Last night, I went to bed far too late. When I have an upcoming day off it can be all too tempting to watch one more episode of Family Guy as the clock ticks towards midnight, and this is usually a decision I regret come the next morning. Foreseeing this, then, I hauled myself from the sofa to drag myself “up them wooden stairs”, as Mum would say. Everything was switched off as usual and the whole living room was plunged into darkness, at the mercy of the dead of night – and it was then that I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye, a red glow remained as everything else was silent. I was slightly amused, because every time you go into a dark room, or look out of a window at night, you always expect to be scared out of your wits by a ghoul or an axe murderer. Not so, because here I was being confronted by the light from the electronic tuner on Louis’ guitar!

I wasn’t scared at all, of course, more intrigued, because it was something small and insignificant, and yet I had noticed it almost as a massively odd phenomenon. It was just a light! That was all the proof I needed – nothing says “you need to get out more” like being surprised by something trivial like that. Earlier that day, I had been looking through some distance learning courses online, ones you can do part-time from home and juggle with work. The more I read about them, the more I began to entertain the possibility of taking one on at some stage. Upon leaving sixth form I’d said “never again” with regards to studying further, but as I scrolled down the pages of this particular website I couldn’t deny that I was seriously impressed by the sheer volume of subjects on offer. There were ones I’d taken at GCSE, such as History and Philosophy, that I’d slightly regretted not continuing with. That alone was enough to fill my head with questions about what could be – but then, when I actually clicked on said subjects, I found the list of subcategories to be genuinely staggering. And there were whole courses of knowledge for each! I did have niggling doubts about whether I’d be capable of success on any course, and maybe that’s what initially caused me to shut the laptop and put all thoughts aside.

However, I saw my reaction to that red light as daft enough to make me think about whether I should start networking a little more, or applying myself to something good. If I stimulated myself with a course, it might not be for a while yet, but there’s no question that my outlook on my own life could be markedly more positive – not to mention my employment prospects. Watch this space, perhaps?

Mason