This post is not a sequel to Eminem\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s movie<\/a>, though I would not say no to Mekhi Phifer<\/a> putting in an appearance.<\/p>\n

This post is about a journey; a journey that I have embarked on every single (week) day twice a day since last October. The starting point and the destination are immaterial. The reason behind the journey is of little importance. <\/p>\n

There are only two things that matter to me about this journey:-<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. The distance<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was traveling 108 mile every single day. 108 miles is probably not that much. In fact, had it been 107 or 109 miles I probably would not be blogging this, however a wikipedia search <\/a>has made me very uneasy about this particular number. 108 is the atomic number of Hassium<\/a>. I don’t know what Hassium is or does, but it makes me feel uneasy especially when wikipedia also tells you that there are 108 sins in Tibetian Buddhism<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Superstition aside, 108 miles translates to 173.809152 kilometers (thank you google calculator<\/a>), multiply by this by the number of times I made this journey and it works out to about 13,608 miles. <\/p>\n

Considering the earths circumference is 24,899 miles<\/a>, I have, over the course of six months accumulated enough mileage to place me half way around the world. Alternatively, I could have climbed Taipei 101<\/a>; the world\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s tallest building over 43,000 times. <\/p>\n

2. Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

On average each journey would last 4 hours. This figure when viewed in relation to the number of hours in a day seems negligible, yet when multiplied by the total number of journeys made I have spent 504 hours of my life commuting; 21 whole days, to be exact.<\/p>\n

21 days, stuck in a rickety train carriage, while some hoody-wearing<\/a> –ASBO<\/a>-youth shows off his entire mobile phone ring tone gallery to the rest of his \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153crew\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2. <\/p>\n

My face is etched with 21 days worth of frown lines. Frown lines gained as a result of the disapproving looks that I have shot at that one person<\/strong><\/em> on the train who decides to place their itsy-bitsy bag<\/strong><\/em> of shopping on the only remaining empty seat<\/em><\/strong>. That same person, who has mastered the art of avoiding eye-contact with the other 55 commuters who are forced to stand, should pay for my botox bill!<\/p>\n

It is not just the distance and time spent on the journey but the time I have been unable to spend on other thingsbecause<\/em><\/strong> of this journey that pushed me to say enough is enough,<\/p>\n

I have sacrificed time that I could have spent sleeping, blogging, catching up with friends and family\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6..<\/p>\n

That said, it wasn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t all bad; I had some great traveling companions. I managed to attend a \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153Rail User\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Group Meeting\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 and watched as angry commuters told rail executives just what they thought of their service. <\/p>\n

I also got to read some very good books; Perfume<\/a> (recommended by Mshairi<\/a>), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists <\/a>(because my father always seemed to be reading\/quoting this book), Catcher in The Rye<\/a>, Fahrenheit 451<\/a>, Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/a>, Animal Farm<\/a>, the list goes on.<\/p>\n

I did also read at least one bad book, Dan Brown’s Deception Point <\/strong>\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 and I really feel like asking him for my time back on this one!<\/p>\n

The best part of all this is that I have finally reclaimed my time and my freedom. I shall not say never to the notion of commuting in the future, however I will think twice should I ever be faced with the same choice. Needless to say I now have the utmost respect to all those people who commute. Should I happen to be on a train or bus I will offer my seat to a commuter; unless of course I am a commuter too. I have after all perfected my eye-contact avoiding technique.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is not a sequel to Eminem\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s movie, though I would not say no to Mekhi Phifer putting in an appearance. This post is about a journey; a journey that I have embarked on every single (week) day twice a day since last October. The starting point and the destination are immaterial. The reason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,12],"tags":[96],"class_list":{"0":"post-264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-my-junk","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-uk","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Y7Vr-4g","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}