Another Love

Its once again that time of the year where I am stuck inside with my notes, trying frantically to cram everything in my head just before this next session (and hopefully the last one ever) session of examinations starts. And as per usual, spending more time going through my Facebook news feed rather than actually doing some decent work, something caught my eye. A friend of mine posted a status going something on the lines of:

"What ever happened to romance? Flowers on the first date, pulling the chair out for her, even kissing her hand?! Now it's: show up, eat food, talk, then go on phones and that's about it."

And I had never thought about it before. I don't consider myself to be, or that I ever was for that matter, a romantic person. Actually, I mostly find myself a bit awkward during a first date, or at least, until I gulp down a few glasses of that liquid courage, if you know what I mean. I can be fun, and I'll probably end up paying for dinner and drinks too, but I am not that flowers-giving/chair-pulling/hand-kissing kind of guy.

The first comment on that status read the following: 

"Cos when blokes do it these days, they are considered to be too nice, and thus are put in friend zones."

To be fair, the guy is definitely right. It has happened to nearly most men out there that once we try to be sweet and nice to a woman, we end up in the so called friend-zone, and we lose all chances with said girl. And at first I thought that was it. There's no denying that women are crazy and we're never ever gonna understand what goes on in their heads. Doing a Master's in Space Engineering, and I swear that designing satellites is easier than understanding what's going on in a woman's head.

However, after I thought about it for a little while longer, I realise that even though as crazy as most women may be, in this case its not their fault. Now that I am thinking more about it, (instead of actually doing something useful, like studying for my damned exams!) its our society that is at fault.

Welcome to 2015. We're supposed to be living in an age where we are tolerant, thoughtful, respectful of others and aware of their rights. And yet, we lost the knowledge on how to interact with those around us. We live a life where we're let down so many times, that we build a wall around us, and seal ourselves within it.

And here is the sad truth, here are some reasons why in our society no one gives flowers any more, and neither does anyone pull a chair out for someone or kiss a woman's hand during the first date for that matter. We live in a society where the guy might buy flowers, but because of that he is instantly labelled that he's trying too hard, he doesn't. And this same guy will not pull out a chair for a woman, because if he does so, he might be called sexist for assuming that the woman isn't strong enough to pull it out herself. And finally, this bloke will definitely not kiss her hand, as a woman might consider it "weird" and easily say that he might have "touched" her inappropriately.

We live in a world where we don't trust anyone any more. In a world where whatever other people do, we're always sceptical about their intentions. In a world, where we dare not trust show out true colours because we are afraid that we are going to be judged and shunned by others. And to be fair, who can blame that random John or Jane Smith walking by himself or herself on the pavement in the big city and thinking about these things, as they keep trying to reach out and, like most of us, keep getting let down by the others around them?

I wanna cry and I wanna love,

But all my tears have been used up.

On another love, another love.

Those are the lyrics Tom Odell sings in his song "Another Love". Welcome to 2015, where social media, smart phones and technology connects the world, and yet everyone is the loneliest that they might have ever been!

--- o --- o --- o ---

P.S.: As I was writing this post, my friend Andre "Maus" Micallef kept bugging me to be mentioned. And so here's a shout out, dude, I didn't forget hah!

No Place Like Home

So now it's been approximately 7 months that I've been living in the UK, and just as I return from a short holiday in Malta, I had time to think through a lot of stuff which before, I took completely for granted and thought I has already understood.

It may have been the post-Student's Fest blues which hit me like a brick (like every single year so far), but still, this shed a light on several things I didn't know about myself. I used to hear other people quoting the famous proverb, "no man is an island" and I used to laugh at them deep down. I used to think that that meant that one was dependant on others, and that that made someone less of a man, so-to-speak.

However, I think that now I have a better understanding of what that saying actually means. I realized that I fear being alone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I am afraid of the everyday life doing stuff on my own. But I'm talking about the fact how everyone in life eventually moves on, and the idea of getting eventually excluded out of the social circles currently I'm in, I just realized that it scares me ... quite a lot! And I realize I don't want to turn 35 or 40 and realize that I'd have traded my friends, family and any potential relationships away in favour of a career. Career pays the bills and support the lifestyle, but its friends and family that support someone into achieving their goals in life.

Now, after spending a whole week at home, where I literally spent all the time with either my family or my friends, them being either old ones or new, coming back to the UK feels a bit weird, knowing that there isn't the same lifestyle we Maltese are used to. I do love it here, with Central London being just a mere half hour away, whilst doing something I enjoy, with some pretty cool people who quickly became really good friends too, but I guess home is always home, and one should keep a place in their heart for it no matter what, for there is no place like it.

To all the folks on that rock in the middle of the Mediterranean that we call home, I miss you! And I am quite sure, I'll see you all again soon. ;)

P.S.: It's been 4 days now cannot get this track out of my head !!

Je Suis Charlie

This blog post is dedicated to the twelve victims of the terrorist attack by Islamic extremist militants on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris,on the morning of the 7th January, 2015.

A week ago, I confidently say that most of us were out, at some party or another, wishing each other a "Happy New Year" with a bottle of champagne still in our hands after the countdown had just reached midnight. Sadly enough, after just seven days, we have to admit that this was not a happy start to the new year at all. 

Its impossible to not have noticed by now ... it was all over the news, any news of any country and it was all over the social media with #JeSuisCharlie too. Yesterday morning, three masked gunmen stormed the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris with sub-machine guns, where they killed several members of staff, and also some policemen which had arrived on site. A total of twelve people were killed in the terrorist attack, and another eleven people were wounded. This launched a huge manhunt by the French authorities to locate, neutralise and arrest the terrorists. The younger of the three, and eighteen year old, surrendered himself to the police later on during the day after the terrorist attacks, however the other two, are still on the run.

But lets get back into perspective, the point about this post it not to report the news, but to raise awareness about what's going on in our world. 

What is Charlie Hebdo ?

Charlie Hebdo is (not sure if  I should say was over here but anyway) an anti-religious, left wing, satirical weekly magazine published in France. This magazine mostly criticises religion, right-wing politics, socio-economics with regards to current affairs and any hot-topics by publishing caricatures, cartoons and jokes about the subject. Most of the population knows how to handle satirical criticism, and we have grown to accept it as part of our daily lives especially when it deals with politics. Its kind of our way of taking serious matters with a pinch of salt, and be more relaxed about them.

However, as this might seem very normal in our society, it is not for other places. For these extremist Islamists, this was a serious insult, and they had already made several death threats to the editor of the Charlie Hebdo magazine, who was living under police protection (not that it made any difference in the end, except for the murders of the policemen themselves too). 

Why did this terrorist attack have such a reaction?

But one might ask, "We hear of terrorist attacks and car bombs and other stuff every week, why is this to different than the others?" It is very different! When the people murdered were mentioned on the news by name, that really made it more real than in other situations. 

These journalists were of an older age than one might imagine (two of them were in their seventies), and they are known people in the French community. For generations they had made people laugh every week with their caricatures and also on other media such as television and radio. They represented humour itself, and the barbaric killing of these beloved cartoonists with sub-machine guns, some of which at point blank range, was what shocked the world.

What has this world come to?

Cartoonists around the world quickly expressed their reactions to the attack with their own cartoons. Argentinian Bernardo Erlich drew the image on the left, which has a very powerful message. The text says, "The world has become so serious, that humour is a risky profession". And he is quite right to say so. We have already seen this, not more than a couple of weeks ago, with the cyber-attacks on the film-making giant Sony. This company was attacked by North Korean hackers for the making of The Interview, a movie which pokes some fun at the country's dictatorial leader. 

Maybe it's just me, but as time goes by, these issues remind me more and more of an Orwellian society, something out of a dystopian movie or novel, where even people's thoughts are controlled by the central authorities in power. And realistically that's what it is. These jornalists were so brutally killed, because with their cartoons, they were shedding a light on the fallacies of religion (not just Islam), and for these extremists, this is not acceptable. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, and with their images the members of staff of Charlie Hebdo were showing some people how to think for them selves and how to be able to criticise the authorities, something which for Islamist extremists and their leaders (such as IS in Iraq and Syria or the Taliban in Afghanistan) is completely unacceptable, since as a consequence, they might lose the power that they would have achieved by wrong interpretations of the Islamic religion. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, the third motto of the party is "Ignorance is Strength". And that's what it is in this case, the ignorance of the people is the strength of those ruling them, and from what we have seen yesterday morning in the streets of Paris, they are ready to do everything so that this doesn't change. 

What are the implications ?

This is a direct threat to our freedom of opinion and freedom of expression. We live in a world where it appears to be that it is becoming riskier and riskier to say your own opinions and show the truth to the masses. There are too many people who would lose if the masses were to know certain truths, and thus they eliminate those trying to show said truth to the masses. Freedom of expression is one of the most important pillars of our modern day society and we must not let anyone take that away from us, as the great writer and philosopher Voltaire once said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." They did not just attack Charlie Hebdo, they are attacking all of us. 

#JeSuisCharlie   #solidarité

Cheers, for a great '15 !

2nd January ... and now the festive season is coming to an end. I know it is late but I have been incredibly busy in the last two weeks. Some family members and friends of mine came over and thus I was all day giving them tours of London and Guildford and also spending the nights out drinking. But now that they all left, it feels a bit weird. I find my self alone in my room, listening to a great piece of unfinished music, Mozart's Requiem, and it feels as if everything went by so fast. Not just the festive season, not the past few months that I have been living here, but the whole of '14.

I had been preparing myself that '14 was going to be a big year, full of changes, writing a dissertation, graduating, moving away from Malta, starting an M.Sc. degree (I did not even know what M.Sc. course I was gonna take last year, let alone imagine myself here in Guildford). But most of it has been for the good and I am happy for it, some stuff could have gone differently, but what the hell, nothing everything goes as planned. 

The last couple of months were great, some of by best friends came by to visit, both in November, and also in the last week, and this gave me a small something to think about. Friendships. Most of us take them for granted. I realize that I did when I lived in Malta, especially because in a country so small one is bound to run into one another at some point. But now that I moved to Guildford and my best friends are either in Malta or in other parts of the UK, I realize that if one takes friendships for granted and doesn't work for them, those same friendships, go back to being acquaintances. And for that I immensely appreciate it when friends take time and spend money to come all the way over here and spend some time. I also grew to appreciate how important it is to have friends, especially when you move away and find yourself in a new country. And for that, I am thankful that I made new friends over here in Guildford. As an important proverb says, "No man is an island".

Amongst all of it's ups and downs, there is no denying that graduation was the climax of '14, because finally the fruit of four years of hard work at the University of Malta finally were reaped, in one amazingly fun weekend back on the island in the beginning of December. And for that I acknowledge that I couldn't have done it on my own, and for which I thank my friends and family, for making those four years more than just academic but more of an experience, and also my family for all the support they gave me. Hopefully, this year would be as successful academically, and getting that M.Sc. would be the result of my time over here.

'14 saw a lot of events happening around the world too, with the major events being all a bit disappointing and not in any way leading to making the world a better place, such the Ukraine crisis, IS crisis in Iraq and Syria, fighting in Libya, several airline tragedies, further economic turmoil and many more.

Hopefully, '15 would be even more successful than '14, and not just for me but for all of my friends, either those who are still about to graduate, or those in search of a [better] job, or even just getting that promotion they worked so hard for. For those who are looking for something else, maybe involving matters of the heart, I wish you all the best of luck. For the rest of the world, I hope agreements would be sorted out, technology advances and accident numbers go down. I hope for economic recovery where it is greatly needed, eradication of poverty, diseases are controlled and cured, more tolerance is shown towards others, and last but definitely not least, to achieve some more steps and open dialogues for world peace while ceasefires and peace treaties would be signed. 

And with reaching the 8th part of Mozart's Requiem, Communio: Lux Aeterna, I will conclude today's post. I know that I am a bit late to wish a Merry Christmas, since now it it's been nearly a week and a half that it passed, but I definitely hope that will be the case for everyone next December. Still, I am in time to wish every single one of you reading this post a very happy and successful year.

Cheers everyone ... for a great '15 !

------------------

Mozart's Requiem is available below.

The glimmer of hope, that everyone needs ...

OK ... its been a while since I wrote anything. It seems like its a trend, every year, when November arrives, I would have neither the time nor ideas to write about. However, these couple of months were quite eventful. From making some really good friends over here in Guildford, to my friends from Malta coming over to visit and last but not least, Graduation weekend, it was a crazy couple of months. I'll talk about what happened to me in another post soon enough, however, there is other stuff that happened on Earth in the past few months, that is a bit more deserving of attention, rather than my partying adventures in the last couple of months.

On the 12th of Nov, t'was a beautiful morning. And even though the temperature was freezing, the sun was shining brightly ... and millions of kilometres away, a small satellite with the name, Rosetta, was orbiting a comet while her "daughter", Philae, had just landed on a comet's surface. Yes, a frikkin' comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko! Forty five years ago, a famous man said the words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Of course, we all know who that was, Neil Armstrong as humanity stepped for the first time on the surface of the moon. In my opinion, Philae's landing on the comet's surface was the greatest technological achievement mankind achieved since the manned landings on the surface of the moon. 

Rosetta's Lander, Philae, on its descent to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

And yet, instead of acknowledging the progress of science, the media decided to focus on a "sexist" t-shirt, that one brilliant man was wearing. A t-shirt, that was designed and given to him by his friend, female friend, to promote her new clothing line. And sadly enough, while technology and science make huge strides in our hemi-sphere, on other parts of the world, humanity is still fighting wars and killing thousands of innocent people everyday, while others die of hunger poverty and disease. 

An example is slavery, which is still being practised in the 21st century, who would have believed that up to a few years ago? However, nowadays you can take a simple look at Syria and Iraq, where ISIS have even published instructions on how to treat women slaves and how to have sex with them, as reported in the following CNN article: ISIS justifies female slavery. Is it really 2014? Because it feels like its still something right out of the 14th century! And not to talk about the  ever increasing list of hostages that were murdered by ISIS since James Foley.  

And so many more things happened. December came, and with it, a siege on a small cafe` in downtown Sydney, where an armed man held all the people hostage for more than 16 hours. Thankfully, he was eventually killed by the authorities, but not before he had killed two of the hostages. Following that came the crash of the Russian Rouble, which in just a matter of  a few weeks, its value was halved when compared to the US Dollar, due to lower oil prices and sanctions on Russia because of its actions in South Eastern Ukraine. And if Russia were to collapse economically, the impact would be felt globally, and everyone would suffer  the consequences.

Sadly, all of that is not even the tip of the ice-berg! Whenever and which ever news agency website one were to take a look at, rarely one ever sees any good news any more. Its always about economic uncertainty, political instability and corruption, terrorism, migration and the waging of wars. And amongst all of this, Rosetta and Philae, as small and as far away as they are, they were one of the only few good news of the year, shining some hope on what seems to be a dark year for planet Earth.

Eat Your Own Fruit

Read to the end! There's something really good to think about !

OK so where do I start from ...  when I got here it was really hot, and sunny, it was almost as if the hot summer weather followed me from Malta to Guildford. But now, merely two weeks later, here I am in my room, cosying up by the heater, with a warm mug of coffee. The sun hasn't shone properly in probably more than a week now, and whenever one is to look outside, the bright colours that we usually see in Malta, aren't anywhere to be seen. Instead, a greyish hue is in the air. Don't get me wrong, I am genuinely loving it! - not in the McDonald's kind of way, but you get what I mean. It's nice to have something different for once. Temperatures outside have already gone down to nearly 10°C, and it doesn't look like its going to get warmer any time soon. I was quite fascinated when I read on Wikipedia that the average amount of sunshine in England is of around 1130 hours every year. Apart from that, its always overcast. -- Dammit! I started writing this post on Wednesday and I wasn't finished ... and you guessed it ... yesterday and this morning have been realllyyyyyyyy sunny days! Oh well, nothing to complain about, at least some colour is back in the air.

But so far its been great. Fresher's Week, London, and then back to Uni where shit just got real. So far its been already four assignments, a tutorial and the title for my thesis, and one can just assume that so much more work is coming my way - sarcasm alert - let the good times roll! But even though it looks like its going to be a tough year, at least the courses are really interesting and I guess the sense of achievement when I'll - hopefully will manage ... shhh ... *fingers-crossed* - finish the course would be immense. 

But now that it's been nearly three weeks, I feel settled down, and I cannot imagine myself not being here. Of course I cannot deny that I miss Malta and all of my friends and family, but so far, living in England had been good. I met most of my class mates and we've quickly become good friends, hanging out and going to the pub. And the same thing I can say for most of my flatmates. I guess it just takes a certain amount of time to just settle in and get used to the routine of the place. Same I can say for my flat mates. This week we had a pizza night between us and it was quite a nice time hanging out with everyone and getting to know each other.

But what really hit me this week, was a story from a book which I got as a present before I left Malta. The short story was titled "Eat Your Own Fruit". And I decided to write it down for you, so that maybe everyone else can get something from it too.

A disciple once complained, 

     "You tell us stories but you never reveal their meaning to us." 

Said the master, 

     "How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and masticated it before giving it to you?"

That's it! And since I read this story I couldn't stop thinking about it. The book just stops there, and moves on to another short story, And it's left up to the reader to question himself the meaning of these short stories and try to understand how they apply to him in real life.  And in the same way the book decided to stop abruptly, so am I, 'cos now, I got yet another lecture - what fun!

Take care guys and gals!

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

P.S.: For the "tune of the week" I cannot resist not to post this amazing cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" by Foxes. Her voice is so hauntingly beautiful ! And the fact that it was performed for a Doctor Who episode makes it even more cool.

The Stag, The World and I

It's quite a long blog post, but I haven't posted anything in a while so this is to make up for it. I hope it doesn't bore you to death ... and if it does .. oh well, it's not a problem I have to deal with ... 

17:37 ... Its been a very busy week. I finally made it to my new university, the University of Surrey.
It's located in Guildford, a very old and picturesque little town of not more than a 100,000 people, located in the South East of England. And so far I've loved it ! I moved into my new apartment on Sunday morning, and quite understandably, I'm still settling in and figuring out what's what and who's who. Thank goodness I have a friend who I knew beforehand, and she was already staying here for her Ph.D, and she's been extremely helpful in showing my around the place and introducing me to some really cool people. By the way, the photo on the right shows the view from my front door ... look carefully at the picture guys and gals ... I hope you're jealous. 

The university is amazing. Its full of greenery and friendly people ... but most importantly it is full of opportunities. I was impressed when in one of the introductory sessions we were told how the department I'm going to be a part of (Electronic Department within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences) has four major research centres, these covering the topics of Space; Advanced Technologies; Vision, Speech and Signal Processing and also Communications, which employ hundreds of academics, researchers and Ph.D students, and together they make a turnover of more than £60 million every year. So far I already made a few friends but it's now that I'm realising how different doing a postgraduate degree is when compared to going on to Erasmus. I have to stop for a second here and link you this really good track by Boys Noize simply called Yeah. It's cool, at least by my standards.

I also have a new favourite animal. Well I don't think I had a choice over the matter. Its the Stag. The logo of the University is a majestic stag holding a comically large key with its front hoof. What's it planning to do with the key ... I have no idea. I'm not sure if the University's logo is a stag because it is located on Stag Hill, or the hill was named so because the University logo is a Stag,but I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. I was quite sad at first that the Kokka days are over, and I am definitely going to miss all the fun I had at all of the events that are held at the University of Malta (I think I'm going to miss Students' Fest mostly). However, once I met Steve the Stag, I couldn't resist warming up to this new animal (shown on the left). I've checked and yes, they have got the Surrey Stage Crew over here, a student society which I'm definitely going to join and hopefully pass on the traditions of stage crew in Malta to the ones here. So far I've been to a comedy night, which I have to admit I both was going to die of laughter and also got quite drunk after having a substantial number of beers with shots of whiskey in them. Well, I guess some things never change.

23:17 ...  I'm still going on writing this post cos I have to admit that I took a break from writing and went out for a couple of pints with some friends.

Over here in Guildford everything looks to be fine and dandy, however all over the world, all tons if shit is happening. Because of my moving I had a very limited amount of time to read any articles from the usual news agencies and stuff. However, today I make it a point to do so and took a look at what's going on around the world. And so here's a really short summary of what I figured out is going on and my opinions about them in short.

• Hong Kong is full of pro-democracy protesters which do not want any involvement by the Beijing central government in their elections ... which, by the way, I fully support. The protesters are mostly students, which I have to admit, I really admire what they are doing for their home town in the name of democracy.
• The IS/ISIS/ISIL insurgency in Syria and Iraq is being bombed left, right and centre by the US-led coalition made up of nearly a fourth of all of the countries of the world ... good! Even though it took the Western powers long enough to decide to do it, its still better late then never ... and hopefully Turkey will soon join the fight, and the western powers will increase their involvement, against them too. So lets hope that we'll soon see the end of their ideologically ridiculous regime. I wish to see Russia and the US agree for once and aid each other in crushing the insurgency. 
• Ukraine's president, Poroshenko, is implementing reformative steps to ensure that his country applied for EU membership by 2020 ... which is quite soon in my opinion. Hopefully, the truce he managed to agree upon with the rebels in Luhansk and Donetsk three weeks ago, after he promised them further autonomy, will hold and peace will eventually return to the region. Good luck to them and I genuinely hope they do make it into the EU, for their own sake.
• Ebola is finally being managed in a more efficient manner in the West African countries whoich have been hardly hit by it. Hopefully they manage to find both a cure and a vaccine for it in the recent future and also identify the best possible process to identify the illness and treat the patients without infecting anyone else, especially the nurses and doctors. 

00:27 ... and I'm still writing stuff after I stopped again for a couple of Skype calls with my parents and some friends of mine back in Malta. After the sad things I mentioned in the previous paragraph, here's a picture of a puppy to lighten up your mood again.

Actually there is a lot more stuff going on around the planet which I really wish I could discuss. I really wish I have the time to discuss more even about the stuff that I mentioned above, however, if such a discussion were to arise, then I think the blog post would be too much to read. Before I leave I want to link you another really good track by Bangkok Impact. I have to admit that the name is a bit weird. It's in German and it's Junge Dame und Freundliche Telefon Stimme which translates to Young Lady and the Friendly Telephone Voice. I never really understood what the song is about but I genuinely like it. Its one of my favourite tracks and I'm actually listening to it right now ... 

Anyway ... to para-phrase Looney Tunes cartoons ... That's all folks. See ya next time!