I don’t want to have several sidebars overrun with advertisements and reciprocal links, I don’t want every other word in my content underlined to trick the unwary into looking at something unrelated to my thoughts and even though some extra cash would be nice; I like having this space as a place free from marketing.

I get emails on a weekly basis from people wanting to pay me to advertise for them (part of the territory when you hit the Google top spot for your real name AND your pseudonym) But I won’t do it. This is where I play and I’ll keep it as a playground for as long as I can.

I think sometimes folk forget that there’s more to life than wringing every penny they can from it. If all you ever think about is monetisation then I feel for you m’love, I really do.

This is why I have just thrown up another theme that was literally created in 5 minutes over at cool template and I think I may keep it for a while until I’ve learned how to scribble the code needed to throw one together myself from scratch (I have more than enough books and tutorials now so if it isn’t done by this time next year I’ll quit talking about it) creating is fun and I should really take the time to get back to loving my own site as much as I do other peoples.

But I’m practical. I chose IT because it allows a career that (hopefully) pays well and will work around my illness and family life.

Jewellery making and web design were the 2 ‘skills’ I had to choose from when I was planning out how to escape the benefits trap of the long term sick; the web seemed the likeliest method of gaining a decent income without a large financial layout.

I know that in the current climate having those benefits offers a type of security that working may not – especially in view of my health (the whole reason I’m on ‘em in the first place) some healthy folks even question why I’d bother since I’ve ‘got it good’ right now – I’m lucky they say.

..and I agree, in comparison to some families we’re doing well and ticking by.

But I’m fed up of always ticking by. I’m sick of the uncertainty of renting a pokey flat that we’re getting too large for by the day. I’m sick of not having the cash for a decent holiday or to buy the gifts I’d like or to make the things I sketch out and put in the ‘someday’ file.

Unlike a healthy person, being long term sick offers you no hope of improvement, no hope of progressing up the food chain, you’re stuck living on handouts and state charity and that SUCKS!

I dream of having a decent sized 3 bedroom house (all doubles of course) I want an office/ workshop at the bottom of the garden and a garage. I want the space to be able to grow my own food – not on a self-sufficiency level, but enough to supplement the odd dish. I’ll never be able to get that on state benefits.

I listed all the things I wanted from my ideal lifestyle and showed it to Stef; he laughed.

Apparently I want to be his parents – but with hobbies.

To be honest I don’t know why that was a cause for laughter; his folks are great – they work too hard in my opinion and could use some hobbies for downtime, but otherwise sure; I’d be them. Just more up to date *grin*

..and I’d be able to do any of this with my daughter;

• start a small craft club and have monthly meetings/ workshops
• create and sell tutorials from my own e-learning site
• create websites for small businesses and families
• have time and materials for serious crafting
• maintain a small kitchen garden
• throw parties

(assuming she wanted to)

Doesn’t that sound like the life to you? THAT’S how I envisage someone who’s ‘got it good’, I’m just trying to get there the best I can.

When I suggested this on Facebook, the very first response I got was ‘Don’t be hasty’. Now while i’ll admit this was a throwaway comment initially but throwing the idea away completely may actually be the hasty thing.

Let us consider this..

My initial dea was to ban sex in the months September, October and November so as to avoid the result of another poor child doomed to sit an academic exam on his or her birthday like i have practically every year I’ve been a student – but I was thinking small, there are far more reasons why this is a good idea!

May, June and July are not only exam times, they are perfect holiday times – they are also (usually) hot and being in late stage pregnancy in hot weather is no fun at all, I know this from experience!

So banning sex 9 months previously immediately removes that possibility.

It would enable the maternity services to organise their departments and train their staff while allowing a decent holiday rotation as there would be a three month cessation on the actual delivery front (obviously pre-natal care, emergency and premature deliveries would need to be catered for) it also means there would definitely be time to show prospective parents around the wards and answer any questions in full.

It removes the stress/competition aspect, if you know there is no hope of sex after a date then you can relax and just be yourself instead of having that at the back of your mind – and if you like the person then waiting 3 months will just heighten the anticipation and improve the sex when it happens (theoretically)

..It also gives you three months in a year to concentrate on building and mending relationships without sex muddying the waters – something that would work wonders for the Kelly, Terry and Tigers of this world.

Ok, so there are holes in all of this – August and September are fairly hot these days as well; but we could remedy that hole by adding an extra month or so to the ban – perhaps even radically add to the initial suggestion by banning sex for 6 months a year..

We could then plan our population and healthcare services a lot more efficiently as those resources could be shared across departments – I’m sure there are some patients for whom an hour in a birthing pool would do wonders, not to mention the extra beds/ ward availability.

I know that we’d probably have an explosion of births during the other 6 months but the previous 6 would have prepared for that – and there’s likely to be a reduction overall in birth rate if we can only procreate for half of the usual time.

Which would result in more resources saved for the planet! Less landfill, less energy waste = Win!

It’s an idea worth thinking about – but I know every single man on the planet would vote against the adoption of such a scheme and a least a third of the women would agree so.. *sigh* once again my brilliance is condemned to the scrapheap.

..But it’s good to dream of a better world isn’t it? just a shame none of us will ever agree on how to create it.

(Now, feel free to leave your scorn and hole pokery in the comments – I’m already expecting an onrush of spam after the numerous usage of the word sex in this post.)

SIMPLES! All you need to do is become a student and sign up to social networking site Studyvox.co.uk.

As the lovely lady is the site patron you too could wind up having a cheque or a music award passed into your sweaty grasp – it happened to me; it could happen to you.

This time around there were 3 things each of the winners of the inaugural bursary awards had in common:

1. we were all students
2. we were all female
3. we all thought this was some kind of a hoax or scam.

I kid you not, I mean; C’mon! Kylie Minogue handing out cash for nothing more than signing up to a social networking site?

It sounded insane! So much so that Stef and I even organised a house sitter ‘just in case’ while we travelled down to the event..  *blushes* paranoid much?

It’s taken me a while to recover from the exertion of travelling and being sociable which is why the date of the cheque is 25th of February but this blog post is happening in March – the joys of living with ME/CFS I’m afraid ( but this was an event that was definitely worth the health fall-out!)

Both Stef and I have been converted to the view of the studyvoxfoundation crew, we really want them to make of the studyvox.co.uk site everything they dream of. The people behind the charity are wonderful, caring passionate people not lacking in intelligence and their ideas are ambitious; they want to take on every big social networking site out there and as Kev the CEO put it “we want to take everything they’ve got horribly wrong and do it RIGHT!”

They want to create an online home for students, a place where;

• their profiles will not be held up out of context during a job interview as evidence of lying and debauchery
• they have representation and help with social needs (things supposedly catered for by the NUS)
• where they can talk freely about their courses and the towns in which they live
• a marketplace for them to sell anything from textbooks to clothes and furniture
• a one-stop shop for all their financial needs and concerns
• somewhere safe to upload their music, imagery and video footage

In short they are taking on Facebook, myspace, MP3unsigned, Youtube, directgov and any other site you can think of that can hold some kind of benefit to students.

It’s audacious, it’s ambitious, it’s totally nuts – but they are so passionate about their vision that you cannot help but be swept along by it.

The bursary awards are to be a regular thing, any student who signs up to StudyVox is in with a chance of winning – it’s definitely on the up and up, it’s legit and I have the pictures to prove it. If you don’t believe me then just look at some of the news coverage of the event on the BBC and in the Telegraph and obviously the foundations own news site the StudyVox echo (I have several times just to remind myself that I didn’t dream the whole thing)

They want to ‘put their money where their mouths are’ and show in a real way that they are there to help support the student community.

At present I will admit to a lot of teething problems with the social networking website – but that is less down to the vision of the group and more to do with the company paid to do the coding and design; I think, given time and a lot of tweaking this site could well be a force to contend with, the NUS would be well advised to take note and learn a few things.

But I’m not. I’m on my blog writing whatever pours forth – because I can.

I know all the theory on what I’m ‘supposed’ to be writing (and how) but to be honest, I don’t think I care any more.
Copyblogger is one of my favourite reads and I’ve soaked up a great deal of knowledge from his generous offerings but I’m not a marketer and I’m not a product – not yet anyway.

Until my course is over and I’m in the job market I really am just rosevibe here and I once had a fair few blog friends who came around to visit purely because I was me and not some one-dimensional tweeter.
I miss that, a lot.

Over the last 2-3 years I’ve amassed quite a bit of knowledge about the web, social media, writing, conversation, e-learning, project managing, marketing, programming and jewellery making, but because I’m aware of how much I still need to learn to be as good as I want to be I never seem to find the time to put any of it into practice (coursework excepted that is) and it’s been remarked on by a few of my twitter friends (*cough* @PhilWoodMusic, @crashbox *cough*) that I talk about things but never seem to share my work..

A link tweeted by the aforementioned copyblogger for a post by Rajesh Setty explains my lack of sharing better than I could – even if saying so assumes that I think of myself as smart.

(..and we all know by now that I don’t, if I was it wouldn’t be taking me so long to figure out how xml, xslt, wsdl, soap etc work! never mind installing php on my laptop.. still haven’t done that *shame*)

I have so many ideas and half-formed projects in my mind that I need to become immortal just to see half of them through – it frustrates the hell out of me that I don’t have the energy or health to get even one off the ground. All my energies are directed into my course and my family right now – perhaps if I didn’t have ME/CFS to contend with things would be different, but as it stands – I’ll be lucky to come away with the degree I want.

..but if I get less than a 2-1 I’ll be screaming the C-B words, muchly!

I get annoyed so easily these days – mainly by people who needlessly mock others; who take delight in the misfortune of folk in the limelight and seem to have lost any semblance of nobility, civility, honour and conscience.

I’m not a saint by any means; but constant finger pointing and mob rule alongside the ‘reality shows’ and our rotten society as a whole.. it sickens me and makes me want to grab the face of the self satisfied wanker behind it all and ram it full force through the nearest window into a rusty spike.

I know.. a tad graphic – but I can’t convey the depth of Grrrrrrr! and Arrgggggh! that I feel when looking at what the people of this country have turned into in the name of multi-culturalism and political correctness when things like that are condoned and in some circles elevated to the height of fashion, wit and branded entertainment.

Now the beloved is pointing at the clock and ordering me to bed so I guess it’s probably for the best if I leave this here before I get truly riled and kiss off any chance of sleep.

..But, even after the revamp – don’t expect this blog to fully reflect my knowledge and experience, its a personal space and so will more likely reflect my feelings and opinions with the odd sprinkling of ‘professionalism’. I’m not focussed enough on one area to create something professional for myself, I’ll leave the professional stuff at work where it belongs – or create a section of the site for it ;0)

G’night all – if you love me, do me a favour and tell me something wonderful about the world, after the tv viewing and general crapness of our world on the surface, I could do with a glint of glory about this year to carry into the next.

love y’all

Vics Xx