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Routine isn't a word I like to describe my daily life. After all, you get your classic image of routine - the guy waking up at the same time every day, has a shower, the same breakfast, kisses the wife goodbye and leaves the house at more or less the exact same time every day.

Then he waits in traffic in probably the same spot, playing the same music station, arrives at the same parking spot in the oh-so-familiar building, taking the lift to his usual floor, working in much the same way he always does, before taking lunch, working again and going home.

Only to start it all over again the next day.

It's the classic suburban everyman setup, and we all like to think we can avoid it, and shake things up in our every day life.

We can't. Of course we can't. Humans are creatures of habit, after all. I like to think that, in what I'm doing now and the job I hope to have in the future, that it's going to be crazy and unexpected and, I suppose, to an extent, it will be. Or at least I'll certainly try my hardest to make it so.

But I get trapped in the cycle of routine, like everyone else. And you get all of your work done like that, after all. I try to do the things I have to at whatever times seem best but at the end of the day, I'm still writing the same to-do list every day. That's routine.

I'm trying to get into the habit of waking up and going to be bed early. It's of course not going to happen, or at least last, but at least with a flatmate who does this, it's more of an encouragement. Now I can't have my TV very loud, or whatever. Sleep ultimately seems to be the best idea.

So why does it always seem like I have massive recollection of all the things I should have done during the day just before going to bed? It keeps me up - either I'm worrying about fitting into the next day or I'm kept up actually doing these things. It seems, no matter how hard I try, even in routine, I can't get a good routine working.

I'm going to ponder these in bed. With any luck I'll be asleep in two hours.

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Why have I spent most of the night looking at two-bedroom aparments in New York? Seriously. I went on all kinda of websites advertising very similar apartments in the city, and then decided to look at what starting animators earned, on average, in the States.

I spent literally two hours calculating living costs and all sorts for absolutely no purpose. I'm not graduating for another year and a half, and even then I doubt I'll be moving to Stateside any time soon.

Yet, we sort of hope. We have an idyllic idea of how we want our lives to work out and dream of it and I think that's where the biggest decisions are made - do you sit and daydream about your perfect place and ideal job or do you actually try to work for it, even if it means leaving comfort zones, and working minimum wage somewhere you don't want.

To be honest, I don't want to do either. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if the good life was handed to you. Working sounds like too much, well, work. You know, I don't know where I'm going with this post, but it might be nice to look back at it in a few years' time, wherever I am, and consider how much shit changes and you just sort of go along with it.

Or, you know, I might actually be in that New York apartment, working for one of the companies I was looking at and think "I fucking knew it".

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