from left to right Me,Scott and Phill, Graham was hiding as he dies instantly if I photo gets taken of him!
I turned 26 on the 12th of November, and usually when you have a birthday thats something in your 20’s, you go ‘well another year’. I mean, when your a teenager, you only care about how many present you get, to the point where you go ‘the fuckers only got me 80 presents as opposed to 81 last year’ and start devising how you kill your parents, with a the biggest fork you can find or something just as ridiculous. maybe death by evil stare?
the reason I say this is, to bring this to my recent birthday, it had me reflecting far more than I ever have. The honest thing is, I really am finding myself going, ‘fuck I’m not even close to being married by the time I’m 30 as I’m not even seeing anyone and I’m another year closer to that’ which made me realise that turning 26 has turned me into thinking like a moody 16 year old girl. But as some will say, what else is new. But seriously, you kinda do take stock and realise what it is that you have or haven’t done, and what you’d like to accomplish as you get older or what you’d like to be thinking the next birthday you have. Ofcourse, there’s things I want to do I haven’t, I am scarily and outrageously ambitious, so I am always working on something in order to reach something I want to do, but I was hit with several positive feelings (which is unlike me) . Every penny of money that I have earned since university has been through hard work and making myself viable enough to be paid for doing something I like. and although i freely admit I’ve not earned a huge amount , I’ve gotten by for less hours than if I was working for shit money on a full time schedule in a job I would hate. I’m proud of that and feel I should be cos I always give myself a hard time thinking what I am doing is worthwhile.
To give you an example of this, I entered university with prospects and by the time I left the world was in an economic depression. It wasnt cos I was back in the world, which is depressing enough, but I suddenly,along with millions of others, got hit with the realisation that we no longer had as many if any options after leaving higher education. I tried getting into BBC, which took time as its a long process, and ended up nearly getting it, but ultimately was entering an industry that started already being hard to get into, that was now even harder. Most likely if you had a job now, you’ll be keeping it as they is nowhere to go as everyone else is quite rightly doing exactly the same thing in feeling lucky just being where they are. so if your trying to get on the ladder, you begin to realise that the ladder is full, or has moved somewhere else onto an entirely different estate.
So my solution was to make my own fortunes. I created and ran a radio station for the YMCA which lead to being paid for teaching radio and getting the opportunity to become a youth worker as a biproduct of that. Baring in mind I worked for free for months, running 10 shows a week, including my own, and looking at trying to get grant money in order to continue to do what we wanted, I learned ultimately something I use everyday in running this project. So when I say everything I’ve earned is through hard work, it is literally true, also it is true when I say that I created a job for myself. The reality of the situation though is I, like many others of my generation, have no other choice in the matter. But it gives the opportunity to be able to try and do something that interests and appeals, and thats what Geek Apocalypse is, and why it means a lot to me.
The birthday special reveals an interesting behind the scenes aspect of it, as in the people who everyday help me in maintaining the idea and are willing to help me out for the trade off of simply being best friends. Some of which I have known 15-20 years. Graham is a great website designer and designed the yradio and Geek Apocalypse site to what I asked it to be, Phill has helped us with the more technical wordpress problems we have faced, and scott designed the logo and youtube intro. So in their own unique ways they have supported me throughout the whole project, even when it was just a tiny spec of an idea around a year or so ago. So I owe them hugely for that and that why this podcast will be uniquely…erm unique!
so what will I want to be saying next birthday? I suppose That I kept telling the truth, and I kept doing things that I really care about, which in a weird sense, is a pretty simple idea and yet is hard to achieve. Bloody fun though!
You can find the birthday special, and other shows we’ve done by going to http://www.geekapocalypse.com/shows or on itunes by typing in Geek Apocalypse!
land of the geeks 