I'm not a stranger to the world of blogging. For the last year or so I have kept a regular blog about the (non-too interesting, unfortunately) happenings in my own life. However, after recent events I have been made to see that some things are better kept off the internet and vented somewhere more private, like a diary.
Therefore, I thought I'd put this space to better use and start a blog about the list of challenges I've set myself. In theory they are to be completed by my 30th birthday, but obviously being a poor student at the moment (and in a year's time an even poorer music graduate...) that could be a tricky one, but I'll give it a go.
As a music student, it's so difficult to find anything else to fill your time - you're constantly surrounded by music day-to-day as a general rule, whether it's playing it, analysing it, conducting it, writing about it or even actually listening to it. For so many people, music is just a hobby but for me and so many others it is genuinely our entire existence. Don't get me wrong, I can't get enough of music in my life and I wouldn't change what I'm doing for anything. But the constant exposure can get to you sometimes, and occasionally it's nice to have some light relief. However, I realised recently that, actually, I have no other hobbies. I play the clarinet day in and day out, and do virtually nothing else (apart from the necessary, eat, sleep, umm...etc.). I'm actually an incredibly boring person and outside of the 4 walls of music-college will find it so difficult to even just have a normal conversation with a non-musician who's life doesn't actually revolve around music.
Having realised that I really don't want to be such a bore, for my own sake and that of others who have the misfortune to meet me down the pub on a Friday night, I've decided to try and turn my life around and challenge myself to do something different. As the title of this blog suggests, the things you don't at least attempt to do remain impossible to achieve.
Anyway, enough background waffle. Onto the list.
1. Travel to every continent.
2. Write a novel
3. Watch 50 films I've never seen (and should have).
4. Live in London
5. Learn Spanish
6. Learn to run properly, and run a half marathon. Then, if not dead, try for a marathon.
7. Coast to coast road trip across USA. (Pink driving licence required first, obviously)
8. Have sex in an adventurous place, preferably without getting caught
9. Pass my driving test
10. Try 20 foods I've never had before
11. Live alone
12. Go bungee jumping/skydiving/both
13. Visit Austria
14. Spend £500 in one night
15. Pay off my overdraft and stay in the black
16. Volunteer work for at least a year
17. Be on TV (and not just waving shittily in the background of a news item)
18. Eat in a Michelin star restaurant
19. Play in a professional orchestra
20. See England play in the world cup. In any sport, I'm not that fussed really.
21. Throw a dart into a world map, and have a long weekend in the place it lands
22. Read 50 books I've never read
23. Own a car. A nice one.
24. Take my parents out for a meal (not with each other though, that could be a recipe for disaster...)
25. Buy an expensive bottle of champagne and drink it with my closest friends
26. Go back to South Africa to see my grandad again
27. Get a first in my degree
28. Milk a cow
29. Learn how to actually use all the special features on my camera to take amazing pictures
30. Climb Kilimanjaro
I'll use this blog to keep track of the entries that I've achieved, or that I'm attempting. And maybe the ones that I've failed at (I'm hoping to keep those down to a minimum though). I'll try and document things with my camera as well, pictures make everything more interesting!
