26 July 2007:  Least Favourite Memories

1.         Losing touch with Maud.  Maud was my first long-term online buddy and at one stage it looked as though our friendship might have gone further than that.  Who knows what might have occurred between us had 9-11 not happened.  In the end it became clear that we were moving apart and as such it was time to split.  I still treasure the two visits I had to see her, though. 

2.         Seeing Penny die.  Penny was a yellow labrador dating from my time of living at home with my parents, and in 2000, while on a family holiday, she was taken ill with a ruptured spleen.  She appeared to make a good recovery after being operated on, but the day after returning home she suffered internal bleeding and we watched helpless as she slowly died.

3.         Getting my first (and to date, only) letter of complaint from a customer at work.  The worst part is that it was totally deserved, as I failed badly in keeping him in touch with progress on the project.  The only good part is that I did learn from those mistakes. 

4.         Being made fun of at school.  We're not talking about outright bullying here, but rather the type of low-grade intimidation that the bookworm types tend to get at school.  The comments that get made when you answer a question correctly in class, for example.  Attempts to trip you up on the corridor, or being spat at from the school bus are more examples that I remember.  I haven't forgotten the names of those who used to do that, and I hope that one day we meet up again. 

5.         Discovering that my father had been having an affair.  About 18 years ago I was at university, towards the end of term, when I called home and was given this news by my mother.  Although my mother and father stayed together after this news, the entire dynamic of the family changed, and in truth never really got back to what it was.  This experience has been enough to dissuade me from "playing around", when that opportunity has presented itself. 

6.         The death of my maternal grandmother.  Or, as she was known to me, "Nanny Old Car", because when I knew her she had a very old car and I was mad about cars back then.  In my childhood we used to go and see her every Sunday afternoon to have tea.  The worst part was that she had been to visit us the day she died, and had complained about not feeling well.  My mother blamed herself for not seeing that she might have been ill. 

7.         Having my car stolen.  My second ever car was a bright red Ford Sierra with tail spoiler at the back and a nice body kit.  I had the car for about four months before it was stolen and used in a "ram raid".  The only good thing is that the thieves were caught and jailed.  Even today I check and double check to make sure my car is locked. 

8.         Doing experimental science.   Although there is no strict divide, the physical sciences are often split into "experimental" or "theoretical" studies.  At the start of my scientific training, I had to study both aspects, and I hated the experimental stuff, as I simply could not get things to work as they should.  After a year in the laboratory, I decided to give it up for good and concentrate on theory!  

9.         PE teachers at school.  We all know that PE (physical education) teachers are a strange bunch, but the ones at my school were just weird.  For a start they all smoked, often in the changing rooms, and they seemed to take an unhealthy interest in making sure that we were all showering properly after a games lesson.  For some reason they always seemed to favour the bad boys, too.  I think, Mr C, there was more to you than the macho man image that you used to like to portray. 

10.        Losing touch with Melissa.  Melissa was a buddy from Mississippi who brilliantly overcame various issues in life, and who was a great friend for over two years.  I was very sad when Melissa found a special person in her life and seemed to forget all about me.  My ten-day visit to see her is still very fresh in my mind and not something I will forget soon.

09 July 2007:  Favourite Memories

1.         My first visit to the USA, which happened also to be the first time that I got to meet a penpal.  Since then I've been fortunate to visit many more times, and have been to see my good friend Connie three times.  She's more than a mere friend now, plus I know her part of NC quite well these days!  Hopefully there will be plenty of other trips in the future! 

2.         Getting my first car, for my 21st birthday.  The car, a Renault 9, was hardly an example of automotive excellence but it served me well for 6 years, and made me mobile in a way that trains and buses never can.  I never did get it to 100 mph, in spite of many attempts ... 

3.         Finding out my degree final grade at university.  This is etched in my mind as the results were pinned up on the notice board in the physics department, and I was scared stiff at first to go see what I got.  So, I went for a long bike ride, plucked up the courage, and found that I got a first. 

4.         The time I spent working in Albania.  This was a unique opportunity to spend time in a completely different culture (Albania had a few years previously renounced Communism).  The people couldn't have been friendlier and I consider myself very fortunate to have had that experience. 

5.         The Christmas parties where my father worked when I was a kid.  We used to go to these until I was about 12 years old, and the format was always the same: cartoons to start, followed by a tea consisting of sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps and ice cream.  The finale was going up to Santa to collect your Christmas present.  Happy memory. 

6.         Discovering the result that got me my PhD.  To get a PhD you have to contribute some original research to your field, which in physics generally means obtaining some new result for your chosen problem.  When I got my result, I went to bed that night knowing that I was the only person on the planet who knew what I did. 

7.         Seeing England beat the West Indies in 2000.  This one can really only be appreciated by English cricket lovers, who grew up watching England being pounded by the West Indies over many years.  I had enjoyed a load of red wine one Friday afternoon when England's bowlers demolished the West Indies batting line-up, and went on to win the game inside three days. 

8.         Going to the pub as a teenager.  I guess this is probably the highlight for any teen, but I remember my friends Andrew and Simon, and how we would drive around to country pubs and try to outdo each other by choosing the most outrageous drink combinations.  Andrew and I also used to go out for boozy evening meals (driven home by one of our fathers), and the three of us used to enjoy playing snooker on Sunday mornings, too.  Great fun. 

9.         Working the Andra project.  This was a particularly arduous piece of work that I (and colleagues) had to do a couple of years ago, and we were struggling to get meaningful results from our calculations.  Then, late on Friday evening before Christmas, we finally understood the nuances of our calculations and the mist was lifted.  In the supermarket that I called in on my way home, singers were singing carols, which added to the euphoria I was feeling at the time. 

10.        Getting my first new car.  My first car bought from brand new was a SEAT Toledo turbo-diesel, which I had chipped as soon as the engine had loosened up properly.  I put 70,000 miles on that car in five years, and it was totally reliable over that time.  With the price of fuel being what it is in the UK these days, I often wish I had my SEAT back with me, as it did over 50 mpg.  I still rate that car as the best I've owned, to date.

27 June 2007:  The Fun of Penpalling

Penpalling is a hobby that I have enjoyed for some seven years now.  Over that time I must have known literally hundreds of people.   Many of those have only been fleeting friends, lasting just a single email or two.  On the other hand, a few have gone on to last for several years.  It has to be said, the majority of pals last less than a week.  That is because one or other person decides that the chemistry simply isn't there, and doesn't write back.  On the other hand, it sometimes becomes clear very quickly that you and your buddy are on the same wavelength.  In those cases, there is the potential for a friendship that could last for a very long time.  The next steps when a friendship like this develops is to exchange phone numbers.  Eventually, when you and your pal know each other well enough, you can even think about visiting and meeting your pal.  I've now met three of my buddies in the USA, and indeed, I wrote the bulk of this while visiting my oldest and closest friend Connie. The only thing you have to beware of, when a friendship reaches this stage, is to be realistic about how much further you can take the friendship.  If you and your buddy live on different continents, then my experience is that a romantic relationship is difficult - if not impossible - unless one of you is prepared to move so that you can be closer.  The overwhelming majority of my penpals have been American women.  With one exception, I have been unable to maintain any male penpal friendships, and the Brits I've been in touch with have been totally uninspiring.  I think there is a certain chemistry within opposite-sex Anglo/American friendships.  To sum up, penpal friendships can be the most wonderful fun, but be realistic about how far you can go and how close you can get.  Otherwise, someone will get hurt somewhere along the way.

31st May 2007:  Being Independent

I consider myself to be an "independent" person.  Independent, and a free spirit.  This means that I look after my own interests in life, and try to avoid having to rely on other people.  I do what I what I want to do, when I want to do it.  But I want to make a couple of things clear.  First, living this way is not an active choice on my part.  Rather, it is just the way my life has panned out.  I have taken all the major decisions in my life since early teens, taking advice from trusted sources along the way.  Second, it doesn't mean that I dislike the human race - on the contrary, I enjoy many deep and meaningful friendships with a variety of different characters.  One of the aspects of being independent that appeals to me is that I am only accountable to myself.  When issues arise in my life, then in most cases they are down to me.  There is no-one else to blame or feel badly towards, and that's good as I hate having recriminations towards other people.  To be honest, I don't foresee this way of life changing, at least not for the time being.  I get as much social contact as I need at work - where I probably spend too much time chatting and gossiping with other people!  I'm not seeking a 24/7 partner, though I will concede that it would sometimes be nice to have a "companion" to go out for dinner with, or days out somewhere.  You can't have everything though, and I have no reasons to complain.

23rd May 2007:  Any Regrets?

This might seem like a funny subject to be writing about, as I'm currently on holiday and sitting next to the pool at my hotel in NC, sipping coffee, listening to tunes and watching kids mess around in the pool.  Not a bad way to be passing the time, I think you will agree.  But, nevertheless the thought has come to mind, and yes, I do have a regret that I would like to share.  We have to go right back to my teenage years for this one.  I mentioned in a previous musing about how I was very shy as a teenager, way too shy to do the things that many teenagers do.  Well, once as a teenager I was asked out on a date, to the school disco (this was the early 80's and "discos" were the places that you went to in the evenings).  I said "no thanks" to the offer - I was far too shy to say anything else!  Over 20 years later, I now wonder how my life might be different if I had gone on that date.  Who knows, instead of being single now, I might be married with kids.  Not necessarily to Kathy (the girl who asked me out), but to someone who I might have had the courage to ask out on a date.  That date might have given me the self confidence to do so.  Alas, we will never know the answer to that now, and so in some ways there isn't much point worrying about it.  I can't help thinking about it though, just at this very moment in time.  Still, life hasn't turned out too badly, so I can't complain.

29th April 2007:  Be prepared!

The subject of this article relates to an experience - not a pleasant one - that I had this weekend.  You see, this week I'm going for a three-week holiday to North Carolina, and to ensure that I got the itinerary I wanted, I got everything booked up before Christmas.  That includes flights, hotel and a rental car.  I even got my passport renewed in good time.  The only thing I didn't give much thought to was my driving license, which is of course necessary to collect and use the rental car.  Since I knew where my license was, it didn't occur to me to just check and make sure that all was in order.  Fast forward now to this weekend, and I decided it was time to start collecting things together, including driving license.  So, I looked in the place where I "knew" it was located.  Not there.  I'm not panicking yet, as I suddenly realised that it might have been at my parents house, and of course I "knew" exactly where it would be.  Went to visit them this weekend, took a look, and it wasn't there.  Now the panic is starting to set in.  No license equals no rental car - even though I've already paid for it in advance.  No rental car means that I can't get around NC - not even from the airport to the hotel.  PANIC!  So I have another think, and realise there is another place it could be, but that's back down in Didcot.  I decide that can't wait until Sunday (we're still on Saturday right now), so I drive back down to Didcot to check this other place.  Not there!!  Now I'm really worried, and start to check again the first place in my house where I thought it might be.  I suddenly see an envelope marked "passport and driving license" - and inside was my driving license!  Then I remembered that when I had renewed my passport, I'd had to send in my license as part of the security checks.  So, all is well now, but after a lot of worry and panic, because I didn't see fit to check that all was well at the time I made my booking.  The moral, folks, is get EVERYTHING prepared in good time, no matter how tedious that might be  - it will be worth it later on in terms of reduced stress and nerves!

27th April 2007:  Is there a God?

Well, this is quite a difficult question to handle in a few sentences, but I want to relate a conversation I had with a friend of mine, Marion, a few days ago.  Marion told me that she was moved to give up smoking, a few years back, after a session of Bible study.  She’s never smoked since, and isn’t likely to in the future.  Marion considers this to be the work of God.  For my own part, for many years of my life, I took the attitude that many arrogant scientists take, and that is that science provides all the answers to the mysteries of the universe, and hence there is no need for a God.  Indeed, one very famous scientist has written popular books that claim that modern science allows us to know the mind of God.  After thinking about this, I decided that I could not subscribe to this point of view.  The difficulty is that there are two questions you can ask about the universe.  These are, what happens, and why does something happen.  In my opinion, science can only answer the “what” question.  We can describe the phenomena of the universe, and we can sometimes make predictions about the future behaviour of the universe using the laws that we deduce from observations, but we can’t always explain WHY things happen.   For example, why can an electron in an atom only take on certain values for its energy?  I have no idea, and I don’t know WHY the other laws of the universe are as they are, but I can observe and take note of  the laws when the evidence is placed in front of me.  I think we need to appeal to a higher force to tell us WHY things happen.  Maybe there is a God – who determines WHY things are the way they are – after all.

27th April 2007:  The power of fantasy

Fantasy – the power to conjure up images and situations in the imagination – is a wonderful thing.  It let’s you go and visit the places that you can’t afford to visit, it let’s you date the girls (or boys) that are out of your reach, and when you’re having a bad day it lets you move away from all of that to somewhere where the sun always shines.  People have varying degrees of imagination and fantasy.  Some members of my family have precisely no imagination whatsoever.  They’re restricted to living in the real world, which can be a very humdrum place at times, and it shows in their faces.  My father is not very well at the moment, and yet he is stuck with sitting in his living room all day and all night, powerless to imagine how to change his life or make it more bearable.  I’m fortunate that, like most scientists, I have a well-developed sense of fantasy.  You wouldn’t believe some of the things that I’ve done and the places that I’ve been to, and all at no cost to me.  It’s just too bad that I have to come back to the real world eventually!  A more practical use for imagination and fantasy is as a means to give yourself more self-confidence.  Suppose you are to be exposed to situation that makes you nervous – for example a job interview.  The secret to success to is to go find somewhere quiet, close your eyes and imagine the success scenario.  In the case of the interview, this is smiles and handshakes at the end, with a job offer forthcoming.  If you follow this approach, you will start to find that “scary” situations become much more enjoyable and your success rate will improve.  Trust me, fantasy is a wonderful thing.

1st April 2007:  Does travelling broaden the mind?

It most certainly does!  Not only does it broaden the mind, but it helps to increase your self confidence too.  When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I was very shy.  Painfully shy - far too shy to ever ask a girl out on a date, for example.  Then, as part of my time at university, the group I was working in had to go for a three-week trip to Portugal.  Needless to say, I tried to find any possible excuse not to go on this trip, as I knew in my own mind that someone with my shy and reserved nature could not possibly enjoy such an experience.  The only thing that forced me onto that trip was the thought that the consequences of not going could be even worse.  Suffice it to say that when I got home, I had enjoyed three of the most pleasant weeks of my life to that point!  Rather than being a nightmare for me, it had been engrossing to experience another country and its culture.  The reason for being there (a course) had been less than enthralling, and my colleagues had enjoyed a sense of "let's get through this together".  From that point onwards, my outlook on life changed.  Not only did it teach me that other people are not to be feared, but it started off a love of travelling that is just as strong now - if not stronger.  These days I'm lucky that I get to travel a lot with my work, as well as going places on my holidays.  I've been lucky to see some places that most people will never get to see, such as Eastern Europe and some of the rural regions of the southern USA.  My advice would be this.  If you've never travelled before, try it - but be careful, as travelling and seeing the world is very addictive!

18th March 2007:  Is the single life better than being in a relationship?

For a number of years I had thought that the answer to this question was definitely "yes".  You see, apart from a handful of meaningful (and not so meaningful) relationships, I have spent my life being "happily single".  But now that I'm 38 years old and have seen all of my friends and family getting married and having kids, I'm just beginning to review whether I am still happily single.  There are pros and cons to being single.  The main pro is that you have total freedom to live your life as you want to do so.  You don't have to confer with anyone if you want to go somewhere, and no noisy kids running around when you come back from work and want to chill.  The main con to being single is that you lack a soulmate, someone to talk to and cuddle when you've had a bad day - and of course get more intimate with!  One thing I certainly have learned in my time is that being single is infinitely better than being in a bad relationship.  There are few things worse in life than being involved with someone who doesn't care or who is dishonest with you.  On reflection, I think that being single is still better for me than being in a relationship, but that view is definitely changing slowly as time passes by and I continue to get older.  I don't think I want to get to the age of 50 and be faced with the prospect of having no family in my old age.