Some thoughts & ruminations

Letter by me to friend re. my decision to quit my job and move to the lake district.

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Hello xxxxxx! I have been thinking about your question. I can report that I am very happy with my decision, and I feel it has been a good move. I haven't regretted it once, although I still look back to my time with fondness!

I have never been fitter for one. I go out mountain biking, running, kayaking or walking at least two or three times a week and always on the best weather days. Plus lugging backs of laundry up the stairs at the hostel and so on. :) Mountain biking is my new passion really. But just being up here where it is quiet and beautiful is an end in itself. I have had plenty of visits from friends from back home (but not too many visits!) which is lovely.

I think there were two types of reasons for my decision; reasons to leave the old job, and reason to do this particular new one. Reasons to leave were: starting to feel like i would become a lifer and potentially feeling trapped, long commute, didn't like northampton/MK that much, RSI symptoms getting worse, fed up of the office every day, sedentary lifestyle...
I suppose the career question is a big one; I like to think that I could still resume a career in engineering/software if I so wished. Also I'm still working on my OU maths degree which hopefully opens things up a bit. But also having had this breathing space and dropping off the treadmill, so to speak, has opened up opportunities (in my head at least) as I now feel that I'm coming at things from a bit more of a blank canvas of sorts.

I'm still figuring out where things will lead though. As steve jobs said in a speech; in whatever you do, you can only 'join the dots' looking backwards. Not everything can be planned to lead to a precise outcome; you can do seemingly random stuff which turns out later on to have been crucual to where you are now. But at the time you did it you could never have known.

But i'm not making any plans to change from YHA in the lakes just yet.

Hmm I have gone on a bit!

At the end of the day I what I have learned from this is that it has reinforced is my belief that a change every now and then is a good thing. Be it a change of department, a new job, or something more extreme like i did.

Also my decision was motivated in part by reading the book 'How To Be Idle' by Tom Hodgkinson. Make me think about what is important to me and what isn't etc.. gave me courage. It took about 2-3 years ruminating to actually decide to to this though! Making a decision to do something is often harder than actually doing it! But in the end I knew the time was right.

Also it's worth talking things with people, to see if your ideas stand up (and also make them more real, in a way), but not necessarily be too influenced with what they say or put off by negative responses. Especially parents, mine were not really very keen on my idea and tended to focus on the negatives, but now I think they are convinced.

As a wise friend (who'd had a happy an successful life) once said to me: when you have a hard decision to make then by definition there must be pros and cons to each outcome; so whatever you decide, it will turn out to be the right decision because you get positives either way (sort of a paradox but liberating:)!

Regards :)

Nick

Observations regarding India with particular reference to differences with England

Originally written while travelling on a bus, 19th November 2007

1. Rubbish in streets
2. Cows in streets
3. Dogs in streets
4. Goats in streets
5. Tinsel on buses and lorries
6. Outlandish horns on buses
7. Flashing lights on buses
8. Handwritten signs
9. Large numbers of switches
10. "Stop" written on cars
11. Large numbers of motorbikes
12. Shrines and other customisations withn rickshaws, taxis and buses
13. Cheap fruit
14. Lots of tickets
15. No receipts
16. Old banknotes
17. Swastikas
18. Religious imagery
19. Pictures of politicians (wearing sunglasses)
20. Crap TV
21. Head waggle
22. Pigs in streets
23. Donkeys in streets
25. Elephants in streets
26. Camels in streets
27. Children doing jobs
28. Shit everywhere (see 2-4, 22-26)
29. Men urinating
30. Excellent fashion sense and clean clothes
31. Hospitable hotels
32. Removing shoes in hospitals
33. Wide trains
34. Sleeper trains
35. Sleeper buses
36. Dust
37. Mobile phones everywhere (cinema, desert)
38. Caller tones
39. Fluorescent lime green dye
40. Beggars
41. Lassi
42. Toll roads
43. Shah Rukh Khan
44. Face whitening cream
45. People carrying bundles of stuff. milk churns etc.
45. People who come to your house to buy your rubbish off you
46. Friendy people/children
47. Auto rickshaws
48. Collonic irrigation pipes
49. Intervals in films
50. Bourganvilla trees
51. Chipmunks
52. Lorries with SOUND HORN on them
53. Sounding of horn
54. Men pulling carts
55. Children pumping water
56. People waiting until bus/train is moving before boarding
57. Loud people in cinemas/on trains
58. Ads for cement
59. Ads for steel
60. Wires
61. Chai stops
62. Roadside food
63. Restaurants called hotels
64. Red and white mobile phone masts
65. Neatly dressed men
66. Food extremely hot/greasy/sweet/salty
67. Soft drinks with radioactive colours
68. STD PCO ISD
69. TATA
70. Men making throat noise and spitting
71. (Smelly toilets)
72. Building materials/rubble in streets
73. Masala chai
74. Easy-peel oranges
75. Bananas
76. Children wanting to shake your hand
77. Enterprising kids
78. Cheap manual labour
79. Cheap stuff
80. Hand washing sinks
81. Trains with no doors
82. Indian/Foreigner admission fees
83. Camera fees
84. Drums/bells/music etc. emanating from towns
85. Women bathing in saris
86. Boys holding hands
87. Cleaning clothes by hitting against rocks
88. School uniforms
89. Policemen with moustaches
90. All women police stations
91. Driving on left
92. Pure veg. restaurants
93. BPO
94. Welding
95. Motorbike repair shops
96. Mending and direct recycling
97. Whistling in cinemas
98. Goat herds on dual carriageway
99. Sheep in desert
100. Names pasted by train carriage door
101. Turbans
102. Maharajas
103. Sheep/cow herds on dual carriageways
104. Baskets on heads
105. "Recommended by Lonely Planet" signs
106. 1L Bottled Water (10Rs-15Rs)
107. Colours
108. Warm/hot weather
109. Ceiling fans
110. Air conditioned ATMs
111. Women sidesaddle on motorbikes
112. Wooden scaffolding
113. Vodafone signs

Probably going to see Radiohead

Probably going to see Radiohead from Nicholas on Vimeo.

Saying goodnight

One person says: good night

Then the other person says: good night

clair

clair.mp3