Memoirs, and not this one...

I went to a discussion meeting in Tallaght Library last night. Nuala O Faoláin and two of her sisters had been invited to discuss how each of their perceptions of growing up in the same family - and their resultant memoirs - differed from each other in outlook and content.

My curiosity stemmed from the fact that, apart from Nuala's memoir being in my top ten when it comes to reading lists, Nuala's sister Deirdre wrote a memoir that is by all accounts uplifting when compared to Nuala's essays in melancholia and anger.

I managed to bag a seat very near the front (someone who had reserved one hadn't shown up. Ha!) and settled down with one of the glasses of wine they were giving out. Eventually Dermot Bolger, South County Dublin's writer in residence, came up, said a few words and then introduced not just Nuala and Deirdre, but their other sister Gráinne as well.

It was interesting to see the three of them, especially Nuala, and when the main sister of interest spoke for the first time it was suddenly driven home that up until then, my own impression of her had only ever come from her words, and how hearing her for the first time, regional accent and all, made her appear more human.

This example could be extended to people in general. You are not always in control of the impression you make on people when you meet them in person, but when those people have nothing to go on but your writing, those little words can be a very powerful tool indeed.

I think I'm stating the extremely obvious here...

One of the first things that was put out there by N was how sometimes your individual voice can be disempowered within your own family, that they feel that because they know you better than anyone, they can think you are getting away with something when you make a public statement, because they believe they know you better than anyone else. Also referred to was the potential minefield writing a book about your family can prove to be, as you are writing about the people closest to you.

Then it moved over to the other two sisters, and I was struck by the fact that, while Gráinne's public persona was not entirely different to Nuala's, Deirdre's is a bit sunnier in disposition. One word she self-deprecatingly used to describe herself was 'simple', and once made the point that Nuala and Gráinne were possessed of more depth than she was. Perhaps she was selling herself short with her phraseology, but on the surface at least, she seemed less self-absorbed than the other two.

It wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read either of the two memoirs that the discussion centred not just around the difference in perspectives, but around the parents of the three sisters. One method Dermot Bolger adopted was to read an account of an incident from Nuala's life from her memoir, and then read Deirdre's account of the same incident from the other memoir. It yielded some amusing results from time to time.

Then questions were taken from the audience. I racked my brains for something, feeling that I shouldn't waste the opportunity. I came up with two questions. The first one, did Nuala ever get to meet the woman who had experimented sexually with Nuala's mother in boarding school, an experimentation which eventually led to the expulsion of the latter from that school? The second one, did she place more weight of expectation on her mother, given that she focused more on that woman's failings as a parent, rather than her father's, in her book?

I hesitated (I'm not possessed of an innate ability to judge other people's boundaries) and was lost. Perhaps it was for the best, re-reading what it was I intended to ask her. One of the last comments that came was from a woman with a wavering voice. Just about maintaining her composure, she said that the discussion had a particular resonance with her as she had found her father to be an 'unimaginable bastard' and couldn't understand how her younger sister thought he was a wonderful man. It was compelling stuff. The whole evening was, really.

And in keeping with the tone, when I stepped out into the open air after the three sisters had understandably fled via the back exit, it was raining.

An interesting night though.


If you the reader hasn't read 'Are You Somebody?' by Nuala O' Faoláin, get on it. It's insightful, thoughtful, and very readable. It's probably one of the best books about modern Ireland and its problems in print right now, and it's one of my favourites at this moment in time.

I drool, part II

I have discovered a new lust. It goes by the name of Chris Meloni.

I first saw this guy in Runaway Bride, a Julia Roberts and Richard Gere vehicle. There was nothing else on the telly that night - you must believe me - so I sat and watched it. I remember looking more than once at Monsieur Meloni, but didn't really think about him anymore after that. It was only when the film was repeated on some channel recently that I got another look at him, and it was then I resolved that I would google him at work the next day.

A quick search found that he is also one of the main stars of Law and Order: SVU and some other films I was vaguely aware of, but it was when I read more about his role in the prison drama 'Oz', the first question that came to mind was this.

Was I living under a fucking rock not to have known that this series had hot guy nudity, at a time when I was living in Dublin that had cable with a HBO channel?

I remember when Oz aired first I never really paid it much heed. Another example of life sometimes passing me by. Anyway, the series features lots of naked Chris, apparently, and he plays a gay character who has a liaison with another prisoner. I'm there. I never really cared for Law and Order: SVU and the sight of Senor Meloni in a suit doesn't really do it for me, but he sizzles as a convict, and with that I provide some examples. Click to enlarge, to enlarge like a .....*cough*....

Hot stuff. All pictures courtesy of christopher-meloni.com. To access real Chris nudity, click here and scroll down the page a bit. Then click on the numbers under his picture. Needless to say, it's not exactly work safe.

As it happens, a production of Arthur Miller's play A View from the Bridge is running in Dublin at the Gate Theatre, and guess who is playing one of the leading characters? Yup, it doth be Herr Meloni. I think I shall start making plans about being there also.

As an aside, the Hot Foreign Guy I was drooling over all year is a dead ringer for Chris. I think my taste in men is moving away from hair and more towards muscle.

As another aside, in the film Runaway Bride the story is that Roberts' character is dating Meloni's but dumps him for Gere's at the end. Was she fucking blind?

Another gig...

The Pixies played well last night, but I still preferred the gig where I saw them in the Phoenix Park for some reason. Lansdowne road is simply too big for a intimate gig. You feel (probably because you are) just one of several thousand. Yes, the Phoenix park is bigger than Lansdowne, but the fact that it's a park improves the experience. There are loads of places you can just throw yourself down to chill out in a park, but you don't get that feeling in a stadium. When you're on your own, as I was, the only thing to do is drink, really. That worked last Friday,but not last night, and it brings problems that I've previously referred to. However much of a journey it was to get anywhere near the moshpit, it was even harder to get out when you needed a piss break. I marvel at people who brought their pints right up there with them. They must have bladders of iron.

Another problem was that no matter how close I tried to get the stage, I was still WAY back. Our merry headliners looked like miniatures from where I was, a fact that only the screens could help with. On Friday I was able to get right up to the stage, so this impression suffered by comparison.

The Kings of Leon were supporting. They appear to have generated some fuss since they arrived on the music scene, but from last night's performance I can't really see why. They certainly don't do anything for me.

It wasn't all bad for me, just not as good as it could have been. The band itself were on top form, playing songs from every album, it was just difficult enough to get into it. This going to concerts alone lark, it's for the birds really. It never really bothered me until yesterday, but next time I'll make more of an effort to drag someone with me.

Anyway, the disposable camera has been used up, so pictures will follow soon enough.

Sonic Youth ROCKED!

So did the Chemical brothers, though they played a rather short set.

Friday evening saw me hotfoot out of work at 4pm, making a beeline for Marlay Park. I got to the front door of my building, dressed for warm weather, only to witness pouring rain outside.

Mercifully it abated, and stayed that way for the rest of the day.

I went to the venue alone, but met a guy and his girlfriend, got talking to them and hung out for a while. I had little interest in the first two bands (though they sounded good enough), I was really only there for New York's finest. So I loaded up on Budweiser (the main sponsor of the event. Bleh!) and got down. I forgot one thing. The cardinal rule of concert-going.

STOP DRINKING 45 MINUTES BEFORE YOUR FAVOURITE ACT OTHERWISE YOU HAVE TO RUN TO THE GENTS DURING THEIR SET.

I was down by the toilets when I heard a familiar-sounding wall of feedback, so I legged it to the front of the crowd, camera in hand. The first thing I noticed was how SY still look good, even though the average age of the band members must be close to fifty by now. Kim Gordon still looks cool at what must now be about fifty-two, though I'm still not sure about that dress. Lee Ranaldo, grey as a badger but there you go.

The way they played their set was to take about two songs from each album, going back as far as Evol. So basically we got treated to stuff like I love you Golden Blue (the opener), Schizophrenia, Pacific Coast Highway, Mote (during which Lee seemed to forget half the words), Drunken Butterfly, Pattern Recognition, Rain on Tin (closing), and other ones I don't remember right now.

Then I went off, drank some more, and came back for the Chemical Brothers. A good set, though a bit short. The crowd were mightily pissed off with this, and booed when the steward came on to signal the end of the gig. Of course at that stage I scoped out a hot guy, bounded up and asked if I could take a picture of him for that reason. He agreed, and his girlfriend seemed to take it pretty well.

All I have to do is wait for the pictures to come out and see if I knew what I was doing. The Pixies are headlining today at Lansdowne Road. Yay again!

Last night I went to the workshop about challenging internalised homophobia. It was fine, if a bit light, and I met some interesting people at it. Of course the two hours of workshop was followed by four hours of sociable drinking and now I'm sitting here wishing I had been sensible and gone home straight after.

It was the first time I'd been in a bar with topless male dancers doing their thing on the bar counter. I'm so out of the loop: there are about two gay bars after opening in Dublin since I went to Brighton and I never knew anything about them.

Now to get my head off the desk and do something...

Homophobia and you:

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.

Repost this if you believe homophobia is wrong.
(The above from adamof on livejournal)

While on the subject, I'm booked into this workshop thing on Monday, for challenging internalised homophobia. I've seen that term bandied about quite a lot lately, and have a few opinions on it myself, so participating in it can't do any harm, except maybe fill me full of dread at the prospect of walking into a room full of strangers and then having to work in small groups with them.

Work is intense, but if I get out of here tomorrow early enough, I have the Chemical Brothers and Sonic Youth to look forward to in Marlay Park. Yay!

Money, money, money...

Things I have missed because I was in Mallow for two months without money:

Dublin Pride
Dublin Gay Film Festival
Brighton Pride

Not to mention the fact that I haven't been able to go to a gym since I came home, and am fast losing the gains I made throughout this last year as a result.

Now I hear that the social welfare office are not giving me as much as they should be for the time I wasn't working, so I am as broke as ever.

I'm getting quite sick of being constant poverty. Some of it is down to bad financial management skills and not living within my means, but when I take a step back and look at the whole thing, my means aren't that vast. Yet any of the interests I have that require money have been shelved, and it's not for the first time, and I'm getting pissed off with it. I've been under the shadow of debt of one kind or another for the past 8 years or so, and I am quite fucking fed up with it. Poverty is part and parcel of being a student, unfortunately it was also part of parcel of being an IT contractor in unstable employment, and the hype about Dublin should be believed: it is rip-off central.

I swear, I'm the first person to speak out against getting on the treadmill of the world, but while money is far from everything, it is even further from nothing. Ever since I left home at the age of 19, it has always been a problem for me. I've either had some and blown it too quickly, or not had enough to begin with. This is one of the reasons I picked a vocational course when I went back to college: I've spent my twenties struggling; I'll be damned if I'll do the same for my thirties as well. Reality has bitten a great big chunk out of my ass.

I still can't reconcile myself to a lifetime of working for a living in the way most people do though, but I reckon I'll have to play that one by ear.

Why I opted out of going to film school.

'Excessive literalism is fatal'.

It's the one indisputable sentence in the whole thing.

Honestly, do these critics think that half of the concepts they are criticising were even intended by James Cameron?

Note to critics: One of the prerequisites of enjoying a science-fiction/action flick is leaving your brain at the door. Lighten up.

Happy birthday blog.

Well, it's officially one year ago today that I started this thing, and it's a year that's definitely been eventful, relatively speaking.

I decided to have a quick look through all the entries to date and see what my efforts have been like so far:

Moans about work: 8 posts

Moans about money and being broke: 14 posts, and one post with positive aspects to it.

Nights out and the planning of them: 19 posts

Aftermath of those nights out (i.e. hangovers the next day): 15 posts

Review of music and film: 16 posts

Books: 3 posts

Moans about exams: 18 posts

Positive posts about exams/results: 5

Rants: 6 posts (mainly about hating football, gay rights, and free fees for students)

Current affairs: 8 posts (pope dying, US election results, same sex marriage, mainly)

Pictures of me: 3

Internet stuff: 2 posts

Big brother: 2 posts

Lie-ins: 1 post

Third level education in general: 2 posts

Things happening in my life in general: 25 posts approx.

Gym: 2 posts

Hot Foreign Guy in the above gym: 3 posts

Sex: 5 posts

My family (brother): 1 post

The above are approximate as I lost patience with this counting process as time went on. However, they would seem to corroborate the contention that my blog might have begun to follow a pattern lately. The last one is telling. Overall I'm pretty reluctant to post anything here about my family, in case they might stumble across it. They remain in blissful ignorance of all of this. At least, I hope they do, otherwise I'm dead.

Generally, I've always been slow to say things about people here that I wouldn't say to them in real life (a policy some bloggers I've read should follow), and once you've got something off your chest with someone, I really don't feel there's much point in offloading about it here afterwards. From that point of view, this blog will never become that much of a soap opera.

If blogging is a popularity contest, it looks like I'm not exactly winning everyone over, judging by the amount of comments I get on average - none, barring one or two guys who have passed through. There is also the fact that I'll never be able to put down absolutely everything I want to here for reasons I've outlined earlier. Still, something keeps me going. Quite a few blogs started out with no comments from anyone, and ultimately I've no idea how many people read this, so I reckon I'll keep it going for some more time. I think what I need to do is use this as less of a description of my day to day life, and more of a soapbox or facility for criticism. This may mean less posting, but hey.

There's an awful lot of rubbish out there, but I've always been able to take it or leave it. Pet hate? When people criticise other people's blogs and profiles from the safe distance of their own journal, or just gratuituous moaning in general, really. Cyberspace is big enough for everyone.

■

I started work today. The relief of being back in the city is substantial, and I've pretty much settled back into things. The only blot on the landscape being that I came back too late last night to see 'Bear Cub' in the cinema. It's almost a year since this came out. There's nothing for it. I'll just have to order the DVD. The uncut (ha!) version, of course.

Done and dusted

What could have been a nightmare week actually finished up quite well.

I went to Dublin on Wednesday evening with the intention of looking for a place to live in for the two month period I'll be working there.

I woke up on the couch in a house I used to live in on Thursday morning, with a full day of walking and public transport ahead of me as I looked for a place. A place, to compound the difficulty, that would only need me for two months.

It was pouring rain outside. It didn't stop for two whole days.

Mercifully, the ad I had put on the internet yielded results. A man mailed me offering a room for the two months in a house that isn't that far from where I will be working, and I got sorted. After that, I got on with the business of meeting old friends and quickly and efficiently boozed the tax cheque I got down to almost nothing. Will I ever learn?

In other news, I went to see War of the Worlds. I had the Jeff wayne musical version thing when I was younger and was quite impressed by it. This was typical Spielberg, visually impressive with a rather linear storyline, and he didn't deviate much from the original plot. The 'violence, menace and peril' tag...er...isn't that supposed to be covered by the censorship rating? Anyway, I recommend, and contrary to what seems like popular opinion at the moment, Tom Cruise's presence in it doesn't make it unwatchable.

Another film I saw this week was Downfall. This has been out for quite some time, but I never got around to it while I was in Brighton. I should have had, as it was definitely one of the best war films I've seen in a long time. In all the Nazi-centred war films that I've seen up until now, Hitler has always been portrayed as a one-dimensional raving lunatic (War & Remembrance, anyone?). This one did a much better job, putting him across as...erm...a raving lunatic BUT one with human qualities. There are times in it when you would see him as a doddering and doting grandfather in years to come, in the way he deals with women and children, including those of the Nazi Youth. When one of his officers, Albert Speer, informs him that sometimes he deliberately acted contrary to the Führer's wishes, you almost felt sorry for the Nazi leader, not so much because of the betrayal involved, but because it was like holding up a mirror to Hitler's own deluded thinking. One other thing that was alluded to in the film was the fact that support for the Nazis from the german people themselves was never at 100%, something that never seems to be mentioned in intermediate level history textbooks. All in all, extremely considered in its treatment of an area that is often tramped over with great big jackboots. Go see.

I wonder though, how the admissions department of that Austrian art school felt as they saw WWII play out before them? In any case, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a copy of Mein Kampf, just out of curiosity.

Friday saw me go for an eye test in Vision Express, and in spite of the fact that I told them to use the frames I already had for my new lenses, it still cost me 180 euros to get kitted out (including the insurance). Apparently, it 'costs' 70 euros alone to cut the lenses to fit the frames I already had. What's that sound? Oh, it's me getting boned in the ass. I also had a contact lens consultation, which I have to follow up with in the next week or two. I really want to make the switch to them, but when the optician put them in as a trial run that day, it felt like there was a group of wasps partying on my eyeball. Hopefully I'll get used to them.

Yesterday I got the lovely train back down to Mallow which was stuffed full to bursting with noisy knackers and me with a lingering and even more lovely hangover to make the experience that bit more special. What is it with people smoking joints on trains? Couldn't they at least use the toilet? Urrgghhh!

After that I went out in Mallow and met lots of people I hadn't seen in ages, what with the bank holiday and all, and ended up in the local nightclub. In there I saw a bouncer who used to teach me life-saving in the local swimming pool fifteen years ago, and who I remember as being rather hot in his day. Of course with all the alcohol I had he was duly informed of this in the course of the night, but he seemed more chuffed than anything else.

Getting the train back tomorrow. It'll feel like an escape. First up, 'Bear Cub', a film I tried unsuccessfully to see in Brighton before, is showing Monday coming in Dublin, so that's one thing I might pencil in. Overall I'm looking forward to getting back to civilisation.

Arrgh! Gmail gets stressed:

Well I thought it was funny.

Finally...

I got my transcript, and I got a 2.1! Yay me! That breakdown in full:

Quantitative Skills for Pharmacists:	A
Pharmacology:	A
Pharmacy Practice – Coursework:	A
Pharmacy Practice – Exam:	B
Chemistry I:	B
Pharmaceutical Analysis:	B
Chemistry II:	C
Cell Biology and Biochemistry*:	D

I also got my tax cheque this morning and it has been lodged. I've noticed that it can be a pain in the arse trying to get through to the revenue department, but once you do, they act quickly. All I have to do is wait for the money to clear, and partaayy!

*Eye-wateringly boring. No-one could ever hope to do well. That's my official defence anyway.

More news, some good...

Having spent half of yesterday on the phone to the revenue office (most of it on hold), I found out that I overpaid tax to the tune of 900 yo-yos last year, so that's a fat cheque that's winging it's way to me. Ha ha.

Brighton Uni still haven't complied with some of the requests I made of them, including the forwarding of my transcript, and I don't think the angry letter I got from them this morning telling me I still owe them £250 is entirely unrelated to that. Trying to manage my bank account at the moment is like trying to stall the sinking of the Titanic. Oh fun and games.

There was an explosion in the main street in Mallow this afternoon, right across the street from me, and then lots of oohing and aahing from gawkers as a cloud of smoke rose up into the air. Firemen duly arrived on the scene, but it was lashing rain so I didn't stop to check them out. Hopefully no-one got hurt.

I've been officially promised a job for the months of August and September, so all is not lost on that front. I leave for Dublin on the 25th or so. It'll be about time.

...

...


Dammit, I'm bored!

Oh. My. God.

I passed everything! I'm through into second year!

Who de man? I de man!

I don't know how I actually got on in any of the individual subjects, I just checked on the website, and next to my name, those magic words: 'Proceed to level 2'.

Oh joy and rapture!

The only fly in the ointment is that there is no-one to go out and get drunk with, but my parents have offered to take me out for a drink tonight to celebrate.

Now, off I go out into the sun to get burnt.

There is a light. Is it an oncoming train?

I found out yesterday that, as a mature student, I am entitled to unemployment benefit this summer at the usual rate of 130 euro a week. My sanity has started to make something of a recovery. Now I will be able to do things that normal people do, like go to the cinema, and top up my phone credit.

My results are out sometime at the start of next week. I'm not sure how I feel about this impending revelation. I have almost certainly failed Biology, and if the resit date coincides with or interferes with any of the concerts I want to go to in August, I will surely kill myself. Here's hoping...

The morning of the London bombs was one of the few where I was actually up early enough to hear about it happening on the radio. At least the people I know that are based there are OK.

My sister and I were having the discussion that morning, and one thing that came up was that if Al-Quida had struck just before the UK general election, it would have quite possibly scuppered Tony Blair's chances of getting back into power, just as what happened in Spain with the Madrid bombings. The then PM of Spain blamed ETA solely to distract attention away from the fact that he had led his country's armed forces into Iraq against the wishes of almost everyone in Spain, and now they were suffering the consequences.

I wonder though, if the relationship between participation in the Iraq war and suffering revenge at the hands of the terrorist organisation is that linear.

I'm still bored!

My boredom and frustration has reached a plateau. It hasn't got any worse in the last week, but that's not to understate how intense it is already. To top it all off, our VCR has given up the ghost, so I'm reduced to watching the four Irish channels for entertainment (Saw 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood' last night. Gawd!)

My phone interview reaped rewards, but it turns out that that only means I'm over the first of three hurdles in the selection process, and it's for a permanent position, which is not what I'm really after (though anything will do at this stage). I'm e-mailing an average of 2 companies per day with regard to advertised positions, and so far none of them have had the courtesy to get back to me.

Two friends of my mother's are over from Holland for a while to stay, so at least that breaks up the monotony.

In other news, I've picked up a guitar again for the first time in nearly a year. I'm currently trying to nail the Cure's 'Just Like Heaven'. It's not going too badly. Before, I always set myself these trying practice sessions as my goal, with a view to learning as much as possible, whereas now I'm just learning songs that I like, as opposed to rambling chord changes, and it's turning out much better.

I still need a job though.

Progress, but at the other side of the world...

Canada: Same-sex marriage law passes 158-133

I'm not sure if I like how the cabinet ministers were forced to vote with the government, but in one way it sends out the message that denial of rights won't be tolerated.

All I have to do is wait for Ireland to follow suit, although I fear I may have to get myself cryogenically frozen for some time in order to witness that occasion. 3 countries down (including Belgium and the Netherlands), many many to go...

I have a job interview over the phone tomorrow. I'm crossing absolutely everything for this one.

I'm BORED!

It's 2 weeks since I got home, and the job that I was fairly sure I'd get has not materialised. This is not good. I need money. I am, at this moment in time, poorer than a church mouse.

A handsome (and rather hairy) couple from Brighton contacted me on gaydar, inviting me to join them in a ménage à trois, but I'm stuck here! I must say though, ever since I shaved my head, the number of propositions I've been getting on that site has increased exponentially. Fat lot of good it's doing me though, stuck in Mallow.

The novelty of sleeping in until lunchtime is starting to wear off (To be fair, I've had a lot of practice. Practice that extended over the whole of the college year), and I am now looking for anywhere in Ireland that needs a software tester at short notice. It transpires that some of my more preferred bands are playing in Dublin in the summer (The Pixies, Sonic Youth) and to go and see them, I need money.

As a consequence of my poverty, tonight will be spent at home. The Ice Storm is on TV at 12:30am. While it is a good film, it nearly drove me to suicide the first time I saw it, so maybe watching it again isn't such a good idea at this point in my life...

Oh, PUKE!

Hmmmm...

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% General American English

30% Yankee

20% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Well, it's not as if I have anything else to write about. If anyone can enlighten me as to what these different types of English actually are, feel free...

Fear

...is lying awake at 3 in the morning, in an empty house (my parents have gone for a week) and suddenly hearing a high-pitched sound outside that strikes you as a cross between Freddy Krueger running his finger-knives over a metal surface and a small child crying out, realising that while your phone is next to your bed, it has run out of credit, and you are miles from town (our house is in the countryside).

I swear, if it's the neighbour's cat it's going to wake up some morning and find itself disembowelled and hanging from the clothes line quicker than you can say Whiskas.

My parents have gone to Vienna on holiday for the week. I resisted the temptation to throw wild parties/orgies, instead restricting myself to smoking in the house and leaving the washing up build up. The latter wasn't the greatest idea ever, given that every single cooking utensil in the kitchen now sits next to the sink, looking at me quizically, wondering when it is going to be washed up. There is almost an hours work there. Also, I forgot to water the basil plant, which now looks like it is in the throes of life-threatening dehydration. Get off your ass, Denis!

In an attempt to live up to the 'new irishness' of this blog's title, I've decided to learn Irish. I tried in school (or rather, my teachers tried to make me) but it didn't quite sink in. Going through the material I have now, I'm not surprised. The grammar is amongst the most pernickety I've ever seen in any language. But I'm fed up with coming across faux-Irish displays of national pride (usually, the smell of IRA sympathy is never far behind) and so I've decided to go one better and spend the summer learning my native tongue.

Not Guilty...

Well, Michael Jackson is free.

I have to say that I am happy with the outcome of the trial. The subject of child molestation is one that provokes knee-jerk reactions in intelligent people, legal process, and statutory law. The 1600s had the witch hunts, 1950s America had McCarthyism, and now we have this shit.

This reminds me of an article that I first read a few years ago here, which shows that when it comes to investigating child sex abuse, or anything that results in harm to children in general, common sense can quite literally go flying out the window. Someone said to me a while back that the mother of the child at the centre of all this deserves to be arrested more than Jackson if he was guilty, as she had basically prostituted out her child to him, and I agreed. MacCaulay Culkin, as a grown man not so prone to leading questions, seemed to be one of the few credible witnesses. I'm also reminded of the film L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway) that I saw back in early 2003, which showed that the 'victims' of child abuse sometimes aren't quite as vulnerable and helpless as people like to think they are, and quite often are fully aware of what is going on. Not that I'm in any way condoning that kind of predatory behaviour, but the film makes you realise that the issue is quite so black and white.

Michael Jackson is weird, most likely because of his upbringing. He is in obvious need of psychological treatment (and the surgeons who have operated on his face need to be struck off on the grounds of ethics), and his position as a parent is dubious, but this does not automatically mean he has pederastic tendencies. There's no denying that his relationship with children, and people in general at this point, is questionable, and the dangling of his baby over a balcony cast a shadow over his parenthood more than this case ever did, but people need to grasp that fact that outwardly unorthodox people really aren't statistically any more likely to have an inappropriate fondness for children than anyone else.

His star stopped shining a long time ago. The rot set in with the 1993 case, and never really disappeared until now. At the start of the trial, I thought that it was as well that it had come to this, so that it could at least then be sorted out one way or another.

The worst he can be accused of with regard to those children with whom he has come into contact is that he is an inappropriate role model and that his relationship with them has rather negative aspects to it, but the parents of these children knew that anyway, so how come they were allowed to spend so much time with him? If children need to be kept away from him, it is because some psychological adjustment of himself is in order.

And that stage invasion by Jarvis Cocker was a load of bollocks.

Blogging Billy

I've recently come across billycorgan.com on the net. In the main, it consists of a series of confessions written by the shaven-headed one for public consumption. It's pretty interesting in parts: How he lived in squalor in Florida with his 'starter' band, The Marked, how he was treated by his father, how some of his (sadder) fans reacted to his fame by staking out his house and by having sex with each other on his lawn, and most notably, how the inability to keep some decent perspective on his life wasn't altered by his commercial success. The writing doesn't do much to dispel the myth that Corgan was and is a pretty self-obsessed individual, but it makes for a substantial diversion.

It 's interesting to see that, in common with a lot of bands that are now revered, no-one saw his potential or gave two shits about him in the early days, but he persevered anyway. It makes you wonder if it pays for a band to be suspicious when they are all too easily lauded early in their career.

Anyway, for anyone interested in reading about life before starting a band, life while in a band, and life after splitting up a band, this is the thing. I reckon it'll get across what he wants to say in a way that his songs never will.

It even has interesting tips about how to lessen the squalidness of living in a leaky-roofed cockroach infested hole: Put buckets of water down so they collect the drops of water, and the cockroaches will somehow feel compelled to crawl into the buckets of water and drown themselves. Bet you didn't know that. I didn't.

A new look for Denis

Control yourselves, ladies. Form an orderly queue, gentlemen.

Home sweet home...

... and esconced in my parents study typing this. I got a flight from Gatwick to Cork earlier this evening and have now settled back in.

Of course the day did not go without some substantial panic attacks along the way. Packing began at 1pm today, while battling a stinking hangover, and of course everything was successful only by the skin of my teeth (checking in 40 mins before departure is a little too close for my liking, especially with a raft of luggage, and without the dosh to cover the excess bagagge charge). There was also the row I had with one of my housemates, and to a lesser extent another one, over cleanup duty before I left. I never really liked this guy anyway, but now it's official. He is dead to me. How I didn't kill him this afternoon, I'll never know, and it's good that there's an ocean separating us now.

I gave some stuff to a friend of mine to keep over the summer, and now I suspect I gave him a few things that I had actually meant to take home with me. Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!

So, with first year of Pharmacy in Brighton down, what are my thoughts?

The accommodation served a very useful purpose, and could have been a lot worse, but I am glad I am out of there now. In spite of the fact that I am a student again for a while, living with the similar species grated quite a lot at times, and there are very few of the people in the house that I would choose to live with again, given the option. A professionals-filled house is that way forward in September, I reckon.

Brighton University itself leaves quite a bit to be desired. Very little of the atmosphere one would expect from a college, NO college bar (unbelievable, on its own), different departments scattered across the city, and big fat buildings completely bereft of architectural merit. Yet my gut feeling about the whole experience is quite positive. I suppose some things are more than just the sum of their parts. I suppose part of me is ruined by going to Trinity College when I was younger. Disregarding its reputation (overrated, really), it has one of the nicest college campuses by a wide country mile.

I have not completely shaken some of my more negative studying habits (the main one being hardly doing any studying at all) but I have improved, I feel. I discovered a previous unknown wellspring of discipline with regard to the gym, and have made some progress there. All I have to do is apply that to the college course, and I should get a first class honours next year.

I have drunk more in the past nine months that I have ever had in a similar previous period in my life, as anyone who reads this regularly has since worked out. This has been fun, but it has also cost a lot, and I am going to have to be much more frugal next year.

The Brighton University Gay society has a bias that is away from the bear scene, so I don't think it will prove fruitful for me in the long run, but I have met fun people there, and will keep in touch next year.

The course? I can see myself doing this in the long run to some degree, and while some of it has been quite hard, I've managed to overcome it, and the last two exams I finished on a positive note.

Hot Foreign Guy? I most likely will never see him again. *Sniff*

Last night was quite the epic of alcohol intake, and the drunken bonfire on the beach was cool, but I'm done now. The next three months will see me go on the wagon in an attempt to save money.

God, I still have to get used to my parents' 56k modem connection. Christ...

Note from the trenches

Tuesday, biology. Borderline.

Thursday, Pharmacy Practice. Could have failed miserably, but a last minute cramfest saw me able to scrounge enough from various questions to hopefully pass.

Friday, Chemistry. A bastard of a paper. Borderline here too.

(Work ethic? It crash-landed in Antarctica some months back. Sinéad and I have made a pact that if we let everything slide again next year, we will shoot each other.)

Sleep Pattern: Turned on its head.

Personal hygiene: Unapproachable.

Diet: Refined sugar and caffeine intake headed for the stratosphere.

Aaaaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!

Only two more to go. Tuesday (the absolute worst of the lot) and Wednesday, and then I'm out of here.

The worst thing is that the ramping up of the exams coincided with Bear Pride, in London this year.

What the FUCK?!

I have just come away from hearing the UK Top 40, and the crazy frog song is at number 1. Coldplay, the band on which everyone's hopes were pinned, had their new single debut at number 2. None of the DJs involved in presenting the shows I was listening to bothered to conceal their opinion of the outcome, and one of them, with a veneer of humour that was only barely there, said he wanted a recount.

It beggars belief that after all the musical movements that have come to pass in the last century, shit like this still sells by the bucketload. A related contest was run by one of the Brighton radio stations, to see what would be voted 5 worst novelty tunes ever. When the results were announced, a snippet of each was played. Amongst the songs were Do The Bartman, Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls, Bob the Builder, and at number one, the admittedly dire Teletubbies theme. Yet I was struck by the fact that no matter how bad they were, the crazy frog was worse. In fact, it made Do The Bartman sound like The Smashing Pumpkins. I'm not joking. I recently read a humour piece in the Friday Thing where the author suggested that the creator of this song should be locked in a room, and forced to listen to this song 24/7, non-stop for a year, and see how he likes it then, when he emerges completely and utterly deranged. I am in complete support.

I remember when Coldplay first appeared on the scene way back when. I remember thinking the same of them as I did of Travis and the Stereophonics: Solid, but completely and utterly unremarkable, and the singles from their first album didn't nothing to change that. I think their problem at that time was that there was still quite a few superior bands around at the same time who were at their peak, and Chris Martin's lot just weren't on a level sufficent enough to compete with them. Fast forward two years though, during which Radiohead disappear off out on a left-field limb and the Smashing Pumpkins split up, the band puts out A Rush Of Blood To The Head and Chris Martin gets it together with Gwyneth Paltrow. The former I have since discovered to be a surprisingly decent album, and the latter saw them get more publicity than their songs would have had on their own.

Now I think that there isn't much else out there in the way of mainstream rock music, and they sure are getting a fair bit of attention. There's quite a bit of excitement over the new album, and apparently they're set up for an interview with Steve Lamacq tomorrow. There's also a 'Coldplay day' on one of the radio stations tomorrow too. I didn't think I'd ever see the day when I would develop an interest in this lot, but I have.

Having said that, I still think genuine talent is a bit thin on the ground at the moment. I suppose that's what I get for growing up during the early 90's. Kurt Cobain was of the opinion that genuinely good, boundary-pushing bands only appear in cycles of 10 years. I think he was right, and if that's the case, we're due something good again. You'd bloody wonder what the point is though, when arse like Axel F is the most popular song in the country. My only hope is that we've hit the bottom, because then the only way is up. Fingers crossed...

Baptism of Fire!

The weekend of May 12th was not the climax of my social life. Last night was!

Warning: What follows features descriptions of sexual encounters.

Last night I met up with a chap called Phil. We first met at one of the LGBT Brighton meetings, and he was the only one there, as far as I could see, who was acquainted with the bear scene in Brighton. We kept meaning to hook up so he could introduce me to all that, but life always seemed to get in the way. We met this week in college though, and plans were made to go out on Friday. So last night, even though I have my first exam on Tuesday coming (pray for me!), I met him in Kemptown, and my introduction began.

We started late, so we didn't have much time, but a quick drink was had in the Marine Tavern, and then we hit The Bulldog. I can't believe I put off going to this place for so long, it's class. Loads of hot n' hairy men everywhere, and a really good atmosphere. There's something so arousing about seeing two big burly hairy men mauling each other in a confined and sweaty space. It makes me want to jump right in there between the two of them. In there, I met the guy who inspired me to shave my head too. I had originally planned to go home early, but of course that went out the window after my second pint, and it was decided we would go to Schwarz bar. That was when my eyes were truly opened to what can go on in gay Brighton for the first time.

I got to the door. The bouncers took one look at me and told me I couldn't go in with the shirt I had on me, but provided a black t-shirt for me. I was surprised by this. It's a good way of accommodating people who can't, for whatever reason, manage the dress code. Then I went in, and my jaw went down.

First I had a quick look in the playroom. It's an area sectioned off by net curtains and oil drums. To get an idea of what goes on, click here. That's right, you guessed it, one big orgy of sharing and caring. I returned, figuring out in my head how I was going to get my first acquisition in there. Then my eyes alighted on the two men near the bar. One standing up with his pants open, the other on his knees in front of him, moving back and forward vigorously. I went to use the toilet at the back of the bar. I opened the door, only to encounter the same scenario again. I retreated, and headed for the slightly-less-cruisy toilets near the cloakroom.

After that, I resolved to participate in the proceedings. Into the play area I went, found myself a big cuddly dude, and got to work. While we were engaging each other, I felt a pair of hands lower down on me. I turned around and extended an inviting arm around the chap behind me. Then I looked down, and realised that the second party was actually the guy on his knees to one side of me. Whoops...

I also copped onto the fact that it pays to pay attention to the face of the guy you're entangled with, otherwise you run the risk of chatting him up again later in the night, not realising you've had him already.

The talent overall in there was fine (lots of big shaven-headed goateed guys in army gear and leather), and I felt a bit more integrated into the proceedings with my head shaved. Phil told me that as a general rule of thumb you have to dress a bit like the kind of man you are after, so once I have some money, it's off to buy khaki and leather, with a pair of doc martens enjoying a comeback as well. Am I embracing a new gayness? It certainly looks like it, especially since I've had more men in this one night than I've had for the rest of the year.

As the night went on, I got into the art of cruising, as chat-up lines are almost completely unnecessary. Most of the time, all that is required is eye contact. I finished off by advancing on a guy in the main bar area. He wanted me on my knees then and there, but I have my standards, so I led him back to the play area. As I went down, I put out my hands to get some balance, and it was then I found a condom on the floor. For some reason, I found this completely symbolic of the whole night. Once I was done with him, my eyes settled on a rather dapper guy in classic YMCA leather gear, but just as we were about to get acquainted, closing time descended, and security came in to usher us out.

I got my shirt back at the door, and headed out into the cool night for the walk home. I met two guys in my class on my way back. They asked me if I had a good time. I replied in the affirmative, and left it at that. I didn't hold back as much with two of my flatmates though, and one of them asked me if I gave or took. It's often been my experience that straight guys want to know this from a gay guy. Whyfuck?

It matters not. It's taken a while, but I have found what I came here for. Thanks Phil.

I shaved my head.

I am now completely bald. I quite like it, and reactions have been favourable.

The source of inspiration for this decision? The hot shaven-headed bear I zeroed in on last night on gaydar (OK, J, I know I said I wouldn't do it anymore, but I was weak! WEAK!), with whom I subsequently had hot sex.

Another film review (with no real spoilers)...

I went to see The Jacket on Tuesday night. Described by EntertainmentIreland.ie as a combination of Jacob's Ladder, Donnie Darko, The Manchurian Candidate, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I'm not sure if it is in the same category as these greats, but it is quite good.

With music mainly by Brian Eno, a script by Massy Tadjedin, and directed by John Maybury, a filmaker with a background in experimental film and music videos, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are also in there as executive producers. Apparently these two have set up a independent company called Section Eight to bring fringe filmmakers closer to Hollywood. Long may it continue, considering this film was the only one worth checking out this week at the cinema ('Has Hollywood hit it's artistic nadir at this time? Discuss, using the thousands of examples out there...').

The story is this: Sergeant Jack Starks is killed while in the gulf war, but continues to live on, albeit in a state of amnesia, for some time afterwards, to inhabit and influence more than one timespan. Keira Knightley and Jennifer Jason Leigh are here, though I hardly recognised them, which can only be good for the sake of the story, really.

Anyway, that's all you need know. Go see. But don't take any popcorn breaks. Every scene is crucial to the one that follows it.

Star Wars opens this weekend. I really don't care. I remember seeing one or two of them when I was younger and not being too impressed. The whole thing reminds me of the Matrix: A big phenomenon, but precious little else. I don't remember any of them having the hold on the youth of Mallow that they had everywhere else, but maybe that's just selective amnesia.

When I was young, my parents (or more accurately, my father) had a grudge against TV in general, and we only ever rented one. It was promptly given back to the electronics shop at the start of the summer, and we had to find other ways of amusing ourselves. It was at its core not a bad idea, but I wonder how much of it rubbed off on me. I'll live for film until the day I die, though there is very little of the rubbish that clutters up TV stations that I actually watch (The Simpsons, E.R, Desperate Housewives, that's pretty much it). Anyway, the result of all this was that a lot of the crazes of the big and small screen were lost on our family, and Star Wars was one of them.

Apparently this one is good, and a fitting end to the whole thing, but George Lucas subscribes to an ethic that I don't much care for. Anyway, whatever. Maybe I'll check them all out sometime when I have some free time on my hands, to see if all the fuss is warranted.

Also, I saw a documentary about sex in film on (surprise!) Channel 4 the other night. It seems that sex no longer sells in Hollywood. Instead, it was said, special effects without stories are the money-spinners now. Then, in a move that I suppose was to prove a point, the documentary cut to a scene from a French film called 'Romance', which showed a guy with a rather substantial erection putting on a condom, about to engage his girlfriend in coitus. Then, in a move that I suppose was to reinforce to point, the documentary cut to another scene in the same film which featured a stylised orgy with lots of naked men walking around. You have to hand it to French cinema, at least they are egalitarian in their nudity, not like Hollywood, where breasts are everywhere but even the shadow cast by a boner would be enough to get a film banned. Channel 4's preoccupation with sex is starting to get very tiresome though.

Incidentally, the song that is played behind that cut-up collage of films that include Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream is Mogwai's Hunted by a Freak. It took me an age of trawling the net to find that out, but satisfaction was derived.

What am I doing here? I have work to do...

Whoops...

I was in the gym today. Monday is 'chest' day (not that you'd bloody notice, even at this stage) and I was bench pressing two 20kg weights. Working to failure is not a good idea when failure occurs as your arms are up in the air, over your body. My left arm suddenly came down, too quickly for the guy that was spotting me, and the weight bounced off my stomach and hit the ground. It was the one time I was glad I'm still slightly thick around the waist. The one time. On the plus side, when I went to collect my bag from the changing room, Hot Foreign Guy was there getting changed, about to start his session as I was finishing mine. Nnnnnhhh!

I saw The Deer Hunter again on channel 4 last night. It was shown straight after the top 100 war films ever, some of which it was good to be reminded of again (The face that Private Pyle has in Full Metal Jacket when he finally flips is mesmerizing). For a long time, I've always been of the opinion that Robert De Niro has traded more on his screen presence (epitomised by his 'you talkin' to me' schtick) than his acting ability, but he was in top form here, and the film is still powerful stuff. The end is probably the best portrayal of blue-collar faith in the great red-white-and-blue on film, especially when you consider what that means now.

Anyway, I loved. All I have to do now is get around to watching the free DVD of Paris, Texas that I got recently.

Partay!

A picture of me, snapped a while back, in Revenge.

That's me on the right. The guy with his arms wrapped around me is the president of Brighton Gay society.

The Weekend

My, what a weekend. What an orgy of alcohol...

On Friday, I woke to the sound of my clock radio relaying a news bulletin about how Labour had won. Drat and bother.

It was pretty much the result I expected. Any party like the Lib Dems, where their 'agenda' can be seen even in their name, are always going to be left behind. It's pretty three-tiered stuff now, which can be viewed in a good light, if you consider the alternatives that could have emerged. I've always had a steadfast view of the so-called big picture when it comes to voting, being an idealist, and so it has never really mattered one whit what a local candidate has done for his area. It's always been the party line at a nationwide level that has held my interest, and that's what I've always gone by.

I think Michael Howard is an idiot for throwing himself on his sword. Scratch that, he's a bit idiotic in general. I didn't read any of the coverage this time around either, I just went with my ideals. At least the BNP hardly got a look-in in the end.

Incidentally, the song that has been doing the rounds on TV as part of the BNP's campaign strikes me as something that could be very touching, were it not for the odious undercurrent of racism and British supremacy. For people not in the know, it's called 'Corporal Fox'. If you click here, you can pick the right download (Windows Media or Real Player only, as far as I can see) for your PC. At the bottom of that page, there is a link for the inspiration of that song. On that page are the lyrics, and the explanation for the origin of the song. It's fine until you get to the bit about the Iraqis and Afghans, though the subtitles that appear across the video for the song are incitement to hatred throughout, if ever I've seen it.

I think something like this is a shame, because it could be used to highlight the plight of the homeless very well, were it not for the fact that it's been twisted for the personal agenda of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. I'm not sure whether he's a nasty British supremacist, or just someone with a social conscience who took the wrong road. Most likely the former.

So that's it. The one memory I'll have of this UK general election is a song that could have stood for something good, but didn't. Uninspiring or what?

In the gym earlier, Hot Foreign Guy was doing reps with a barbell (if that's what that particular apparatus is called) right in front of me. He was wearing a fitted t-shirt that made his upper body look amazing, although I get the impression he's not too narcissistic about himself. It would be difficult to glean this information though, given that our interaction has mainly revolved around:

HFG: "Are you finished with those weights?"
Me: Gawd, you look sensational in that t-shirt. All I want to do is take each of your arms by their wrists and raise them so that they're directly over your head, then peel your t-shirt off you, directly upwards, turning it inside out as I pull it off over your hot 'n hairy chest, revealing your jaw-dropping torso in all its glory..."Yeah, work away".

or on the slightly more rare occasion where he sees me perform an exercise and he believes there is room for improvement in my technique

HFG: "What is it you are doing, exactly?"
Me: It is at a time like this that my ardour for you is slightly less than it normally would be, but I still burn for you. I burn for you with the heat of a thousand blinding suns. I burn for you with a lust that knows or acknowledges nothing except the acquisition of its target. I burn - "Er...the deadlift..."

This was actually our first ever interaction, where he very obviously corrected something I was doing. I'm sure he meant well, but it was something I never really got past afterwards.

Earwigging in on a conversation he was having with someone that night, it turns out he'll be finished this year of his course very soon. As it's his final year, he'll be heading back to his home country, and I'll most likely never see him again. It's not just the fact that I'll have to find someone to ogle next year, it's something else.

Of course this didn't stop me from heading out that night, getting EXTREMELY drunk and telling anyone who would listen about him, including the volunteering of information such as

a) His full name
b) The campus he studies on
c) What course he's doing
d) What year he's in
e) What he looks like when he's having a shower

To the best of my knowledge, no-one at that party was a regular user of that weights room. At least, I hope not, or I'm dead. From embarrassment, if nothing else.

One other thing of note on Friday was that we started the 'Psychoactive Drugs' section of our Pharmacology course. At last, there appears some light at the end of the tunnel. This is the sort of thing I live for, and one of the reasons I chose this course in the first place. Not, you understand, because I want to set up my own 'practice' in my bedroom, but because I was always fascinated by how someone could, while retaining core elements of their personality, acquire completely different thought patterns by virtue of a neurochemical imbalance. This Friday, it was depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia (the latter of which bears no resemblance to a split personality, popular culture take note). Next week, it's drugs of abuse. Woooo!

Saturday saw me celebrate Nice Guy Dan's birthday. What can I say? I got smashed and then some. Mr. Brooks, you rock!

Sunday saw me roll out of bed, get on the Brighton Gay Society bus and head to Oxford Brookes university where national student pride day was taking place. The best part about this was the discussion workshop that took place in the afternoon. There was a lesbian activist there who had been at, and participated in, the original Stonewall riots. Then there was a Jewish rabbi and another guy who was part of some christian movement. Both of them made very interesting points about how the Gay community and the church have been set up so that they are in constant conflict with each other, when it actually is completely avoidable. Then there was a woman who spoke about how difficult it is to effect change for the better in primary and secondary schools, which comes as no surprise when I think about the school I went to.

Of course the music on the bus journey was Cher on the way up, and Madonna on the way down.

So the climax of my social life has been reached, and now I'm cramming for dear life. The end of this year is in sight...

Bah!

The stinking Virgin Suicides tape was dirty, so I had to retire to bed 'early' without watching it.

I passed a clinical exam I had a while back, but not with flying colours.

Our exam timetable is out and it sucks, in no way facilitating in-between last minute cramming, which has always been my saviour in the past.

Ho-hum.

At least I got a polling card. I'm not sure why. I thought you had to be a native UKer to be entitled to vote. Nevertheless, I shall make use of it. Lib Dems are about the only ones who survive the process of elimination for me.

Apathy...

Well, my birthday has come and gone, and I've more or less settled back into a routine of sorts, though my sleeping pattern is completely fucked, with my body still feeling that I don't have to hit the hay until the small hours of the morning. Last night saw me lie awake until 5am or so, before nodding off.

There was a drag night on Sunday night, the sort of thing I came to Brighton for, but I had no money (or at least, none to spare on something like that) and more importantly, no outfit. So I stayed in and moped.

With less than a month to go till MPharm I exams, the only thing motivating me at the moment is the fact that if I don't get these on the first attempt, I will have to do them again. I think my mood has hit a trough in the middle of all the peaks, and I'm wondering what the point of all this is. One thing I have to say about this place is that, in our department at least, they really don't give a shit about undergraduate tuition. I can see swords crossing over the next few weeks with various tutors.

I set off the fire alarm in our apartment on Saturday last, but it wasn't entirely my fault. The smart comments from the other slightly culpable party saw me roaring out in the courtyard, in the midst of the ebb and flow of all the firemen.

I got the Virgin Suicides out on video tonight. It's just the thing for the mood I'm in right now. At least the weekend brings Danny's birthday and the National Student Pride day, in Oxford this year.

Dying

I'm not thirty, I'm twenty-ten!

Well, I'm now 30, or if you take into account the fact that I was born at 6:15pm, I will be thirty in 4 hours.

Did you know, dear reader, that I threatened to arrive into this world too early (at 5 months) and emergency intervention, which saw my parents almost drive across a field to get to a hospital on time, was necessary to save me? The effort, I think you will agree, was worth it, though I'm not sure if my parents felt the same at the time, given that I looked like Damien Thorn in all of my early childhood photos.

I could launch into an orgy of piteous self-examination here about where my life is going, but I can't. I have too much preparation to do. Dinner is here, followed by drinks, and then maybe this club. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Birthday wishes have been coming thick and fast. I have also received birthday e-mails from gaydar and bearprofiles.com. Bearprofiles actually put you on their homepage for the day that it's your birthday, so you get lots of mails from woofy bears in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and other such states telling me that 'I can chase them anytime'. In 'bear' parlance, I'm think I'm known as a chaser, a title I'm not entirely sure about, given that it can have groupie connotations. Anyway, I think I need to move country.

Interestingly, while that scene is alive and well and thriving in the good old U.S of A, it's still pretty much in its infancy over here, especially in Ireland, where it only arose a few years ago, and is currently in danger of dying out again.

I got entangled with a species of the male persuasion last weekend. While I was back at his house, I noticed the victim man had all his books in hardback, and all of them were organised by author. I resolved from then on that I would go for a mix of hardback and softback, in carefully careless disarray, for a more casual feel.

Anyway, whatever. I think I shall make my twenties last for another ten years. In the words of a singer in a famous group:

"I'll never grow up, at least not in the conventional sense. I faced the real world when I was thirteen and I denied it".

My parents have been and gone (last weekend, along with my brother and his fiancée) and they were impressed by Brighton overall, it seemed. One of the things they saw during the sightseeing was the Pavilion, which was nice as it was something I hadn't ventured into before. Most of our eating out was confined to restaurants in Kemptown, based on the drunken recommendations of someone I met at a party the night before, and it's definitely a place I would like to live in next year if I can afford it.

Which brings me to money. I'm broke. Again. The grant cheque that I got is used up, and while I got another one the other day, all of it will be used on paying the accommodation fee for this term (I'm working out how I can get those people to back off for a while). My 30th birthday looms on the horizon as well. It's Wednesday coming, the 27th. The finer points have yet to be sorted out.

Thirty. I'm in denial. I figure I can make my twenties last for another ten years.

Another pope got elected on Tuesday. Joseph Ratzinger, hereafter known as Pope Benedict XVI. Much more important to me was the clinical exam I had that day, and afterwards the pub beckoned, so no, there was no feeling of awe at the occasion.

Apparently the election was 'tantamount to a stitch-up', and the new candidate has been nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler'. He also served some time in the Hitler Youth, though given that the Vatican have been lambasted for its lack of action during the Holocaust, that revelation is pretty small fry. His official stance is rooted in conservatism (as if, when it comes down to it, there is any other position that exists in the Vatican) and he has already spoken out against homosexuality, woman priests, and other religious beliefs. I can see a glowing future for him, where he endears the previously unsure to the establishment. Papal infallibility is the single greatest crock of shit the Vatican ever came up with.

While his position has influence on society in general, and as such shouldn't be completely disregarded, he has become a figure that is meaningless to me. I chucked out most of their doctrines when I was younger, but now it's official. If I haven't mentally washed my hands of the whole institution before, I'm doing it now. They had their chance, but they've blown it.

Incidentally, a term that was used in one of those Guardian articles to describe the world population of catholics as they relate to the Vatican is 'the flock'. Says it all really, doesn't it?

An epiphany, of sorts

To say that this last week has been hellish is a masterpiece of understatement, but it's over now. 2 laboratory sessions and 3 exams all right on top of one another. The pharmacy department is a model of consideration.

At least the mark from the last unsuccessful lab was followed by 3 A grades for the ones I did after, so that's something. Interestingly, when we were doing them this week, I was alone in the instrument room with the guy I spoke to with regard to that failing mark. We were using...er...some machine to measure solution absorbance.

The fire alarm went off. Twice. The two occasions were separated by approximately 10 mins. And we had to take the stairs from the sixth floor.

On the whole, I think some mystical force doesn't like it when we are alone in the same room, and conspires to separate us. And I never want to see another flight of stairs again.

At least I passed the chemistry that I sat two days ago. The other results, I await.

I can't believe I have whole four days until my next exam (clinical). I don't know what to do with myself.

Current mood: Wondering what the hell I thought I was doing choosing to do this course.

I drool, and not for the first time

I've never really written about unrequited lusting after straight men before, unlike some other bloggers, as I've always felt that a compliment that travels in one direction only, as it were, is a waste of time.

Well, sod it. This one deserves a special mention.

Since I joined the gym in Brighton, I have, not unsurprisingly, crossed paths with some fairly juicy men in the weights room. There is, of course, one that I've been taken with more than the others. His build is not the traditional big hulk type that I normally like, it's more sinewy and 'neat', if that makes any sense. He's tall, dark, swarthy, and very handsome, appalling cliché completely deserved. His course of study indicates that the right side of his brain is active (always an attractive quality in a man, I find), and his accent (foreign) is quite musical. Whoever it is that gets to have sex with him is the envy of me. I'm normally loathe to use the word 'smouldering', as it sounds like such a sub-Mills & Boon expression, but in his case it works perfectly.

I generally wouldn't describe myself as a shower-room stalker, or at least I'd like to think I'm not, but if a straight guy was unquestioningly allowed into a woman's changing room, he'd need to be dead from the waist down to not be tempted to check out the other girls getting dressed.

So it goes. All year, I generally only had fleeting brushes with this guy. He's the only one I enjoy waiting for when he's using a bench I need as it means I get to look at him, and as a person who doesn't like staying in the gym longer than is absolutely necessary, that's saying something. However, the time that I spend in the changing rooms has never coincided with his showertime.

That is, until last night.

God Day-am!

He looks amazing with his clothes off!

So with that tasty picture in my head, I went off into town to get bladdered.

(He was right behind me earlier when I first sat down here, but now he's gone. Eye candy, come back!)

*Sniffle*

A week of exams looms before me (first one tomorrow) and what happens? A lingering and shitty virus invades my system. It had been trying to get a foothold for the past few days, and has now finally mounted its assault. The timing is only brilliant.

A brief summary

The two weeks off in brief:

Number of hangovers: Too many
Amount of refined carbohydrates eaten out of boredom: Insane
Amount of cheese eaten under similar circumstances: Really does not bear thinking about.
Number of man-hours of useful study done over break: 2 (approx.)

Nnnnggggghhhh!!!

And now the weekend in brief:

I went to Dublin. It was cool. Friday night saw me drink rather a lot with people I used to work with, and then wake up dying on Saturday. Once the pain had abated to an extent where I could go outside without withering in the sunlight, I made plans to go out and do it all again. So that night, I hooked up with friends I hadn't seen in a while and proceeded to do Gay Dublin.

As there was alcohol involved, it goes without saying that there were indescretions. Men in ATM queues were drooled over, men who had just finished shifting other men were blatantly propositioned (who unfortunately returned the compliment with an even more blatant refusal), male couples were offered the opportunity for threesomes...oh, I've forgotten half of it, and that's probably for the best. That wine bar should never have happened. I shall spare you, dear reader, except for my crowning glory.

Dig if you will, the picture. I am in The George, Dublin's most legendary gay bar. I am near the cloakroom and I spot a guy walking past who has a fairly hefty upper body (always been a sucker for that). I decide that he will be mine, and give chase. As I move from the cloakroom area to the main nightclub area, I do not see that there are two steps to be descended. Just two, but in this case it couldn't have been made worse if there had been twenty. I miss the two steps, sail through the air like a stately ballerina, and crashland on a table full of strangers, sending their drinks flying every which way. Luckily they were prepared to let it go after I offered a thousand apologies. Luckily there were no bouncers around to see it. Unluckily I recovered only in time to see my victim disappear off down a flight of stairs. Stairs that had more than two steps. I decided not to tempt fate.

Then there was the guy where eye contact and lip contact were separated by about 5 seconds. It went nowhere. Still, it was a fun night.

The pope died this weekend. I really don't feel anything about it, one way or another. He described gays as being in need of forgiveness some time back. Whatever. It was a positively charitable comment, when you take into account what was said on the subject by some of his predecessors. I don't care. It has been said that the cardinals will angle for older popes in future, so that if they turn out to be too libertarian, the autocracy won't have long to wait before they can appoint another one. The one thing I did notice is the way that certain news stations reported his declining condition with an attention to detail that was a little uncalled for, given the subject matter (Sky News, that bastion of good taste, step forward).

And I will always remember where I was when I heard of his passing on. In the Front Lounge, a Dublin gay bar. There's something about that that I like.

Now to the packing, for my flight back tomorrow.

Different kinds of high

I'm at home, having flown over on the 18th.

The journey home was interesting, to say the least. I met up with my friend Sarah at the airport. Sarah has an even bigger aversion to flying than I do, and as we sat next to each other on the plane, this made the journey that bit more fun (Sarah: "I have two bottles of champagne in the hold. The bottles might burst from the pressure drop as we ascend. The corks may then hit the hull, puncturing it, and causing us to plunge to the ground. We're all going to die". Me: "This is making me feel so much better."). But flying with friends is fun.

As an aside, one of my fellow students, whose name I didn't know, was at the airport with me. I lived in fear of meeting Sarah and having the introduce the other party. I tried sneaking a look at her passport on the pretext of having a gawk at the photo, but she was having none of it, saying she looked awful. I eventually resolved the problem by looking at her e-mail booking printout, pretending to be interested in how much her flight cost when I was really scanning the copy frantically looking for her name. I found it, and then one of her friends, also in my class appeared. Guess what? Someone else that I meet all the time, but again with an 'elusive' name.

In the end we got split up so it didn't matter, but I am really sick of my complete inability to remember other people's names. Even those whose company I've enjoyed more than once in the pub. Bizarrely, I'll find myself recalling a raft of associated information about them, but their first name? Forget it. Go figure. I think I'll have to resort to using a filofax.

Home is the usual. Crap internet connection, and I have reams of research to do for revision and a report that is due in the first week I go back. Holidays? Ha!

And now onto something else.

Let me formally declare I am not a fan of shopping. Gay and not a shopaholic? The two can go together, and they've always made comfortable bedfellows in me. I'm very precise in what I want from clothes, so if I can't capture that perfect pair of jeans, or a shirt that makes my chest look like it has a larger circumference than my stomach, I don't buy them. I never compromise on this, which makes every retail expedition a source of misery for me most of the time. And I hate changing room mirrors.

Until today.

Yesterday, I went to Cork to try on clothes. It wasn't a complete success (I didn't buy anything), but there were clothes there that said to me 'maybe', and having tried them on, I made a startling discovery:

Since I last bought a pair of pants, I have lost about 3 inches from around my waist. As if this wasn't enough to spur me on, I also discovered, while changing in the rooms with the merciless mirrors, that the shape of my upper body had headed some way in the direction in which I had been trying to bulldoze it for the best part of a year. In other words, I looked a small bit less like the bespectacled toothpick in the Mr. Muscle ads. This is seriously gratifying. I never seemed to see any progress when I was over in Brighton, and I'd all but convinced myself that my genetic predisposition would ensure that I would remain a rake for life (I believe the term in bodybuilding circles is 'ectomorph'). I was almost on the point of giving up on all this, when I started noticing the results properly for the first time this week. So, all the protein milkshakes and bored waiting for weights benches to become free when I would really rather be doing something else have paid off, and I resolve to keep going. But I'm reaching escape velocity from the point.

After the novelty wore off, I stopped examining myself and exited the cubicle, giving way to the irate queue that had formed outside. I eventually went home to think about what I was going to do (I tell you, snap decisions are my speciality) and decided I would go back today.
So I went back today, took a deep breath and dived into the fray. Luck was on my side, and before long I had a groovy pair of jeans, a white long sleeve top, and a white linen shirt (and damn if that last one doesn't look cool). Spurred on by this, I met my sister for lunch and then went back for seconds. Three further purchases were made, all of them unplanned, but all of them quite fetching. I really don't want to think about how much money I spent though, but hey, clothes are an investment, right? RIGHT?!

So that's it. Some new stuff to swan around in this weekend.

All I have to do is go back to Cork tomorrow to pick up that slate grey pair of combats that will complement my runners perfectly, and would really go well with that t-shirt I saw on hungout.com the other day, which in turn would necessitate the purchase of a new pair of black jeans. Although then I'd need to pick up some new runners to match that...

A Problem? Who, me?

Well, my grant cheque has finally cleared and with St. Paddy's day in sight, the party is about to begin! This one is inescapable, but I think I'll be doing it without the green paint and the awful paddy sing-songs.

Up in London over the weekend in Kensington, meeting friends. Lots of food and drink consumed. Mussels rock! I'm definitely going back to them again.

My community pharmacy placement was today. I now know something about my future career path: It won't include community pharmacy work in the long term.

Tomorrow is going to be an onslaught, and getting up the day after to catch the flight home should be a barrel of laughs. Oh well, it has to be done. At least Sarah, one of the aforementioned friends, will be holding my hand for me on the same flight home.

A mixed bag

I FINALLY got my grant. The cheque was lodged on Wednesday, and now all I have to do is wait for it to clear, and partytime!

My biology test yesterday wasn't a total catastrophe.

I am suffering one of the worst hangovers in living memory, having hit the pub at 4pm yesterday after said test, and drinking solidly for about 10 hours. I got back to the house, collapsed outside my bedroom door and lay there for a while, before deciding that my bed would be preferable to the threadbare carpet. I got up, swanned into the bedroom of one of my flatmates, announced that there was no way in hell I would be going into college later, and asked her to pick up some notes for me. With that, I fell into bed, and showed my appreciation for it by vomiting all over the sheets. Twice.

I have to work tomorrow, and I have a feeling that this aftermath from hell is going to extend into the second day. After work, I must get on a train to London to visit two friends of mine that I used to work with in Dublin, which means I have to do some of the preparation tonight. God help me.

This is the last time I am doing something like this, I swear.

Sniff

I got my first fail in college.

The circus that started out as my first attempt at a titration practical two weeks ago didn't yield much fruit. I got an A+ in the first half of the lab, but an E in the second half. This was the part that saw me stay behind for two hours after everyone else was gone, determined to get it right. Relatively speaking, I didn't do too badly (quite a few of the class had failed both parts), but it was a monumental slap in the face, having worked so hard on it. Ironically, the successful exercise I completed in 10 minutes.

I had been forewarned about this by some classmates, which was why I was lying in bed at 4am this morning after a sleepless night, getting more and more angry about the fail that I was pretty sure was coming my way.

Today's lab was better, as I now had a feel for what I was doing, and it was fun watching everyone else go berserk looking for a pipette filler that actually WORKED (in a university that achieved a QAA rating of 25 out of 25 for its research facilities, dontcha know), but as today's exercise basically entailed more titrations, and I hadn't got the earlier report back at that time, I didn't know what it was I had done wrong the first time. Later on, I got feedback on the previous endeavour, and noting my mistakes, I know I unwittingly repeated some of them again today.

For those in the know, it was using titres that didn't agree to 0.1ml with each other, and not reading burettes to 0.02ml, an impossibility, given the equipment we have. Hardly worth marking someone down from an A to an E. Especially when they haven't in the least been warned about it.

Anyway, I made a decent fist of today's work, and after that I headed off down to the lecturer's office to discuss how I was getting on. I met him at his office, and sensing the time was right, settled into a chair to moan about how ours was the only group that never got an introductory session about labs in general (the reason why we were all running around like headless chickens on our first day), the severity of the marking of my report, and how crap a supervisor my lecturer in organic chemistry was, whom we had again today, but mercifully only for a short period of time before he disappeared for the afternoon.

It was then that the fire alarm in the building went off.

Undaunted, the two of us went outside and I got it all off my chest there, in the middle of all the people milling about. At least he admitted I had a point, saying that our group had gotten the bum deal.

Feeling a little better after that, I went off in search of the spawn of satan that marked last fortnight's report, only to find a note on the door of his office saying that he was gone and wouldn't be back until the 23rd of March. Gone while the going was good? Indeed...

The only respite of the day was the giggle session that was our meet-up in a study cubicle after the labs, where we started off checking with each other as we wrote our reports, but succumbed to hysterics within the hour.

No more of them for a month, thank God in heaven.

Now I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and study for Biology.

Holidays on Friday 18th. Bring it on...

Crap Week...

I have another one of those horrible labs tomorrow. The general consensus is that it's worse than the first one.

I have a biology test on Thursday. In time-honoured tradition, I'm starting my revision tonight.

My grant still hasn't come, despite promises that it was going to be here by last Friday.


I am going to crack.

I finished reading The Da Vinci Code not so long ago. I must have been living under a rock for the past year or so when it came to books, because this thing has been huge, and for quite a while I never really knew about it.

I found the subject matter of the book interesting. I liked to think that I didn't need to learn about the history of oppression in Christianity from something like this, but apparently I do. I found the potted history of the Catholic Church quite an eye-opener, and it confirmed some things I had already known for a long time, namely that half of the Bible is a load of horseshit and is, to understate it substantially, a lop-sided historical document.

I remember a long time ago, when Gay Byrne presented the not-quite-so-shit-as-it-is-now Late Late Show, he had a guest on who questioned the historical accuracy of the Bible, saying that it was (oh the insurrection!) just a story that was not necessarily set in stone. The point being made was quite valid, though he detracted from it by telling everyone that the reason he was dressed in his rather brightly coloured tracksuit was to 'ward off negative energy and spirits'. Not unsurprisingly, he was regarded with bemusement by the studio audience and my parents, and by not unreasonable extrapolation, probably all of the nationwide audience that night as well.

Looking back, it was most likely that he and the circle in which he moved were looking at us with an even more pronounced smirk. It's not difficult to see why. Pope John Paul whatever enjoys the unquestioning support of an audience for which any politician would bend over. I'll repeatedly make the point until I die that the validity of a movement depends largely on its followers, and Catholics (especially Irish ones) are amongst the most unquestioning group of people there are. It goes without saying that as soon as I reached the age where I was able to think critically, it went out the window for me.

While regarding organised religion with skepticism is healthy in this day and age, what is depressing is that the Pope has turned quite a lot of people off having religious faith altogether. He certainly did for me, until I began to realize that his status as 'Messenger of God' was more than just a little dubious. The way I look at it now is this. Statistical biologists have (so they say) managed to calculate the probability of spontaneous occurrence of the chemical reaction that resulted in the creation of DNA as 1 in over 4 billion. It is not outrageous, then, to believe that there was some external guiding hand there somewhere. That's my outlook.

And the only reason the Catholic priesthood has such a high incidence of paedophilia is because the requirement of celibacy acts as a convenient cover for the sexually skewed. If this requirement existed in any other denomination, the occurrences would probably be just as frequent.

My only gripe is that this take-it-or-leave-it attitude cannot be applied so readily to education as it can be to spiritual faith and looking back, I still feel there are few christian brothers I came across who should have been allowed their position as teachers.

I'm digressing again...

It's been quite a while since I read a book of this kind, and while it's well researched, it's not very well written, which is surprising given Dan Brown's credentials. Compared to Wotshisface who wrote the Pelican Brief (John Grisham?), he doesn't pull you in half as much. But I rarely read that kind of stuff these days, so it'll probably be some time before I do it again. You could always save yourself some time and go for this instead.

Would I recommend it? It's an easy, enjoyable enough read, not too taxing on the brain. Something for the bedside table.

Next up, Fast Food Nation.

The Semester 1 exam results are in...

Chemistry: B
Maths: A (a rather nifty 96%!)

Yeeeee-Haaaaaaaaaaah!

I also got the results back of some other assessments I did, and they were in the 'A' category as well. This more than makes up for the horrible Tuesday I had, and the rather horrible hangover I got from going out last night. Gym workouts and hangovers do not go together. Ugh!

Off the bed, for a contented sleep...

Agony, but no ecstacy: Memoirs of a disaster area

Well, I had my first ever chemistry laboratory exercise today, and it was HELL. HELL!!

Things got off to a bad start when I walked in and found that my lecturer for organic chemistry was also the main supervisor for the practical exercise. I couldn't really do justice to him here, suffice to say not only did he not offer any help, but marched up and down the room with marksman eyes, and terrorised my bench for the whole morning.

I never had any experience of practical chemistry before, having done the subject in one year at a cram college, and so when I walked in to do my thing this morning at 9am (Calibration of a pipette, and titration of oxalic acid with sodium hydroxide), I was clueless. The night before, I ironed a newly washed set of clothes, including my lab coat, and had a shave, hoping that if I looked well on the day, I would feel well, and therefore perform well. Who in God's name was I trying to kid? Among the problems encountered:

1) Out of all the pipette fillers that I managed to get my hands on, only one of them worked. The first, ooh, SEVEN that I tried all had something wrong with them, but because I hadn't used them before, I thought the fault lay with me. The problem was rectified approximately 90 minutes into the lab.

2) My titre results varied wildly, but NO-ONE explained to me that this is normal when using different indicators. Did you know that methyl orange and methyl red change colour at pH 4 or pH 5, but bromothymol blue changes at pH 7, and Phenolphthalein at pH 9? I'll bet you didn't, dear reader, but that fact is now burned into my brain for all eternity.

3) We broke for lunch at 12. When I came back at 1, it was pointed out to me in mid-titration by a lab technician that my burette was blocked. This explained the fact that only one drop issued from it every ten seconds or so, but once again I had known no better. At this time, almost everyone else had gone, having finished up during the first period.

Among the many acts of stupidity I committed during this time was:

a) While using two identical beakers, constantly forgetting which of the two contained water and which contained acid, thus having to pour them all down the sink and start again,

b) Spraying an electronic weighing scales with water from a high powered tap. Mercifully no-one saw me so I quickly covered my tracks, and if it transpires that the thing is broken, I shall be at the back whistling nervously. Apparently you're supposed to report accidents like this. Ha!

And the coup de grâce…

c) Topping up my burette with the acid, when it already contained the alkali.

Overall the process could be likened to childbirth, though against all odds I collected my data, and my analysis worked out pretty much the same as everyone else’s. The report has now been handed in, and I can breath again. At least the assistant was supportive, saying that I should be fine from here on in. I don’t care. All I know is that I don’t have another one for two glorious weeks.

Unfortunately, I have that nazi at 10am tomorrow morning for a lecture.

Science. Believe the hype, it is something to scream about.

Hunter S. Thompson.

It has come to my attention that Hunter S. Thompson has died. Considering the kind of man he was in life (at least, going by his writing), the manner in which he has departed us seems at odds with his persona. Then again, maybe it wasn't, as Old Age is the one thing that would have got on top of him.

I still think this 'better to burn out than fade away' shit is bollocks though, but I was always able to take it or leave it.

I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas years ago (my brother bought it, and I subsequently nicked it off him, before buying my own copy) and for me it was memorable for the fact that it mentioned drugs that, at the time of reading, I didn't even know existed. That he never really wrote much about the event he had been sent to cover just sailed over my head (Was it a car rally? The fact that I can't remember says it all), and instead I just enjoyed the druggy manic careering from here to there to everywhere. I subsequently filed him under 'Must check out some more of his stuff' but never really got around to any more of his books. Maybe now is the time.

I always liked the idea of what he did in Fear and Loathing though. It wasn't a bad idea at all.

Nothing strange or startling...

As much as gmail is better than hotmail, I find that it has a tendency to suffer from access problems. At the start, it happened once in a while, but now it is FUCKING HAPPENING ALL THE FUCKING TIME, AND I AM GETTING FUCKING SICK OF IT!!! Now when I sit down to log into it, there is over an 80% chance at any given time that I will be met with a blank screen after typing in the necessaries at the user/password screen. This needs to be fixed. Pronto.

The first week of Semester two has finished, and it looks mainly like a continuation of what I've done already, with extra laboratory classes thrown in for good measure. One thing I've noticed is that some of the modules have misleading titles. For example, last Semester we had 'Introduction to chemical and molecular sciences'. This really should have been titled 'Chemistry so cruel it shall make you weep'. This semester we have the follow-on 'Fundamental chemical and molecular sciences'. As some progression in difficulty from the last course is implied, I shudder to think about what I am going to have to deal with. But otherwise, everything looks as it always does.

My grant cheque was 'mislaid', and now has to be reissued. I finally put my misgivings aside, and rang my father this evening to ask him for some cash to tide me over. At least that wasn't a problem.

We got iMac G5s in the library. They are sumptuous. I want one.

Other than that, I feel as if I am at a slightly low ebb. Uuuuhhhh! I need to win the lottery or something. It has struck me that I haven't been out all that much since I came back after Christmas, and you know what? That suits me just fine for now.

Later...