bitterness of old times that I had grown to associate it with. With that small tub I understood what yogurt was ‘supposed’ to be like and it was almost humbling that it all went down for roughly fifty calories. Not bad for live bacteria.

So sure, keep it up Benna, and I do hope you will get around to improving the milk carton packaging for as far as the opening is concerned. Now if you’ll excuse me I have an appointment with some vanilla!

I would say that it doesn’t take awfully much to annoy me. As somewhat of a perfectionist I take a moody disposition towards flaws and inconveniences, particularly where the ingredient of unfairness or incompetence is tossed in.

While I would say that I am one of my own harshest critics, I would also say that collective entities such as institutions bear a significant degree of the brunt of my scathing perspective also.

It was no different this morning as I negotiated the mish-mesh of streets in the heart of Paceville. Even though I’ve done it hundreds of times before, the disappointment and eventual frustration of being unable to find a legal parking space is a special kind of feeling that often tests the boundaries of that which I would call rage.

Circling in and out and about and in again, multiple passes, varying route, extending my search area further and further outwards as the second hand ticks down the minutes to the hour of appointment. All being told it took around fifty minutes to finally settle for a parking space fifteen minutes walk away from the intended destination. The brisk walk down and up the valley slopes long choked by urbanization was, by comparison, a relief.

It turned out to be worth my while however as even though I did arrive minutes late that which followed was for the most part a positive experience. Perhaps the end of an era of (official) idleness is upon me.

This would conclude this chapter of seeking that has spanned many months. While I would have said that I am frankly surprised that the search was not concluded long earlier, I cannot truly say that I am. After all, the national unemployment figures were up 2,597 persons to a total of 7,680 persons unemployed (link).

In the weeks prior to my post two evenings ago I wasn’t exactly feeling very inspired. I feared that I had lost my touch and this is one of the reasons that it took me so long to get back in the game. I have a tiny secret that I should probably share with you all.

I have little idea exactly what I am going to be blogging about.

That did actually bother me a very short while ago, but I have decided to place some trust in my tendency ‘not’ to run out of ideas, or things to say.

A former reader did ask me whether I would be writing about politics this time around. I may write about politics but it is not my intention to let politics rule my writings.

I will take things one day at a time.

In the meantime my thoughts are drifting to a field that I last recall interesting me some nine years ago – and that field is cycle design. No, I do not speak of the gasoline or even the two wheeled types that dominate the western markets. I am more interested in working on a four wheeled variant powered by foot and volt.

Unsurprisingly I have already received a rather negative response but adversity is something that I have come to expect in fields unorthodox or novel. I have a few ideas and while it is rare that I see them run the gauntlet from fantasy to realization, you just never know.

No I won’t be placing any bets.

As one door closes others shall open. This is the way of life even if the doors may not immediately be clear. I do recall referring to this same phenomenon upon an older web presence of mine several years back and yet it remains just as relevant if not more so.

This web log has floundered. It has become an online fossil floating upon the cyber waters of the information ocean. It fell silent for a number of reasons and I shall not delve deeply into them, and not at all for the moment.

The pace was broken and I apologize to those readers who have been left wondering what would become of this space. Well I can finally give a proper answer to this question.

It shall be made whole…

Up until now this web log, while it operated, was one of a reactionary nature. I looked outside and observed and came back to this space with my observations. It has thus far been too political, too aloof and too impersonal.

I am not entirely certain what I would like it to become but I do have a number of ideas, most importantly of these will be the dispensing of a few myths and discarding the unnecessary and the unjustified.

It is time to take a step towards humanity and break the silence. This moment is not now – I have yet to determine how extensively things may or may not change – but things shall change.

We shall see.

The recent wisps of cloud that have partially shrouded the sun’s rays were and remain a welcome shift in the weather patterns that have graced the Maltese Islands as of late. Not only has the weather brought a fairly decent flow of wind but the shaded periods also provide myself with respite from the radiance of light seeping through the thick curtains of my room before proceeding to filter warmly through my eyelids as I do my bit to get some sleep. Its never anything that a soft piece of cloth used as a blindfold cannot fix of course but the shadows always seemed a little more calm, easy and less invasive than the light.

And yet it makes me quietly yearn for the coming month, September, where clouds become less alien to the azure skies and where the hope for less stifling temperatures is very much present within my mind. Of course, one of my favourite aspects of the month, certainly about half-way into it, is the significantly higher potential to witness spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

There is just something so fulfilling about watching the dance of the solar rays within the hanging clouds of ever changing shape and hue. Regardless of whether the horizon it rises upon is a green forest bursting with life or the barren smouldering landscape of a recent war zone. Regardless of whether it heralds a day of joy or leaves behind a day of mourning the natural cycles proceed virtually unscathed.

In my few travels I have been fortunate enough to look down upon and drive by seemingly massive wooded lands and paddocks. I have had the pleasure of watching the sun set and then listen to the rolling thunder outside. Ah yes. Such memories shall remain with me and nor shall I forget those who had shared their experiences with me, regardless of what the future may send my way. I mark the 11th of August as a day holding a fragile link to some of the happier moments so far experienced, to be kept and cherished as an era all in its own. And with this in mind the past is to be appreciated but the future is yet to be faced. Another sunrise and another sunset – another experience and another episode in the progression of life.

Well a month has passed and I somehow managed to fit in a fresh fragment for every day of it, give or take a little stuttering in the post scheduling. It has been a satisfying time and I got to make a number of new blog contacts and a couple of really pleasant persons through it so I’d say that it has been worth my while.

However as with all good things sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and ease the pace a little. OK. Sure it doesn’t seem like a lot but the truth is that I have to balance upon several tightropes and yet remain on-track. It is the downside of taking on commitments – you eventually get round to realizing that they actually take up sizeable chunks out of your time.

Well, all misgivings aside, I shall be cutting down on contributions to about once every other day. While it will hopefully mean an improvement in the qualitative selection of post topics, such is beyond my ability to guarantee. In the meantime the ‘Ask James‘ page is still active and I will seek to answer questions as best as I can. Actually I encourage readers to send in questions as good questions tend to save me time thinking about what I will be writing about next.

There are not many things that I truly get hung up on. For the most part things just slide off of me like water off a duck’s back. However there do remain a few things that bother me and one of the worst would probably be personal inefficiency.

I like to be punctual. It doesn’t matter if it is meeting a deadline set by others or myself or whether its getting to a certain place by or at a certain time, I do not like to keep persons waiting. It is fortunate that I do not apply these standards quite as rigorously to other persons around me as I’d probably end up with an even smaller network of individuals that I’d call friends than I do at present.

However I also have several rather annoying habits that sometimes hinder my ability to meet my own standards. One is a tendency to underestimate tasks that I have to deal with, or to overestimate my ability to deal with them within a set period of time. Another is a tendency to take on or seek to take on more tasks than I can actually handle at any one time. This is why my personal to-do list dwarfs my done list. Either way these little quirks mean that I end up encroaching upon or even surpassing my deadlines more often than I would care to admit. It is similarly fortunate that this is far more likely where the tasks are being dealt by myself and ‘for’ myself but occasionally other persons do get a bitter taste of it in the form of way-overstepped expected deadlines.

I guess it comes down to having time-management issues really and, since I am reluctant to give up the new-found pace that I’ve set into motion within this web log, I thought it would be good to use this opportunity both to apologize to that individual who is waiting for work from myself as well as to provide a little insight to readers. I am working upon it of course, and will try to get results through as soon as possible, but I’ll be sparing the estimates this time as they were wildly optimistic the last time round and I’m nowhere near done with the segment concerned.

Besides, I can be a bit of a perfectionist and if there is one thing that troubles me more than handing in work late, it would have to be handing in what I personally consider to be shoddy work.