The Music is Talking

Insomnia has taken hold, I can't sleep more than a few hours and now I have noticed that many pieces of music I thought I knew, particularly some recent classical stuff isn't quite what I thought it was.

I've muddled up some Karl Jenkins - Requiem with some music played by an Orchestral band who rewrites some rather heavy rock stuff from Germany. Only it turns out neither is it used by Karl Jenkins or the Orchestral band. I think its because the chords and timing is so similar with the chamber section that I found the similarity. It makes me wonder if anyone copied the music idea as the similarity begins with the film Insomnia (2002) of all places. The Orchestral music only came out a few months ago. Weirder still, Insomnia (2002) in itself is a remake of the Norwegian film version (1997). And I am suffering from way too little sleep as I try to piece this all together.

Picture from the Mark Hess Collection

Looking for a little Peace and Quiet?

By Alix Kerr, Belfast

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano

What's the point any more? - Questions for the disillusioned

The Plank Telescope view of the Galaxy

I have too many questions, thoughts, puzzles, facts and illogical details all whizzing around and becoming connected with each other. So I reflect and find it helps at times, however not always as those may take note by my last blog which isn't the best posting.

And so I have endless questions I regularly ask and get asked:

Why are we here?
What comes after Earth?
Who made the stuff outside the universe?
Why do we have nightmares?
Why is everything a blur?
What happened to the focus? I'm sure I use to be better than this...
Who decided to turn out the light and leave us alone?
Why can't we be given hugs as adults? Children get them all the time.
What do you want from me?
Why can't I see the wood for the tree's?
What's the telephone number and address to...?
Can't I just have a peaceful day where I'm happy?
What's the point in living if you don't feel alive?
Why did God leave me?
Who are you?
I just wanted to help, was that so bad?
Why do you always grumble at me, can't I just help?
Can I please have my pen back?
Why are you ignoring me?
Why is it always so noisy?
If I'm talking to you, why can't anyone else see you - what's wrong with me?
Everyone gives me strange looks, can you help me?
It makes perfect sense, what's wrong with you?
Was it something I said?
Did I get to close?
What were you looking for exactly?
Can I just hide away?
Don't ask, I don't understand, what are you getting at?
If X=Y, what does x and x mean?
Is there really hope or is it just nonsense?
Why can't we all just get along?
Who did you want again?
Why do you always look at me like that?
Do you have to do that?
Do you ever understand my jokes?
What are you waiting for?
Can't I just be happy for once?
Why does it hurt?
Why do you care?
Is that really what you mean?
Are you feeling OK?
What's going on?
What is the point exactly?
Did you have to say that?
Is this really what you want?
Am I really of any use?
Why are we just going round in circles?

States of Mind

In recent times it has apparent that the past says quite a lot about what the present, but how much does it say about the future?

Current times you see are looking back at what has happened and what needs to happen. It sounds a bit too philosophical, but what the mind sees and what we like to see are two different stories, what is outside and what is inside are never as straight forward as we like to believe. Its as strange as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean saying "Up is Down". Well if you've seen the films you'll get the point straight away, everything is not always as it seems and everything always has more than one reason to be in existence. So why am I blabbering on like this you wonder?

My flat mate moved out Friday night, the neighbours are all moving (one of the things of living in private halls) and most of student Ville in Manchester moved out a long time ago just after the exams. So I spent a bit of Friday night talking to one of the night staff until 2am and I even got to try some of his really good rice and yogurt with the hot chilli mixed in (a bit too hot for me!). Mid night snacks are the best at the right moment, and this was certainly one of them.
--Warm evening, dry, remembering those events that have come by and gone again. Life moves on after all and we all move on. How quickly we can and for what reason is a whole other question.

So in the midst of this conversation over hot spicy rice, I started looking back on the year, which was fair enough. However, I suddenly realised I was in a very similar position to that not so long ago. In fact the exact opposite position, I was now on the inside looking out, not on the outside looking in. The fact of the matter is, whilst sat there I was the person sitting and eating with Ahmed having a good late night chat, with students wandering past saying hello and night night, when it was only last time I was at university I was in the exact opposite place. It was an old friend of mine (Miss B) who did do that exact same thing as a student warden. Bless her cotton socks she was really good at it too. I would wonder why does she do this, why doesn't she ever stop working and when can I drag you away from work and have some social time with you? Only the obvious answer in the end was, never. And an unfortunate bowing out and parting of the ways soon became very real with those loved and lost. It just so happens I keep in touch in passing. However, I now see a new version of what was going on back then. Except its completely different to saying "try putting yourself in my shoes", because when your thinking about what it would be like in there shoes and when you are suddenly in those shoes, the reactions, expectations, causes, returns and feedback all changes.

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It's turning Theory into Practice
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So in all this time on Friday night I'm thinking about the good times and bad times during the past and I'm also transported back into my own little mess. Why things could have gone so much better back then, if only...why we couldn't be different, why was I so awkward back then, if only I'd done this and that differently. But it's one thing reminiscing it's another sorting out those issues.

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Can it all be forgiven?

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Well who knows? I personally like to forget everything in the past. In fact it's become very automatic to the point that I've started forgetting things I need to remember specific details I should know e.g. for my coursework and birthdays. Its very annoying to not be able to remember every detail I need from a journal article. It's parrot fashion revision that's needed. Meanwhile, I know from too much experience that if anybody from the past does reappear I actually have a lot of frightening motions to go through. Like I said what's on the outside is not necessarily on the inside. After all I can't tell if I am me any more. If any of my classmates realised how soppy I really am away from the work they'd probably think I'm a different person.

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Is it just another cold war?
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We really shouldn't feud over the most smallest of details, but at the end of the day we spend our lives second guessing everyone in case they say what if, but what about that and well I thought. So in time as we get older and mature, we'll know how to handle these situations. But I for one am not willing to let these situations even start again, even with the agony of being very alone, I'd much prefer to be alone for the rest of my time than find I've got a cold war with some other person or group along the way. For all that seems to be happening is more cold wars. Putting out fires seems hard enough at times, and the smallest of infractions means I have to remain totally perfect, perfection is not possible and yet required- no wonder I'm in agony, one false step and the whole place crumbles around me. Having said this, once I'm gone everything runs on smoothly as it is and I know I'm not needed when I'm around so why do I have to be perfect in the first place? Why do I have to be like everyone else and why don't people like seeing things from my perspective?
Life moves on but our thoughts trade constantly (High Hopes). Am I right in thinking "Me Myself and Irene" has a slightly ambiguous similarity to this self patronising stuff? Oh well, in the end, you can ran but you can't hide.

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All I want to do is escape this monstrosity

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I guess "the future's bright, the future's Orange"
How many usable quotes can I fit on this article in one fell swoop. Along with the sarcasm and cynicism. It will work out one day. All you got to do is remain positive.

Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise, run in the shadows, damn your love and damn your lies. (FleetWood Mac, The Chain)

"I never started this mess, it just came with me."

Fieldwork on Photo

June has become one of the busiest months of the year. Fieldwork on each weekend has lead to more research in the week. It's only going to get busier. However, amongst the needs of collecting water samples for my 'Hydrological Pollution in the Peak District' dissertation and running lab tests for nutrients and metals, I did manage to get some good photos on the classic upland landscape. Unfortunately, there on a roll of 35mm film still, so for now, I will have to make do with the digital ones I have from the actual fieldwork collection and not my attempt to photograph the impossible landscape as the sun laid in to the hills from behind me mid morning. Looking at these I hope the manual setting on the manual aren't nearly as over exposed as these.

Upper North Grain, River Sett and Bretton Clough are all interesting in there own way. Upper North Grain is quite bleak. Open moorland sits on top of the hillside, the peat drains the landscape and pollution rains frequently from the surrounding cities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford.

Upper North Grain back out to the A57 (Snake Pass)
River Sett on the other hand is way more beautiful, slightly touristy for the campers but none the less couldn't look better if it tried at the moment. The ultimate photo however would require dangling precariously from a tree with the camera attached to a pole to photo a river coming down a hill in a gull, sided by small shrubs and unfortunately in the 100m length drops about 5 metres, how I will get it I don't know yet, attempts so far have failed. (In case my supervisor finds me, I did not break H&S I promise.)

River Sett

Bretton Clough is typically farmland surrounded by plantations and sits deep in a valley. It's just a bit too much like farmland. Also the sheep and horses are way too interested in my field bag. Being accosted by them was never really my intention. The sky was a lot more blue, however, it was really bright and hard to get the camera settings set, oh well.

Bretton CloughIf only that fern was at ankle height. That stuffs 2ft high in most places and grown beyond anything I expected in a week. These almost make the North Downs not look as good, but then again the Surrey hillside cannot be beaten.

Did Exploding Stars Shatter Life's Mirror?

New Scientist, June 2010

The Committed Man Part II

Here everyday I return for him. I get him up, bathe him and feed him his breakfast. As a nurse and the closest family member for now I look after my father. He always look at me and says I don't look like Elizabeth. I am Claire, daughter not wife. That picture is of Elizabeth. Thank god I say, he still remembers that, but I worry that one day he will not recognise who she is in the photo frame.

When mum died from cancer, dad took to drink quite soon after. We have weaned him off quite a fair bit, but I still find secretly stashed bottles of alcohol everywhere. It won't be long now before I won't be able to look after him, the man he was is no more. He's gradually fading as the Alzheimer's catches up eroding every memory. He knows a certain amount that something does not add up. You can look in his eyes and see the agony, that look of 'why am I hear still', but even that has faded now. For months he sat dosing in and out of sleep listening to music and just gave me that look of 'I'm too old please let me go'. He knew something was happening, he had all the brains but now without any real body strength, he started losing his mind. It hurts so much to see it happen, just creeping in, gradually taking another part of his mind away.

I can't bare to see it much longer, call me strong or whatever to look after him, but what I remember and tell him he doesn't even know. He just says 'you're not Elizabeth' and banishes me away, he doesn't recognise me nine times out of ten. Sometimes I wonder how we do this. He will be going into care soon because it was only three months ago when he could still make his own meals and just needed a hand around the house with a day carer. Unfortunately, he's become much worse of late, he doesn't eat, drinks what he thinks is alcohol- I've changed it for fruit juice and soup, at least its one way to keep the fluids and food intake up.

Ah, what am I saying, its been so long. I tuck him in to bed now, but he creeps across the hallway back to the living room. He always says its so empty. What he's missing is Elizabeth's touch really. Three years down the line and he talks of running in parks, hmm, his hay day, courting in the late 1940s, ah. I find him listening to Jazz and Classical music from the 60s staring into the fire. Thank god its not an open hearth.

It's so frustrating, I wish there was more I could do, but he needs full time help. He isn't able to understand he's left the oven on cooking a blueberry muffin in a mug (what he claimed was a mug of tea), or trying to turn the TV off with the radio remote control. I find him always in the evening exactly in the same state. He looks up at me asks me when is Elizabeth coming home, but I can no longer tell him she died. He just breaks down, and yet five minutes later were back to square one as if I never mentioned it at all. She's the only thing he truly remembers. There is a photo of me also by the radio, but even with a sticky note attached and a very accurate picture I'm almost non existent. I am the nurse not his daughter to him. Its just a matter of time now really, he's fading away.

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The Committed Man story was developed from a number of real life cases within the family. All of whom have suffered from mental health issues, either from Alzheimer's or Schizophrenia or just pure old age. The story has been adapted from real life to keep those affected anonymous.