just another blog

as i mention in the title this little questionnaire comes courtesy of jemdoe's blog which is
here
1) If you were an alien, what characteristics would you have?
i'd have longer arms, never get tired, glow in the dark and speak in farts...

2) An asteroid is going to hit earth in 5 minutes. You spend that time making the best love of your life. Who is it with?
either Jessica Alba, Daryl Hannah or Susan Sarandon... or Erika Foyster, the only girl i've ever fallen in love with...

3) Which would you rather have: £1million in cash, or a trip via Virgin into space?
i'd take the money, visit japan and move to finland...

4) Are cigarette smokers more attractive than non smokers?
personality wise there probably is, if somebody you find attractive and got together with wasn't willing to give up smoking for you they obviously don't care that much about you.

5) What would you do in your 15 minutes of fame?
end it after 14 minutes and become famous for being the man who had 14 minutes of fame.

6) You are given the opportunity to go back in time, when would you go back to and why?
if it was a moment during my lifetime and i travelled back into my own past as myself i would go back to the day i started secondary school and change the outcome of the 4 and a half years that followed, therefore obliterating the future from which i travelled back in time from meaning i would have never been able to travel back in time or had travelled back in time already and my intervention had led to the exact same events happening therefore creating an endless loop in which i constantly mess up my own life trying to make it better... that's pretty much why i don't believe time travel to be possible (that and i don't actually believe in the existence of time itself)...

7) What would be the most romantic way a person could ask you out?
i've never been asked out (or asked anyone out for that matter) so that's really hard for me to answer, i suppose somebody just feeling that way about me would be romantic enough. there's plenty of time for romance in the relationship.

8) Which cartoon character would you say is most like you?
Dangermouse, he's in control of any situation on a small enough scale for him to handle... or perhaps it's just because DM is so damn awesome

9) You find a lamp, you rub it, as you do, and a genie appears. The mean bugger only gives you one wish, what would it be? (and you can't act all miss america and ask for world peace etc.)
to rule the world!

10) One word to describe you.....
lonely

well i don't know about the rest of you but it definitely seems to me as if spring may have almost if not finally sprung and there has been a noticable change in the weather the past week or so (not that it's stopped my mum turning the bloody heating on full), so we could be in for another hot summer... oh dear.
i've not really got anything against summer but it tends to bring with it more disadvantages than the coldness of winter, a few examples being: hayfever (not a sufferer myself), flies, ants, clammyness, dehydration, sweating, stickyness, sunburn, woolworths's "back 2 school" adverts, my birthday, more daylight, noisy ice-cream vans, peer pressure to join in any family activity involving water, people cutting their grass early in the morning when you're trying to sleep, not having anything to do. the need to shower more than once a week...
but it does also have it's advantages. cold drinks, ice-cream, ice-lollies, the need to wear less clothing, barbecues, beautiful early sunrises and late sunsets (although those things are beautiful any time of the year), the summer holidays (applicable only to those attending educational facilities...), not having anything to do...
i can't really make my mind up about summer, i don't really like being too cold but i hate being too hot, plus it's a lot easier to get warmer than it is to get cooler.
so how do you feel about summer?
-c

i just recently logged on to the site only to discover i had two invitations waiting for me from people running similar sites about healthy living and one of the blogs there asked who is responsible for your health, i left a comment and it got me thinking...
who really is responsible for your health?
the most obvious and apparent answer is ofcourse that you are. it is after all your body and therefore your responsibility, but other people can help and make a big difference.
in my comment i touched upon the subject of it being your parents' responsibility when you are at a young age as this is a time in your life where decisions are made for you and not always because they are in your best interests but because it is the most conveniant.
i for instance didn't really lead that healthy a childhood, schooldinners were a lot different to what they probably are now in the 80s and early to mid 90s and we didn't really have a choice in the matter unless we took a lunchbox and again what we eat is left up to our parents, although more often than not when i took a lunchbox it included atleast one piece of fruit.
when i left junior school (ages 6/7 to 11) for the big bad world of secondary school we got a bit more choice in the matter of what we ate, and what we ate was pretty much junkfood (there was also a tuck shop which sold chocolate and crisps and stuff), and while i believe that freedom of choice is important, especially as you're growing up, as nobody really likes to be told what they can and can't eat, which is the main reaslon i hate these adverts trying to drum it into parents to feed their children nothing but wholegrain, omega 3 and "friendly" bacteria, i can kind of see the point in them; they're trying to educate parents as to what is best for their children. but this is wrong, they should be educating the kids so they can make their own minds up.
the topic of educating kids about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle brings me neatly on to my next topic: should schools do more to teach the young how important health is going to be them later on in life? i believe the answer is yes.
i myself am obese, partly due to the period of depression i went into after being diagnosed with epilepsy when i was 17, but i have always been of a "bigger build", or to give it the most effective label: slightly fat.
most of my diet as a kid consisted of food that had been fried or sweet things (whenever my nan would collect me and my sister from school when our parents were working we would get some money to spend as we chose in the nearby shop. this started off as 30p and then became 50p, and you could buy a lot more for 30-50p back then than you can now, depending on your choice you could get a bar of chocolate, packet of crisps and bottle of drink and still have some change left).
anyway, getting back to my point. i believe that schools should do more to educate children on the benefits of health and the disadvantages of being unhealthy.
i left school in 1997 just before my 16th birthday and i hadn't even been given a proper sexual education (but luckily i'd had the internet for quite a few months by then ), letalone one in health.
if i had known from a younger age that stuffing my face with fried food and candy and not getting regular exercise and smoking (which i have never done and never will do) could lead to heart disease, diabetes and a whole range of other bad stuff i'm pretty certain i would worked harder to get myself healthier.
the fact of the matter is that i did not know that diabetes could be caused by obesity until a few years ago when my doctor sent me off for a blood test to test for it after i started showing some symptoms of developing it, luckily i don't have it.
i also didn't know what cholestrol was in relation to heart disease and was pretty ignorant as to the strain i was putting on my body by not taking care of it. although this could partly be due to a kind of catch 22 situation in which self-loathing for the way i looked led to me not caring about the way i treated myself which lead to depression which lead to comfort eating, and let me tell you that when you're comfort eating fruit, salad and mineral water aren't exactly the first items in the house you reach for, and we always used to have loads of junk in the house because my parents, especially my mum would buy it and still does, even though she seems to constantly be on diets, whenever i mention to her that she shouldn't buy it she just says to me "well, you don't have to eat it". i know this. you know this. but it being there doesn't exactly help me or give me any incentive not to eat it (i compare this to somebody that's trying to quit smoking suddenly finding themselves being surrounded by lots of other people smoking; it doesn't make it impossible, but it doesn't make it any easier either), i'll only eat what's available to me and due to the fact i don't really like to leave the house i'm not exactly going out and buying the stuff myself. not that i'm trying to dump the blame completely on my parents or anything, i just feel there is a lot other people can do to help you help yourself.
so, taking all that into consideration the question becomes a lot harder to answer.
i really do try my best to be healthy but it really is difficult after all those years of just neglecting my body, i'm not blaming my lack of education or upbringing completely as there are other people out there from my generation who are slim and healthy, but i really do struggle to lose weight. although after finding out i have an underactive thyroid sometime last year and being on medication to rectify the problem it is becoming a bit easier, i also take Xenical (or Orlistat to give it it's proper name) to help reduce the amount of fat my body absorbs from food, and if you know anything about this certain drug you'll know that it discourages you from eating anything high in fat...
but after all this i suppose at the end of the day it's your body and your decision, and whether you're educated or not you're going to do what you like. just don't be surprised if one day your weight (in stones) is equal or greater to your age (mine is lower thankfully) in years and you regret not doing something about it sooner.
-c

i really do hate depression. one day i'm really low, as demonstrated by my last blog, and the next i'm happy. it does my bloody head in.
i know i've said i'm going to avoid these kinds of short posts but i thought i should let people know that i haven't gone and topped myself or anything and that i'm fine, and how much i really hate depression.
-c

do you ever have one of those days where you just start thinking about your future and the things you've regretted doing and not doing in the past? i'm having one of those days today.
i've not been sleeping well recently and that always makes me depressed, and when i am depressed i start thinking about things and get this overwhelming sensation of loneliness, that everyone but me is getting on with their life and out having a good time. so i've been thinking about my past, or more precisely the lack of it. no i haven't suddenly come down with amnesia and can't remember anything further back than this morning, i just don't haven't done that much that's worth remembering. there are a few good memories and enjoyable things i've done, but there seems to be lots of empty space between them all with bad memories scattered around between them.
all this makes me worry about what's going to happen in the future, i'm 25 this year and i'm still living at home, i have no real friends, i've never been in a relationship, i haven't had a job since just before i was 18 so i have no money. usually this would be the point where somebody puts that there's so much they want to do, but if i'm honest there really isn't that much i want to do, there's so little i want from life right now i can't help but wonder if that's been my problem all along.
i have no real ambitions, no dreams (they're more like daydreams) beyond falling in love, getting married and having kids. but i'm not really doing anything about it. okay so it is kind of hard when you're agoraphobic and have social anxiety disorder to just step out into the world and try make something of your life, but the thing is i wasn't always agoraphobic and i was always more shy than anxious about being around people, but i never did anything back then and it's left me with this deep seeded feeling of self-loathing and the frightening realisation that somehow it's all my own fault that life just isn't working out for me.
now don't get me wrong, this isn't some kind of cry for pity, help or even a suicide note or me trying to say don't make the same mistakes that i have, get on with your life and be happy. i like being alive, the alternatives aren't really that appealing to me. and i need pity like i need things i don't need that much, and most of all i know that none but myself can help me turn my life around, but i'm wondering if it's getting too late for me, i know 24 isn't exactly old and that i still have lots of time to do things, i just don't know what to do and am afraid that by the time i do it'll be too late to do them.
well hopefully reading all this hasn't depressed you, it's actually made me feel a bit better talking about it. although it would be a lot nicer talking to somebody in person (or atleast vocally) about it, and i don't mean a psychiatrist or some other so called and self-appointed expert who's job it is to listen to that kind of thing, i mean a real person. anyone.
-c