Pete Hindle

Pictures and stuff from a guy who likes coffee.

Tag: leg

November 4, 2008

The Past

So; remember this?

It's not that bad!

Turns out I almost broke my knee over the summer. I was a few degrees off snapping the bone, but I managed to bounce at the right point and ended up with a very long recuperation period. I’ve got a bunch of physio exercises that I need to do every day, which take somewhere around an hour.

The unexpected part of it – for me – was that I kept thinking I was going to be completely recovered the next day/week/month, and it’s only been recently that I’ve had to accept that I’m going to be having a weird-feeling knee for the conceivable future. And what’s brought that on is the cold season, because it turns out my recuperated knee is a ‘weathervane’ (as one of my friends put it) in that it reacts pretty dang well to a change in the temperature.

So; remember this?

At this point (five days in?), some strange radiating hatred for the written word fills my body and I no longer wish to type, or be part of civilisation. Let’s descend into stygian depths and hit things with bone cudgels made from the thighs of our ancestors rather than pretend that todays academia is based on a modern-day version of Confuscian ideals.

Well, I got my funding from the AHRC and that meant that I could go back to university. I’m studying the Digital Media Mres at Newcastle Universities Culture Lab. This is a huge change for me, and it means I’ve got a really burstingly busy year.

So far, my own assesment of my integration with academia would be ‘not great’. Having been as self-reliant as possible for the past few years, the fact that there is now a big organisation in town I can tap for help is something I have yet to adjust to. Moreover, as my first deadline looms, I’ve yet to adjust to the idea of no longer being a free agent and actually having to, y’know, do stuff.

(Some of this attitude I blame on my previous alma mater, which was not very testing in an academic sense, but it’s also got to be said that this is the first course where I don’t just grok the material straight off. Which is interesting, but actually having to do work is something I’m not accustomed to.)

And so, between the studying and the exercising, I find myself slowly becoming a busy person, where parts of my day are filled up. I can no longer sit and ponder the day away as I used to, but instead I have to plug away at projects which require a static, final end product, and I’m adjusting. Slowly.

Next time I get the chance to write an entry, I’ll tell you how those adjustments are working out in a practical sense. Or, if you are interested, you can jump over to my new, professional, website, at http://unnamedlaboratory.org/

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June 16, 2008

Fugging – Like Chugging, but with More Jesus

Reader, I was fugged.

I was walking back through town when I felt somebody touch my arm. I turned, and saw a lady in her early thirties, not unattractive, who started by saying “Excuse me.” A polite greeting, which was appropriate as I didn’t know who she was. Perhaps she thought she knew me, or maybe I’d dropped something and she was going to tell me.

“I couldn’t help notice that you had a limp” she continued. At this point my expression must have hardened. I expected to be offered a lucky glass bead for a pound, but it was what she said next that really surprised me.

“I’m a Christian, and I would like your permission to pray for you.”

I could have said a lot of stuff. It would have been the nicest thing to say “why, thanks”, and move on, but that’s not really what I was thinking. It would have been Quakerly of me to say “you should do what you think you need to do”, and then move on. But I dislike being singled out because I’m different from the herd. I don’t like being the object of misplaced charity. And I don’t want to think about how many times this had done this to other, more vulnerable people.

So I looked this woman in the eye, and drawled the world “no” in a manner left no doubt that I thought very poorly of her, turned, and left.

Inside I was furious. I’d been trapped into a position that I would never want to be; I either ratified her choice of faith or had to act like an asshole. And there was nothing I could do about it – it’s like a version of the question “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?“, to which there is never going to be a good answer.

The term “charity mugger“, or “chugger” came into being to describe those people who stand on street corners and used people’s guilty conscience to goad them into signing direct debits to charity. I’m coining the word fugger to describe somebody forcing you to acquiesce to their faith – and although next time I’m going to try to be more considerate to their beliefs, heaven help them if they think they’ll get off as lightly.

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