The Year Spirals Out Of Control (PT. 1)

Hello. Good Evening. It's been a while.

It's been 36 days (a month and a week) since I last wrote a proper blog - since then, I've uploaded university work and a VERY quick recap (knowledge already known) and other than that I've just been...suffering. Yeah, I think that's the best way to put it.

There are times I wish I could go back - back to 2019, before COVID, back to my childhood...change a few things.

I guess it's part of growing up - I still view myself as an immature 12 year old trapped in a 21 year-old's body - but at the same time, there's so much I'd tell my 12 year old self...things my parents attempted to, yet failed to teach (due to me not willing to learn them). I wish I did better at school. I wish I learnt how to cook. I wish I was like the rest of my classmates, I wish I just shut up and didn't say anything weird. I wish I didn't cheat (on girls, a long time ago) and I wish I had done things right.

But it's the past. It's shaped me, and it's made me the man I am now, and I can use my life experiences to further help me as I grow older and maybe have kids (HAH).

Looking back, on the weekend of the 10th April, 2021 - I got a new phone (from a friend) - the same phone I have still to this day - and it's bitter sweet looking back over the pictures over the past 14 months - all the good times and the bad times, and everything in-between but hey.

It's weird to think that during this time, on the 10th April (2021), we were still under lockdown. Mad.

2022

Sunday 27th March, 2022 was one of the last days in past 4 months that I've felt completely at ease - leading the Nurburgring 24 Hours came close, but the racing gods took that away.

It was also a couple of days after I had gone into UWRacing to record some audio for an assignment - which made me feel good, as I made progress on an assignment.

In Summary:

25th March: Went to Telford Campus (UWR) to record audio for assignment

27th March: The final day of my final normal week

31st March: Went To Essex for Weekend

6th April: Half Term (Unofficially) Begins (Day Of Last Lecture)

7th April: Living Hills Challenge (Highest point of West Midlands, Essex and Surrey - didn't manage Essex, missed ferry that evening

9th - 10th April: Nurburgring 24 Hours - was in contention for podium/win until early hours of Sunday

11th April: First Week of Half-Term

15th - 19th April: Went to Germany to see Grandparents (I drove good portion of journey)

18th April: Second Week Of Half-Term

20th April: Final Race in 51 Days (20th April - 10th June) - 4th longest length between two races since starting iRacing. this was GT4 @ Barber Motorsports Park. (the one race I didn't get screenshots, and having re-installed iRacing, I haven't got the .rpy (replay file) either!

24th April: One Republic Concert (Rescheduled from Pandemic/'21)

(Tom Grennan still tops the list of best concert!) *I'd go to his 2022 Tour, but all the venues are outside :(

25th April: Return to Uni. (This was meant to be for a maximum of two weeks).

25th - 27th April: Final week of dedicated, in-person lectures. Assignments were still due until the 16th May however, but at the time, I thought I was able to finish the lectures and finish the assignments at home. (The last lecture on Photojournalism was a week later)

29th April - 1st May: Weekend in Essex

29th April: Arrival

30th April: Virginia Water, Surrey

1st May: London (First time to Madame Tussauds)

2nd May: The inital plan was for me to go back to Wolverhampton on Sunday night, ready for University on Monday...however, on the train from London To Essex, we were alerted of a personal situation involving a family/friend, and this led to me staying in Essex on Monday, before being talked into staying another night to do a "skip-run" the following day, unfortunately the skip-plan never came into fruition.

This was all very difficult as I had planned to do some filming for a university assignment on Monday, but as one's life was concerned, I decided to prioritise the Essex Situation.

On top of this, on Tuesday 3rd May, I had an assignment due, and with multiple people talking me into staying, I didn't want to be rude and say "No, I'll not help you out" - I suppose I did try, but peer pressure is a powerful thing - especially when its adults older than yourself.

I suppose this really marked "the beginning of the end for me" - the spiral into shutting down, not responding and not attending to my responsibilities.

I have a feeling that those involved will read this blog (or it might just be my 12 enslaved robots that are forced to read my blogs), and I'd like to clarify that it's not your fault. I have a very weak spine, and crumble very easily under pressure, so should have certainly stood up for myself, and I was the one with the car-key so could have left at any time.

The 4th May was difficult, in addition to arriving later than I would have wanted to, I was also really not in the right head-space to crack on and be productive, so I allowed myself a day to be alone with my thoughts.

5th May: On the 5th May, I went into Uni for the second of three dedicated "catch-up days" during this day I edited together and uploaded some shorts (from my time at UWRacing) - this just leaving an online piece to do - I'd complete this in the following weeks.

The 5th May would also mark the final day that I wrote a full-length blog - the weekend that followed was just a summary, instead of a description of every day.

6th - 8th May: I published my most recent "fleshed out" blog starting from late March/April and ending in Early (8th May) - as mentioned before, the 5th being the last "individually reported day" as opposed to a "weekend summary"

To recap, it was pretty lazy weekend, other than three main things:

- iRacing analysis (including looking into the history/beginnings of iRacing)

- Writing an article for the forums (about said history)

- Writing the 8th May blog - Watching the Miami Grand Prix - which wasn't actually too bad.

It was also the weekend Emili Sande's new album "Let's Say For Instance" came out, although I haven't been following her for the past decade or so.