THE TALES OF LIVING

I have become so addicted to music and my earphones, that I did something the other day. Something that I have been considering many, many times but actually never gone through with.

It is not the brightest of ideas and it is certainly not smart from a health and safety perspective. But let's face it, my addiction to constant music in my ears is taking on new lows.

I actually proceeded with washing my face - splashing of water, lathering of soap and rinsing, repeat. All with my earphones still in my ears.

Classy.

Today, I had a flashback to a book called The Wind On The Moon by author Eric Linklater, published in 1944. The story holds up to this day and is one of my favourtie ones from my adolescent.

It's a fantastical story, where the two main characters the sisters Dinah and Dorinda turn into kangaroos - amongst other things! It's such an entertaining and gripping story. Earlier in the story they eat themselves to a point of being rolled down the street like big balls, by their mother. Then being mistaken as balloons by the other children in the village and attacked with pushpins - when they try to pop the "balloons". They also mess with a judge putting rotting fish in his house trying to convince him that him not changing his opinion in a case has made him stink.

I've hear people discuss that our thumbs will be the next part of the human anatomy to evolve, seeing as we use them all of the time - as a part of the increased usage of mobile phones and smart phones. We are also more likely to create new injuries as part of using technology. I find my back and neck hurting when I work to much on my laptop. I'm sure we have all had our fair share of technology based injuries.

A few days ago walking home I found myself getting a small electric shock from my earphone. It shook me a little bit, as I haven't experience anything like that before.

Speaking about earphones: I listen to music in my earphones when I fall asleep, during the night, to and from work and during my workday as well. So I've realised that it is pretty much a 24/7 habit of mine. Sure I'm a bona fide music addict and that's fine. But what is it doing to my ears?

I think we have all ready news stories about the increase of Tinnitus in young people. We are actually damaging our ears from an early age with too loud music and too much of it. However, I read a Swedish article about a concert where the music was too loud - where they had done a study on how much if had effected the concert goers hearing and so forth. The study showed that those who enjoyed the music showed less signs of damage to their hearing than those who didn't love the music.

I keep holding onto this article when I get worried about what I might be doing to my ability to hear. Because there is no way I can wean myself off music or my overuse of earphones.

So me and the other temporary worker in the office are being trained up for a new position. This new position includes being on the counter - a public facing role where people walk in off the street and ask us questions.

So we are standing by the counter and being trained by a woman colleague of ours (she's a permanent full time employee). One of our other colleague walk past the counter and is heading home, let's call him the Office Romeo. He stops on the public sector part of the counter, leaning over it for a few moments and talking to us and then he walks out the door.

5 minutes later he comes back. He says:

"Can I just borrow this lovely lady for 2 minutes?"

Interrupting our training and stopping our female colleague mid-sentence. Office Romeo takes the other temp worker into the office away from the counter. A few moments later they come back, he walks back to the other side of the counter heading out yet again. He chats casually with us for a few moments, gripping a post-it note in his hand which I can clearly read parts of a number on.

This is what happened from his perspective:
So he leaves, changes his mind. Decides that he needs her number. Walks back in and is cocky enough to interrupt our training, asks for her number. He get's it and then casually walks out like he's the man. I have to give it to him, he kind of is.

So let's talk about when you are ill and you are just a few keystrokes away from a self-diagonosic. Sometimes this is a good idea and sometimes it is just terrible and really freaks you out.

The Good Example
When it's something minor, you have had it before. So you just quickly swoop on google and confirm. When you are 100% certain you call your doctor up to let them know. Get in, get treated and then the situation is resolved.

The Bad Example
It's something that you haven't been through before. Google just freaks you out - it gives you a number of illnesses that mach your symptoms and one is worse than the other. When you consult your doctor she tells you that it's probably nothing and the best thing is to wait out the situation to see if the symptoms go away or change. Then Google self-diagnosics is really just being a head fuck.

Are you for or against trying to self-diagnose your symptoms on Google?

So as you may know I live in a house with 4 other people, it's a house share and sometimes you have to make allowances or compromise. To add to the story, the house has slightly thin walls, so you can actually hear quite a bit of what's going on in the other rooms in the house.

I live on the top floor and one floor below my bedroom is one of my housemates bedroom. That's fine, if he's playing music too loud I will let him know and visa versa. But here comes the million dollar question - should I really complain every since time he's being a bit too loud?

His girlfriend gave him new speakers to his computer for Christmas - before I could hear the music slightly if they were watching a movie. Now I can feel the base of the soundtrack to the movie vibrating through my floor and bed.
So if they watch a movie on a weekday and it's past eleven - sure I'll text him in a nice way and let him know.

However, last Friday night his girlfriend and him was having a drink in his room and chilling. Just after eleven I was 2 seconds from falling asleep when I could hear my housemate raising his voice in a wild discussion with his girlfriend, pulling me out of my sleepy haze and making me wide away.
I considered texting them to keep it down but I thought - it's not even midnight and it is technically the weekend. So I let it slide.
I fell asleep and about an hour later I wake up from a loud thud. My housemate has fallen off the chair/bed that he was sitting on in his room and woke me up. I let it slide and try to fall back asleep.

I know that it's a bit a granny move from my part, wanting to fall asleep before midnight on a Friday night. There is also the balance between when to ask them to keep it down and when to let it slide. To be fair, there will be nights when I would want to have a bit of a loud time in my room and would want him to let it slide. So it's just the question of how to deal with it and try and be nice about it.

So I love the view from my window. I find myself more fascinated with the sunrise and the skyline than anyone else I know. It's just something about the sky and its colours that keeps me in a grip.