The Journey explained:

A journey does not have to mean travelling to far away places... although that would make things more exiting. A journey in my point of view is progressing from point A to point B. It includes detouring through the whole alphabet to achieve this as well. My own journey began with, funnily enough, the desire to be Indiana Jones. No I do not mean a middle aged man with skin like shoe leather, although the hat and whip could be intriguing! I wanted the travel and exitement. I wanted to do the things that a person dreams of and not to wake up in fifty years with regrets.
OK first problem solved, my journey had direction, I had started in my own way, on the way to the finish line. Through the years since my Hollywood induced epiphany I have had the luck, due to a few social sacrifices, to experiance some of these far away places first hand. I would not have been able to do this if I hadn't first had the joy of watching a certain history professor trekking through jungles and outwitting picture book type villains. So here are my thank yous for all to see, I wouldn't have started this without you Indy.
After several years working full time hours, studying when I could, and many late nights writing essays on why the world is in the state that it is in, I am almost there. It's officially (I HOPE) my last year of study! I getting this degree if it kills me.

So my first step, not including the studying, started with, what I suppose could be considered a hobby. Since I was a lot younger than I am now I have been absorbed with the Sub Aqua world. The calm and peace and exhilaration of being under water cannot, in my opinion, be beaten by anything above the waves. After a rather arbitrary decision to start Scuba diving while on a two week holiday in The Red Sea got me started I then made the leap to an intense training course in Cyprus to work up to Dive Master. This surprised everyone because between these two occurrences all my dives had involved myself being led obediently around specially chosen sites while trying to escape land based tedium on various winter sun holidays.

This second epiphany occurred a work one fateful day. While working a twelve hour shift doing the work from hell (customer service...dum...dum...dum...) Que scary music. I decided, quite out of the blue that I needed a break. Now the following is essential to remember for anybody reading this, because one day it may apply to you. I walked into my then managers office and very politely requested a meeting. After locking the door to ensure that there were no interruptions I continued onto what I had to say. In a nutshell I, very mildly, explained to the woman in charge that I needed five weeks off work to pursue career advancement. My interest is in Marine conservation and related careers. I then pointed out to my slightly baffled superior that given my excellent work history, the high turnover in exhausted staff and the fact that I would be going whether she like it or not, she had no option other than to agree to let me use up all my holiday and take the extra two weeks unpaid. Both ensuring that I had a job to come back to and that she would have a member of staff that would actually work in a reliable and efficient manner.

I got what I wanted.

I have to add that this will only work if you have any similar leverage....or suitably incriminating photos, whatever works.
By the end of these five weeks I had learned patience, how to teach others and observed many a beneficial lesson from the instructors that were based there. From these observations I took away a conviction that if I ever became a Diving Instructor there is a rule that would stand me in good stead and any Instructors that read this blog: Don't sleep with (not that they got much sleep) your employees. When you act like a testosterone charged Lothario and your female staff find employment elsewhere it'll kind of kill the business. Duh!

I have since traveled to many different countries and seen memorable things. I hope to travel a lot more in the future. My most recent adventure has entailed eleven weeks in the Bahamas! Ten of these weeks have been in the company of a Crew of volunteers for an organisation called Greenforce. These ten weeks consisted of Marine conservation in the form of data collection, observation, teaching and all importantly (for me) Scuba Diving. I have to say my time there was invaluable. When a person is confined, in relatively close quarters with fourteen other people they will learn quite rapidly the benefits of holding their tongue. This patience and tolerance on my part evolved not because I haven't been socialised. The extraordinary circumstances of just over half a dozen teenagers, kept in close quarters, for two and a half months meant that the adults in the group had two choices. Patience and possible sainthood or....a regression into a hormone filled state. And so the soap opera began. I'll say no more, just use your imagination and this equation: (Boys+Girls)x(Rum+Hormones)= 'insert mental image here'.

I've since returned to the UK after some personal advancements of my own. That's for me to know and you to wonder about! I returned at the beginning of April and I'm back to cracking open the books, not long to go now.
I'm sure that I'll be able to find something to rant about in the coming weeks, my interests are wide and varied. Comment if you will, or introduce a topic. If I get bored or have nothing to say then don't say I didn't warn you!

In the Begining.....

Hello to all...

I have just done an impossible thing. Something I thought that I would never do. I'm now a blogger! I have spent the last however many years denying the need or desire to join the masses of electronic waves surfing the waters of the web. OK I know that that is a sad mix of metaphors but I think that it gets my point across. Like my many ill fated attempts of starting a journal in the more traditional fashion this may not work for me either. We shall have to see.

In an attempt at a modicum of disclosure I have to warn readers that there may be days when I do not update as much as I should. This will not be through laziness or disinterest. It will because there will inevitably be other things that happen in my life that will take precedence over titillating the entire globe with whats going on in my life. You'll just have to live with it, I'm not going to apologise.