Improving..........

So, after a hiatus of 8 months, I now shock the world with a second blog in as many days - who'd have thunk it? What I will say is that I'll try and make this one a bit more light-hearted than the last one, but with how everything's going on at the minute in my life the big D is probably going to make an appearance - so lets get that one out of the way first shall we?

Depression

As I said yesterday - I'm in a part of my life where I'd say one of the biggest 'black clouds' has descended on me, many sleepless nights, time spent just feeling utterly helpless and yes a few tears have been shed. After sleeping a grand total of 3 hours last night I took my GP up on the offer of another week off work, even though I should be physically exhausted I'm not, but mentally I am, and in that sort of state I'm not going to be of any use there.

I did make a decision this morning however - I'm going to spend this week doing as many things I find fun as possible, this is probably meaning reading, going to the Gym, hunting down music that makes me smile (or at least realise I'm not on my own in this), catching up on DVD box-sets and spending time with friends, from now on in on this entry at least, I'll focus on all of those.

Recovery

I'm going to split this entry up into each of the bits I mentioned above, and see what we can come up with:

Reading

I've immersed myself in my graphic novels again, as well as reading Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace (he of The Damned United fame), and it has to be said I'm finding it very therapeutic, with normal novels I find it great to just imagine the world the authors created and putting your own face to the characters you're reading about, and I find it a lot easier to forget my troubles when I'm reading a book like that. Graphic Novels-wise well its a lot easier, I may be turning 31 soon but I don't class myself as fully grown up yet, graphic novels are my main link to my childhood when it was all an easier time, at the minute its the Runaways and Scott Pilgrim providing that link, and for that I'm thankful.

Going to the Gym

Any frustrations I have with the world are easily killed by a visit to the gym, get me on the weight machines with my ipod blasting out some angry music and I'm away. I do have a confession to make however, its been a long time since I've been to the gym which for some random bloke in the street is fine but in 6 and a half weeks I'll be entering the Great North Run (sponsor me!), its going to be knackering so I need to get my ass going again, but an hours workout this morning felt great, so I think we'll be back for another go tomorrow!

Hunting down music

Rather than explain why music in general is good I'm going to post a few youtube links followed with comments on why I feel they're helping me, so here goes nothing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLCrzy9TEs - I had a bit of a nasty end to 2007 and the first song in 2008 that really made me smile was this one, and it still does today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQHv-fhHq9Y - listen to the comments people are making in the background and then just the general feel of the song, this is the one that makes me realise I'm not alone in all of this, this is helped by the fact I fecking love 30 Secons to Mars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHkj804LCl0 - 90's cheese, made awesome by one poker night and singing it loud at 1am with my mate Paul, you can't ask for much more than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic-Na--7_NI - Because almost any cheer-up mix of mine is going to have some Oasis in it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqU-LYq1kE4 - one of the first bands I got in to was Yellowcard and the Breakfast Club is one of my all time favourite movies, there's no way this wasn't getting added.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44xirQ55IgA - I'm a Manchester United fan and in November 2008 I did the Old Trafford Tour - they had a huge video wall playing the events of the day of the Champions League final that year, and listening to it just gives me that feeling of being able to take anyone on.

DVD Box-sets

Simply put whenever I've got spare time I've finally got around to watching Season 1 of Smallville, only 9 more to go!

Spending time with friends

Last night I went to see Inception with Elaine and had a great 2 hours forgetting the world. This Friday there's a Rock-Band/Guitar Hero night at mine where I believe my friends Ali, Clare and Paul are coming along and if Rich ever answers any of his texts then it could be 5 of us!

Right - thats me done for now, however I get a feeling there'll be a lot more of these blogs coming along.