Architects Anonymous

One of the reasons I decided to start blogging was the fact that I believed that by recollecting thoughts and opinions about each day, one somehow slowed down the passage of time. To acknowledge each day as it passes, you stop the days from blurring into one. That was the theory, anyway.

As some of you know, I have a crippling fear of growing older - unfortunately the past week has only exaccerbated my phobia.

Tuesday

I had my graduation today - marking the end of my full-time scholastic life. It was sad, not because it meant that I would have to get a job now but because throughout my life I actually enjoyed school and education. I enjoyed learning, the games we used to play in the playground, the strange fads at school, the "it" word of the week. Looking back, I even enjoyed being forced to play rugby in the middle of winter, in what can only be described as cotton hotpants and having to do cross country in the blistering cold. Being in education gave me an excuse not to do "responsible adult things" because I was a student. But now the scapegoat has been brought to the abattoir and mercilessly slaughtered and all of a sudden I'm forced to deal with all those responsibilities that have been long overdue.

(On a side note - the graduation was such a chore - having to meet/AVOID everyone's parents and trying to stop your own from embarrassing you was not my idea of a celebration. The ceremony was a snooze-inducing 2 hours long and I looked fat in every photo.)

Wednesday

I handed in my "statement of particulars" to Arup to day. This marked the beginning of my so-called professional life, therefore obliterating any pretense of youth. I shudder everytime I remember that from this day forward, I will have to work for 5 days a week, week after week, year after year until I retire perhaps 40 years from now. I'm already counting the days...

Saturday

My younger brother moved to halls today and starts university on Monday. I must admit I was biting my lip to curb the pools of tears from falling from my eyes - not only because we are extremely close and this is the first time we have been separated, but also because I finally had to accept that I am old. Now that my younger brother is at university - an adult, it only leaves one conclusion: I guess I must be one too although I certainly do not feel like one.

I'm not a great believer of horoscopes. So many of them are skewed and open ended, designed to comfort and deceive people but I found one today that was oddly accurate:

A Gemini personality remains youthful and young all through their life. They just never "grow up" in the way demanded by society. In Gemini, "the boy", is forever present.

Andy

I've always been a stickler for grammar. Perhaps it's the fact that I was brought up by parents who do not speak English as a first language and therefore I feel I have something prove or maybe it's the fact that I'm just naturally pedantic to the point of tedium. In any case, with the advent of email and text speech, we seem to have reached an age where we freely bastardise our language on a daily basis and do not even realise it - adamant that we are correct in our usage. Here are 3 of the worst cases:

1) "H-aitch" - The letter "H" is pronounced AITCH, not H-AITCH. Just because the letter phonetically creates an "H" sound, it does not mean that the letter itself is necessarily pronounced with the sound it creates - Otherwise "W" would be pronounced a "Wuble Wu". People who pronounce it inaccurately i.e. half of London - please do not look at me with distain when I pronounce it without the "H" because it is you in the wrong - not me.

2) "I would/should/could of" - This stems from the inaccurate/lazy pronunciation of "would've", the shortened version of would have.

3) "Is it?" - People who use "Is it?" as a confirmation to any statement, even if it is in the wrong tense and makes no grammatical sense. Example:
Person 1: "I'm going to my friend's house this weekend"
Person 2: "Is it?"
The word you are looking for is either: "Really?" or "Are you?" - not "is it?"

That's not to say that I am perfect at grammar either - far from it. My spoken rhetoric is attrocious. I add "like" or "you know" whenever I need to think of a word and I add "SO" in inappropriate places to express that X will happened "to a very great extent or degree" i.e. "I'm SO not paying for this". Language evolves, words are replaced and new ones are invented. Noone speaks or writes in the correct manner in this day and age anyway and that is fine - but let us have some dignity in our language and atleast preserve the very basics of our language and heritage. Heaven forfend that we should end up as a hoard of ignorant, inarticulate slack-jawed yokels.

And by the way, Timberland - "The Way I are"? THE WAY I ARE??? You're on my list.

Here endeth the lesson,

Andy

Curiosity got the better of me last night and I finally succumbed to looking up some of my class mates from school on Myspace. I haven't kept in contact with these people for 6 years and to be honest I don't intend to, but I just couldn't resist seeing what they look like now and what they're up to.

After a few hours trawling through myspace, it seems obvious that everyone has either a) moved to America b) become a snowboader and/or c) Jesus, Christ almighty, got MARRIED. Did everyone around me grow up while I was left to wave the Generation X flag on my own? Looking at their profiles it made me sadly realise that this is no longer my generation. My generation was all about tamagotchis, the Spice girls and mini-discs. This generation now belongs to people like my brother - the 18 year olds who use youtube to express their opinions and who take pseudo-professional pictures of themselves in various model like poses, sucking in their checks with their eyes squinted, staring into mid-distance and upload them onto myspace.

We used to be the people who dictated what was in fashion and what music people should be listening to, but it seems that we have now all become obselete, ready to be thrown away and replaced by Generation X.01.

Fortunately I've been told that I still look 21 and I still get IDed sometimes - unless I don't shave - so I can still pull off skinny straightleg jeans and cardigans and delude myself...but there's a point when that just becomes plain weird. That inevitable man belly that comes with age has yet to develop but from the myspace profile pictures, it seems it has already taken some of my old class mates and my hair has yet to recede but it's only a matter of time.

But it's not all doom and gloom. After looking at the profiles, it also reminded me of how focused I am and how different my life is from these people. I'm somewhat glad because it seems as though many of these people who made my life a misery at school, are now suffering from a distinct lack of direction in their lives - either temping or unemployed, supported by their family. I guess that is the curse of private school. Everything is spoonfed to you and when that silver-spoon is finally taken away, it takes great strength not to abuse your sudden freedom.

Anyway, if anyone asks - I use myspace and youtube, I blog, I have an ipod, I download from bit torrents, I wear skinny jeans and cardigans and I pretend to care about global warming.

Talkin' 'bout my generation,

Andy