Going for the Gold.

I clearly haven't written anything in this blog for a while. However, I won't resort to the cliche of calling this blog 'dusty', 'full of cobwebs', or things like that. Yes, such phrases are only meant to have figurative meanings rather than literal, but I am a realist and prefer not to call a virtual collection of thoughts and experiences things that it is not.

Okay, rant over.

So anyway, my second semester at Nirwana College recently kicked off, as did the holy month of Ramadhan. One thing these two have in common is that both haven't exactly been particularly interesting or eventful for me. But these are still early days, and hopefully things will get fired up pretty soon. My results for my first semester are due to be released later this week, and maybe that could be just the thing I need to get going.

Also, the London 2012 Summer Olympics started a few days ago, on the 27th. I didn't watch the opening ceremony live on TV, so I looked it up on Youtube, where I viewed it in bits and pieces. It was fairly spectacular, but with humans being humans, there were more than a few people on the internet complaining about how the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics was better. Well, I didn't catch the Beijing opening ceremony, so I can't really say too much about the matter. But I'm pretty sure Beijing didn't have the evergreen comedic genius that is Rowan Atkinson.

Comedy is a funny thing, and I don't just mean that in the obvious sense.

What some people find to be funny, others don't. This is just one of the facts of life that everyone seems to take for granted and, as far as I know, hasn't been explained by science.

This is why it's hard to be a comedian. It's hard to make everyone laugh. And yet, here is a middle-aged man playing a piano, making millions of people all over the world cachinnate without even saying a word. What's more remarkable is that he's been doing this sort of thing for years. That, my friends, is pure ability. And all those years' practice being a comedian helps, too.

And that's what the Olympics is supposed to be about - ability and hard work. Only the best of the best, the ones who put in the most effort, can win the gold, and that's how it should be. The Olympics teaches us that only the strongest, toughest and most persistent deserve to be champions. Values such as these we should be imparting into our own lives.

That being said, I should probably take my own advice and strive for excellence during this second semester. All those extra minutes freed up by not having to go for lunch this Ramadhan I should be putting to good use, instead of wasting them playing computer games.

Four-flats are definitely a possibility. Only through hard work can they be an inevitability.