Nnnnnggghhh!

Disaster, and shoddy landlords, seem to follow me at every turn.

It has been about two months now since we moved into our house in Staplefield Drive, near the university. After ironing out a few discrepancies, everything between me and the others in the house is now going fine. The house itself is not.

We found out not long after moving in that the previous tenants had left quite the trail of destruction after them. One of them was a drug dealer, and once the special branch of the police had gotten wind of this, they raided the house, SWAT team style. Everyone who had happened to be there at that time found themselves being forced face-down onto the floor and their hands cuffed behind their backs. It appears that none of the others in the house knew about their rogue housemate's activities and by the time the team descended, he was gone.

One thing we noticed in the aftermath of all of this was that there was a raft of unpaid bills left behind these people. One would expect a decent landlord worth his salt to have all that sorted before we moved in, but no. That was left to us. Sorting out the £300 gas bill wasn't too much of a problem, relatively speaking, although it still took a while. The landlord gave a meter reading to one of the housemates, and I (eventually, as I didn't know he had it) got it off him. So now that's done. The electricity has turned out to be a different kettle of fish entirely.

The electricity is managed by a pre-payment meter, which basically means you top it up in advance of using it, like using a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. We found, when we moved in, that once we topped up the meter, it was counting down our credit a lot quicker than it should have been. The landlord and his lackey fobbed us off, telling us that we must have been using high-drain appliances a lot, but we knew this was bullshit. A lot of phonecalls later, and I found out that the meter was incorrectly programmed (to recover debt from the last tenants, I think) and it was indeed deducting too much from us. More phonecalls to the suppliers later, and I was given a list of instructions on how to correct this. Basically, I've been sent a new electronic key in the post. I have to use this key in the same shop the next three times I top up the meter. A bit convoluted, I think you'll agree, but I went along with it.

This afternoon, I went along to the grocery store to put money on the key, and then went home and stuck this key into the meter to transfer credit to it. The meter responded by displaying a single message.

'No'.

I put in the old key we had been using all along. 'No'.

There is only 44p left in the meter, which should see us into the small hours of the morning, before our electricity is cut off, and I currently have no way of increasing it. I'm going to ring the supplier's emergency helpline in a minute...

Part 2: I've just got off the phone, and the monuments of incompetence at British Gas Electric kept me on the phone for twenty minutes (bang went £2 of airtime credit) and couldn't even find the computer records for our address. I'm going home now. Two of the others in our house have contract phones, so I'm going to use them in an effort to try and iron this out. Stay tuned for the sorry saga...

Part 3: I've come back from the house and am now in the library. I've made I don't know HOW MANY phone calls, and finally found out that I have to buy ANOTHER key (£8) at a participating outlet. I was told this at about 8pm. All participating outlets had by then closed. I told the moron on the phone that we had only 17p left on the meter. She assured me that as a a safety measure, meters don't cut out the power supply at night. They wait until 9am the following morning. The gibbering fool was mistaken. About half an hour later, the meter clocked down to zero, and the entire house was promptly plunged into darkness. I have to wait until I can go to a 'participating outlet' in the morning (6am) before I can (hopefully) restore the power supply.

My phone credit is down from £7 this afternoon to the £1.50 it is now.

I have a report to hand in tomorrow.

Oh, and the university messed up my wages transfer, and I have not been paid for the work I did last month. I have £10 to my name.

I hate the world...

I have formed the definitive criterion for finding out what I call the 'monkey rating' of a landlord. I've dealt with quite a few in my time, and have thought about the differences in personality and competence of a lot of them.

Put bluntly, if your landlord's career comes under the heading of 'unskilled labour' or 'semi-skilled labour', hang on tight, boys, you're in for a bumpy ride. Prime examples of this class of people (oh, contradiction in terms) are bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, or any other kind of people involved in the building trade. Having worked in construction for some time, they've cottoned onto the fact that property can make for a good investment and, gathering their similarly inclined handymen around them so they can have a go at doing it themselves on the cheap, they decide to give it a shot. Unfortunately, once they start renting it out to their victims, the lack of skills required to organise a piss-up in a brewery become apparent.

Also not very encouraging are those who have inherited their property, or who have come by it in a way that they normally would not. Guards or other civil servants can also be a bit troublesome.

I think the quality one needs to look for in a landlord is whether he has the means to come by the money to buy the property without borrowing heavily and banking on the tenants covering the repayments. The best landlords I had were ones who had good careers anyway, and didn't need to invest in property to start bumping up their assets. They were also organised enough to get things sorted when it was necessary, without us having to harass them for weeks to get them to do it.

I've thought about property as an investment when I graduate. If some of these idiots I've rented from can do it, anyone can.

Casino Royale

Well, I came, I saw, I enjoyed.

Trying hard to forget that I had just paid £3 for a carton of popcorn that would have cost me 50p if I had been organised enough to buy it in a shop, I headed into screen 4 of Brighton CineWorld on Wednesday night.

Spoilers follow.

As I've previously said, I've never really been a fan of this franchise, and have only ever seen them when I've nothing better to do. Still, the amount of people who take seriously what is ultimately a load of fluff... oh well. One thing I've come across in some people so far is the conviction that Seán Connery was the original Bond. It speaks volumes for Connery's acting ability that he got famous off the back of what was essentially a bit of escapist bubblegum. Mediocre actor, mediocre films, match made in heaven, and yet he gets to be the benchmark by which all other subsequent Bonds are judged. Whatever.

Cheese has always been a problem with the Bond films in the past. Chat up lines, martinis, introductions, female leads, eyes rolling skyward inside of five minutes of the start of the film, you get the picture. This was different. Straight from the opening, it was obvious that the director was not going down the route tried and tried again. The flashback to the fight scene in the toilet was interestingly rendered, and when the theme song kicked off, I noticed a familiar timbre in the singer's voice. My hunch was right, ex-Soundgarden singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Chris Cornell was listed as singer and co-songwriter on the opening credits. My only trouble was working out if this shows that the Bond franchise was moving up in the world, or if Chris was moving down.

Other things that jumped out at me during the film was the opening sequence, which was more kinetic, and yet still more realistic than what I've seen in other Bonds, M's wit ("If an agent did something that embarassing before, he usually had the good sense to defect. God, I miss the cold war!"), and the scene with the camera effects where he's in the hotel bathroom, desperately trying to hold it together after being drugged. Also, the usual outlandishly far-fetched slew of gadgets was mercifully absent, save for a bucketload of product placement for Sony.

Then there's Daniel Craig.

It has been debated by everyone from Jonathan 'Woss' to 007 anoraks as to whether Craig is good enough to step into the shoes of the character. Well, if the ability to ham your way through an entire feature and take yourself seriously to a ludicrous extent in the process is a prerequisite, then Craig fails. If getting himself across as a hard-nosed hitman with a presence all of his own is the thing, then hats off, because he's pulled it off. Oh, and he looks great doing it. Much better than the other lot. That body. Mmmmmmm....

Otherwise the film is more or less the usual. An innocous subtext about a baddie trying to gamble his way out of debt to underworld crime lords is introduced, and I forgot it almost as soon as it was presented. As is often the case, the less than worthy one is afflicted with some physical malady to highlight further Bond's rugged manliness. There is also a near Road-To-Damascus experience where Bond falls in love and (almost) resigns from her majesty's secret service. However, the producers toward the end seem to adopt the philosophy of my flatmate - "No gadgets and he falls in love? Then it's not James Bond" - and all of that goes tits up. There are also a couple of knowing references to the original style, which grate more than anything else, and the last line does indeed cause me to, yes, roll my eyes towards heaven, but at least it was at the end.

So that's pretty much it. It's different, and there are worse ways to spend your time than watch it, even if it ultimately ends up paying tribute to the very style it helps revamp.

Now all they have to do is bring out a Daniel Craig blow-up doll in time for Christmas.

Ugh!

I hate Tuesdays, because they usually feature a big fat pharmaceutical chemistry lab that involves running around for up to six hours, competing with everyone else for analytical instruments, evaporators, bunsen burners, oh...everything. Today we did extraction and analysis of caffeine from tea-bags. The 0.02g sample of pure caffeine we ended up with did NOT seem worth all the effort, and now I will never look at a cup of Tetley's in the same way ever again.

I've moved this blog over to the Beta version. I'm not sure how it'll look until I publish, though I think the comments will disappear, according to what I've heard.

(Oh Yuk! AGAIN! Someone near me in the computer pool room keeps farting, and it's VILE!)

In other news, I have bought a new phone (complete with new number. The chosen ones will be notified of it as soon as I get around to it) so I am now free of the torment of having long text messages truncated, the earpiece cutting out mid-conversation (kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a phone, when you can't hear the person talking to you), and the power cutting out whenever the notion takes it. My new baby is a Sagem my501c. It's really rather dishy...

Nothing else to report, except I'm back drinking again, albeit a bit more sensibly. Oh, the willpower of a dying swan.

Oh James!

History has just been made. For the first time ever, I am prepared to sit through a James Bond film.

(Clue: The reason doesn't have much to do with the story)

Daniel Craig has the honour of being the only one of the 007 movie stars - one of the few male Hollywood stars, in fact - that I would like to disrobe. Seán Connery's accent killed stone-dead any presence he may have had, Roger Moore's arched eyebrow added to the camp factor but detracted from the oomph, and Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan hardly registered at all. Craig is something of a departure for me. He's not particularly big, he's not at all hairy, and he doesn't have a beard. Yet he has a certain something, and a big part of that something is his eyes.

I've never really paid attention to someone's eyes in the grand scheme of attraction before, but his are definitely out there. Then there is the body. I've always been a fan of muscle (what person who digs guys isn't?) and Craig has the best body of all the 007's.

I've always thought the films themselves to be vastly overrated piles of shit. Octopussy was half-decent only because of the female acrobatics, and only Grace Jones could add an interesting twist to that one, what was it called? Does anyone care? I went to see Goldeneye with my sister when it first came out, and as soon as Pierce Brosnan did that jumping-onto-the-aeroplane thing, I rolled my eyes, sat back in my seat, and waited for the rest without too much anticipation. For some reason, being chosen for the role of either Bond himself or a Bond girl is an honour. Why? You could be incapable of acting your way out of a paper bag and still pull it off. It's nothing more than a dodgy signpost of popular culture.

But anyway, I shall be going, if only for the above scene where he come out of the water, and another one where he's apparently in the shower.

One thing I heard in the midst of all this was how lots of people felt that Craig wasn't right for the job (if someone could please take a minute to explain to me what being 'right' for this entails, I would be very interested), and some of these pathetic miserable fools saw fit to send him hate mail after he was chosen for the part. Which only goes to show just how much something of little consequence can mean to someone who seriously fucking seriously needs to get a life!

Bleh!

I'm in college this morning, having gotten up for an 'class' that has no attendance requirement, i.e. you submit everything for it over the internet. I still have something to work on from last week, but I could've stayed in bed for another couple of hours instead of hauling myself into the shower at the ungodly hour of 7:30am.

Dublin and Mallow was cool, although travelling at weekends reminds me of cattle being herded into the milking machine enclosure, with the way we were all trying to squeeze through airport security. On my way back, the steel toe caps on my army boots set off the metal detector, and the security guy made me take off my boots and walk through again. My socks had holes in them. It wasn't half obvious. 'Nice stockings, bud' said he. 'Thanks', said I, 'It's the student lifestyle, dontchya know'.

There were a couple of things I noticed about Dublin that distinguishes it from Brighton.

1. Dublin appears to have only one focal point for everyone at the weekends. That of the Temple Bar and Dame Street area. Every lager lout and his mother converges on the city centre at the weekends, and it's impossible to get away from them. Brighton is more diffuse in that respect, attracting different kinds of people to different areas, and West Street is enough to draw the flies away from the honey and towards the shit.

2. In spite of the fact that nightclub closing times in Dublin are more staggered than Brighton, taxi queues at 2 in the morning are still insane. What the fuck is going on? You can come out of a club in Brighton at any time and not have to wait more than 10 minutes for a cab home.

3. The traffic, Oh My God. I got on a bus yesterday to get to the airport TWO hours before my flight. It took an hour to get from Connolly Station to Drumcondra, and by that stage I was panicking that at that rate, I was going to miss my flight. I made it, but there was a mass exodus from the bus as soon as it arrived. Obviously others were counting on arriving earlier than it actually did.

4. Nightclubs and drink prices. EIGHT FUCKING EURO I had to pay to get into Bad Bobs at about 10pm. OVER TEN BLOODY EURO for a pint and a shot of vodka: I handed the barman a tenner, he went to the till, and came back. I had my hand out for the change. Into it, he put the receipt for 10.70 and held out his hand for the rest.

My nephew's christening on Sunday was cool, and the plans for my brother's wedding continue on, though the bride appears to have turned into an animal and has already had a massive blowup with the bridesmaids, both of whom have been her friends since school. Anyway, I've been measured for a tux.

I also had a meeting with my bank manager when I was in Dub, and I felt a bit better coming away from it, as I had a complex about my current debt, but he assured me that, relative to others in similar circumstances, I was doing quite well.

Anyway, back to work. I've got a report to hand in, eyes closing or not.

Ugh!

I fell off the wagon last night and stayed out more than a little bit beyond my bedtime. Today, for my sins, I am dying.

If nothing else, it serves as a reminder why I'm cutting down. Well, that or the fact that I really need to make myself drink some water before I fall into bed when I get home.

Days 'til I go home: 5. Roll on Friday!

I toddled along to Kung Fu again tonight, replete with navy tracksuit pants and cut-up black t-shirt, so that I would blend in a little bit more than I did the last time. Then I saw another guy there, one who had been before, in a white t-shirt and casual pants and I realised I was giving it too much thought.

It was pretty back-breaking this time, with loads of stretching and contortion exercises, and my basic movements still need some work, but progress is being made, so it will be stuck with for the moment. One thing I'm struggling with now is something called the choo-goo-e-loo, a sequence of combat moves, quickly executed one after another. I covered the first quarter of it tonight, and of that, I can only safely remember half of it. Hopefully there's something out there on the 'net (If any kung fu enthusiasts have come across this blog in the last while - a snowball's chance in hell, I know - feel free to furnish me with any information you may have).

The sessions technically are only supposed to be one hour or so, but this one went to about two, as we had started early and there was no-one waiting to use the hall after our alloted time. Towards the end of the session, he had us gather around him while he spoke.

What started off as a lecture on technique and commitment rapidly mushroomed into something more substantial, and anyone hoping to make an early exit would have been more than a little bit put out. Amongst his assertions, which I'm not sure if I'll be taking as read just yet (and others I simply couldn't hear, thanks to the lousy acoustics of the sports court) was the declaration that the body only needs 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and the 8 hour recommendation is worthy only of rejection. I can only say that it would make for an interesting reaction if he found out about my slumber patterns.

Another bone of contention with him was the stress that society imposes on people, and how it's become every man for himself. He wouldn't be the first person to say that the world is going to hell in a hanging basket, but some of what he said, well, I'm feeling the need to examine it right now.

To follow the standard pattern of job/marriage/mortgage/kids is a one way ticket to stress:

Leaving aside the fact that getting a job is basically an absolute unless you have an enormous trust fund, opting out of the others purely for the sake of it isn't really the way to go. If you plan to have a family, or stay with your partner for life, marriage isn't the most stupid thing you could ever do. Mortgage repayments are basically not much different to rent payments, except you own your own property at the end of it. Lastly, having kids can be the right thing to do if you genuinely want them.

Get an education for the sake of it. Don't worry about getting a job, you'll get one if you really want one:

This is the kind of advice I would offer to anyone, save for one thing. No one person can take on an entire job marketplace. Simply put, if you study for a degree that isn't vocational, you have to accept that there will be a lot of people in the queue for a job afterwards, both in front of and behind you, and the person willing to work for the least money will set the wage offered for that job. If you read for a degree in an area where there are more jobs than graduates, you'll be able to pick where you work and for how much, when you can leave, and most importantly, who you work with.

Simply put, you have be able to distinguish yourself from others in a very positive way if you follow that edict. I would have liked to ask the master how much he's pulling in per year, to see how successful this theory of his has made him, but I don't think that would have been a good idea.

Having said all that, it's better to have opinions than not, and he seems like an interesting person, if more than a little frighteningly driven. But then, I could do with some of that rubbing off on me.

Haaaaiiiiii-YAH!

Well, I've just come from my first Kung Fu class, and it was pretty interesting.

I walked in, and felt more than a little uncomfortable in a t-shirt, jeans and runners when most of the other people had fancy martial arts outfits on. It didn't seem to matter, and we started off doing laps of the gym, running in various different ways. Having jogged for some time now, I usually find these circuits pretty easy, but the instructor incorporated these arm and leg movements into the running that made it a whole lot more challenging, and within a minute or two I was breaking a sweat.

After that, the main tutor turned up, and we got down to it. Everyone was put into one of two groups and got on with it, except ME. *I* was left standing in the middle of the gym while the tutor (sensei?) gave a talk, which does wonders for your composure when you're feeling self-conscious already. Eventually, I was paired up with a more experienced guy, and he taught me a few postures and punches. The postures are hard bloody work. One of them involves the position you adopt when sitting in a chair, except without the chair underneath you. Yes, dear reader, I fell on my arse quite a few times at the start, and I still haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

There was also the lovely moment where the tutor said we would all have to be able to do the splits by christmas. I felt like leaving when he said that. Oh well...

My attention to form and breathing from the days of doing weights came in handy though, and I managed to pick a few things up without too much bother. I'm definitely going back. It beats doing circuits in the gym. The 75 minutes was over before I knew it.

In other news, I'm going to see a college counsellor tomorrow. I don't feel as overwhelmed as I did when I was in the middle of the exams, but I still think I need to get my thoughts out into the open for examination. My attention span is as usual all over the place, and I could with some help on getting focused.

With a bit of luck and playing my cards right, I might be able to wrangle a Ritalin prescription, which I can use to help me study for hours on end and help net me a string of A's at the end of the year. Ha!

Dear Gawd

A few days ago, I noticed from the tv guide that Showgirls was on cable over the weekend. I had seen bits of it here and there at different times, but had never seen it all the way through before. I should've counted myself lucky, and left it at that. Reviewed on entertainment.ie as 'Abominable', 'little more than a masterclass in how not to make films', and - the part I like the most - 'has garnered a cult following based purely on its awfulness'. I was intrigued, and when its' time came on Saturday, I sat down to experience it.

The critics were being charitable.

I don't think I've ever come across a story so unconvincing in all my life (main girl meets other girl, in less than a minute the other girl decides to take main girl in, and they become friends: What the fuck is that about?) and the acting, oh Jesus, I wouldn't know where to start. However, where Verhoeven really takes the piss is in his depiction of women. Hint: His service in the Navy may serve as a clue.

He is quoted on Imdb.com as follows:

"As a director, my goal is to be completely open. Just look at how I portray sex in my films. They're considered shocking and obscene because I like to carefully examine human sexuality. It has to be realistic."

Bollocks. He likes to focus on female sexuality in his films, and by christ, is he ham fisted about it. Let's have a look (I'm ignoring anything before Robocop. I really don't give a shit about his pre-Hollywood history):

Robocop: Hardly any women at all. The only one, a police officer, is carefully selected to not be conventionally too pretty, which no doubt is a reflection of her inner honesty. The only other women who can be considered attractive are drug-addled call girls, who for some reason are spared when Miguel Ferrer's character gets blown up.

Total Recall: Attractive woman: Oversexed, hyperagressive corrupt agent (Sharon Stone) who takes to fighting or fucking at the drop of a hat. Understatedly pretty woman: A goodie, who eventually is involved in the killing of Sharon Stone (Rachel Ticotin), but whose femininity ensures she never really upstages our 'hero' Arnie. Tit count: Not much, though a woman with three breasts makes an appearance at one stage. A similarly mutated man is nowhere to be seen.

Basic Instinct: Hardly in need of an analysis, such is its notoriety, but for the first time, Verhoeven's misogyny is fully highlighted. Attractive woman: Oversexed, cocained-addled icepick-wielding homicidal maniac. Her sexuality is 'examined' through various carefully chosen shots of her in various stages of undress, one of which features her vagina, and in various positions during sex. Slightly masculine-looking woman with big hair: Surprise! A lesbian. She proves that she's all (wo)man by trying to run Michael Douglas's character off the road in her car, but losing and getting killed, 'cos everyone knows that chicks can't drive as well as guys. Curiously, her corpse shows the very minimum of blood on her face. Well, it's important to die looking fabulous, isn't it? Passibly attractive man (as long as he keeps his clothes on): Michael Douglas. Portrayed as basically a decent cop, whose weakness is his penis. He has a problem with the relationship between the two girls, nay any two girls, and at no stage throughout the film are we led to criticise this state of affairs. Tit count: Lots of breasts and girl-on-girl action. Male nudity: Restricted to a single shot of Michael Douglas's saggy arse. There is a pattern emerging here. Can anyone spot it?

After a particularly vigorous session with Stone in her bed, Douglas realises that Roxy is watching in the bathroom, and requests an audience with her 'man-to-man'. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Verhoeven likes to 'examine' lesbian sexuality on top of everything else. As it happens, the gay community took exception to this depiction of themselves in the film, and at the premiere of the film, they handed out cards which gave away the ending. They needn't have bothered: As a whodunnit it was shit anyway.

Showgirls: Attractive woman: Desperate for stardom, and will do anything to get it, such as disrobing completely even when the plot doesn't require it in the slightest. She's not alone though. There are lots of shots of the backstage area where the girls get ready before going on, and judging by the (un)dress of all the women there, the air-conditioning must have been in serious need of repair. As an aside, this area is also the backdrop for another of Verhoeven's pet devices: Catfights between women, and they are legion. Understatedly attractive woman: The 'moral backbone' of the film, who tries to keep attractive blonde woman on the straight and narrow, but in a gratuitous twist that serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever, she is raped. Of course, attractive blond goes around to rapist's house to avenge her, and in a scene not entirely dissimilar to one in Total Recall, Verhoeven 'explores' female assertiveness through her beating the daylights out of the perpetrator. Oh, and there's a bisexual woman in there too, but far from us being invited to empathise with her on any level, she's cast as a bitch. Tit count: More breasts than a porn compilation. Male nudity: Once more kept to a single shot of Kyle Maclachlan's arse, which to be fair, did look better than Douglas' in Basic Instinct.

Starship Troopers: Not much fun to be had here, as the film is so ridiculous, it almost take the piss out of itself, but adhering to our original criteria: Attractive, classy woman: Becomes a figher pilot in the war against the creepy crawlies, while her high-school boyfriend joins the marines 'cos he flunks maths. She decides to move onto better things and dumps him, beginning a relationship with another pilot, but always keeping her clothes on. Flame-haired junoesque woman: Begins relationship with jilted boyfriend, and we are treated to her nude form while they share communal showers. Her feistiness is demonstrated when she slaps him on the arse which is, again, the only naked wickedness we see from Casper Van Dien.

*Cough*, sorry, I went all Margaret White there for a minute...

Of course, classy bird realises what she's been missing (well, that and the fact that her other boyfriend's brains gets sucked out by the queen creepy crawly) and she ends up back with her original squeeze again. The error of one's ways, eh?

Hollow man: Attractive blond woman (Elizabeth Shue): Technically gifted scientist, who shares a bed with one of her male colleagues, but they keep it a secret from the rest of their research team, as they don't want her ex-squeeze and team member, scientist-come-nutjob played by Kevin Bacon, to know. All other women are incidental to her, though at one point Shue is slapped across the face by one of them, so that's one purpose served. Tit count: Just one, surprisingly enough, from unfortunate but attractive woman who falls victim to a visit from ol' Kevin himself. Verhoeven must be mellowing in his old age.

So there you have it. Tits - 50, Cocks - nil. Verhoeven gets assimilated into Hollywood, providing a uniquely noxious perspective on femininity into the bargain.

His attempts at science fiction are nifty enough, though. If only he'd stick to them.

As an aside, I remember a show a while back that featured critics discussing trends in modern cinema, and how emphasis was shifting from sex to shoot-em-ups, and this was the reason why Showgirls bombed, because Verhoeven failed to anticipate this. Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, the simplest explanation works best. Showgirls flopped for the simple reason that...

IT WAS SHIT!

Christ, what a MONTH!

Well, I had another test on tuesday, and managed to redeem myself somewhat with the result. After 3 not unheavily-weighted assessments in the first month of the academic year, TWO of which centred on cardiac physiology, which was not formally taught in lectures, merely given as guided study, we now appear to have slowed things down somewhat. Thank God.

I'm going home for a break in two weeks time. It'll be needed. Friday 17th in Dublin and the rest of the weekend at home.

Alcohol is still being given a wide berth, though it's only been a week so I'm not about to congratulate myself just yet. I think I need something to distract myself with at the weekends. I've made enquiries about signing up for a Kung Fu class. It was on this evening, but they started early so by the time I arrived they were already at it. The instructor was understanding, but everyone was already paired up with fighting partners, and I wasn't exactly appropriately dressed (everyone else appeared to have some fancy gown on) so I told him I'd turn up on Tuesday instead.

Still, I ended up going around the side of the gym and having a look at them doing their thing, on my way to the library. It all looked rather impressive, with everyone periodically emitting guttural cries, and punching and kicking the air decisively. It'll be my turn next week.

Elle Driver watch out!

Marie Antoinette

It would not be an exaggeration to say I had very high expectations of this, after Sofia Coppola's last film Lost in Translation ranks in my all time top ten, and The Virgin Suicides before it also comes higly rated.

It didn't live up, unfortunately.

Coppola Jr.'s thing with her films so far has been dealing with women who jar with their surroundings (this film, Lost in Translation) or women who are just not of this world (The Virgin Suicides), and if ever there was a time for her to charter new territory, now could well be it.

One of the things I liked so much about Lost in Translation was how contemporary it was. The dialogue and the situation both of the characters found themselves in had never been approached in the same way before, nay approached at all, by any other writer-director, and it was only right that the film scooped an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Marie Antoinette was different. It was a period piece, and while the sets were spot on - it must be said they always have been in her films - the rest of it didn't really fly. For a start, the film was quite gender specific in that the men weren't exactly given all that much to do, with Marie's husband in particular enjoying the rather bizarre role of a leading character with very little to say. Women have been given the spotlight in Coppola's other films, but not generally at the expense of the opposite gender. Marie's frustration is linked to her husband, and while the director knows better than to pull a stunt like the one that was done with the prince in Braveheart, the circumstances the couple have found themselves in can hardly be described as his fault. It's left to the likes of Rip Torn, and to a lesser extent, Steve coogan, to carry the torch in that respect.

None of the other characters are fleshed out all that much either, with the ladies-in-waiting providing some diversion but never really allowed to participate fully in their own right.

Then there is the soundtrack.

I've waxed before about using contemporary songs in films. The fundamental problem is that the movement and climax of a song will not coincide with those of the scene in which it is used. The director got around this problem before by using tailor-made recordings for The Virgin Suicides, and using atmospheric songs without an obvious beginning, middle, or end in Lost In Translation. This was to a certain extent the case here, but (and I appreciate that this may be my problem) the thing was, the songs were almost without exception ones that I had heard before. It almost seemed to me like a game of spot-the-80s-artist, like she had compiled a mix tape of all the songs she liked, and thrown them up there. When you hear something like The Cure's Plainsong (played for, like, five seconds during Marie Antoinette's coronation as queen), it automatically registers as a separate entity, evoking something that you have previously associated with the song, rather than complimenting or augmenting the scene in which it is heard. But I appreciate that that is partly just me. It's integrated well, and still better than Martin Scorsese throwing in a U2 song or another Rolling Stones song into one of his films. Still, I think original composition for each film - provided it's affordable - is the way to go.

Still, the sound and visuals are as compelling as usual, such as the aforementioned sets, the views of Versailles, and the scene where they're using their wine glasses to make sounds reminds me of that scene in Lost In Translation where Bill Murray's character was swimming lengths in the pool, it's got that kind of experimental vibe.

A point of note that I mention is the historical aspect of it. There was none. External events are allowed only the most minor of intrusions into the storyline, and any historians who pick at it are only making themselves look like pedantic old farts.

So, cinema is better off for it than without it, but it still lacked a certain something for me. Next one, set in the present day please, Sofia, with more for the men to do.

A bad day

I'm at a seriously low ebb today. On so many levels.

Yesterday evening, I went out for a drink after lectures. For the umpteenth time, I ended up staying out for the rest of the night, sleeping it in this morning (on someone else's couch) and missing lectures. I've just come into college now to pick up a report I handed in last week, and found that I had got a crap mark. Added to an assessment I got in the same subject a couple of weeks back, where I barely passed, my record so far for this year has been rather rubbish.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've gone out for the 'just the one' and ended up staying out all night. I've lost count of the number of occasions I've checked my bank balance the next day, dreading what number is about to come up on the screen. And I've lost count of the how many days running upto an exam have seen me in bed, trying to sleep off a hangover.

I've had it. Starting today, I'm on the wagon. I'm going take it one month at a time, but at the very least, I'm aiming to be alcohol-free between now and Christmas, if not beyond.

Another example of Dan's recent penmanship

Received when I had first returned to Brighton in September, for passing my repeats.

Philadelphia

Recently, I saw Jonathan Demme's film Philadelphia for the first time since I saw it when it was released.

Along with Tom Hanks' Oscar win for his role, it was proclaimed as a major progression in the recognition of the 'plight' of gay men, in particular with regard to AIDS. The truth is that it finally, and rather belatedly, reflected the acceptance of same by the masses.

I remember a fairly mild backlash since then, denouncing the film as a bit simplistic and patronising, with its 'Gays are people too' message, and I watched it carefully the other night, and I noticed a few things. The following day I searched the internet, and came across a few sites, one of which was this, a critique of the film.

As is often the case with overly academic film criticism, the author draws some conclusions that are seriously open to debate, and tosses out questionable statements as if they were as obvious as night following day. That said, there are a number of points on which I agree with him.

a) Denzel Washington's character (Miller) was an annoying gnat. As a lawyer, he's obviously an educated, middle-class man, yet at times speaks like a small-town boy who never got the experience of the big city lights, so to speak. When we see his homophobia for the first time, with his wife, he excuses himself on the grounds that he's 'old-fashioned' and 'conservative'. I've heard people defend their homophobia in this way before, and it's bollocks, not to mention offensive. Do we take it, then, that anyone over a certain age automatically operates this kind of dicrimination, or that the acceptance of gay men is 'radical' or 'progressive'? You might, if you weren't the brightest light on the christmas tree, but this is what is put forward. Then there is his wife, who instead of doing what most people would do (and especially most women, and most women with gay relatives), which is telling him to shut it, just laughs it off.

A similar train of thought is put forward later when Miller tells Beckett (Hanks) that When he was growing up, they were taught that gays were weird, gays were afraid to fight, gays were this, gays were that, etc. etc. At times like this, Miller represents the voice of the lowest common denominator, but it's not all that necessary.

Then there are the images of Miller at home with his wife, presented as they are directly after scenes of substantial interaction with Beckett, and could, if one was predisposed to paranoia, be interpreted as a sort of escape back to normality for him. Either that, or they show him up as rampantly insecure, especially when he lies next to his wife in bed after the scene where Beckett waxes lyrical during a section of an opera.

Finally - at least, this is as far as I'm going to go with him - there are the scenes in the courtroom, where his opening lines about how he shares with most people (!) the desire to keep gays and AIDS far away, and the especially toe-curling posturing about how attitudes to AIDS is determined by attitudes to gays just make you want to chuck him into an all-night BDSM club and lock the door.

b) Tom Hanks' character Beckett, and his relationship with Miguel (Antonio Banderas) are about as neutured as any representation of gays up on big screen. Did anyone see a single mouth-to-mouth kiss between them during the film? I didn't. Yet (again!) Miller is repeatedly shown with his arms wrapped around his wife. Demme really played it safe here, and there was without doubt room for improvement in this regard.

c) The characterisation of people as either rampantly homophobic or completely accepting was a more than a little simplistic. The part where Hanks is holding his baby nephew in his arms may as well have had 'HIS FAMILY LOVE AND ACCEPT HIM FOR WHO HE IS' writ large across the screen, and the senior lawyers on trial are almost ridiculous: These are men of the law, and should at least know better than to open themselves to potential lawsuits by making homophobic jokes in a sauna, where they could be overheard by anyone.

d) The eternal connection between promiscuity and AIDS. At this point in the essay, the author argues the following, with regard to when Beckett is cross-examined in connection with his visits to a porn theatre:

"The film presents this connection in a negative way, however, by putting it in the mouth of the defense. This leads audiences to believe that the connection between AIDS and gay sex is unwarranted..."

Perhaps it could be argued that this is true at some level, it certainly didn't strike me as such during either of the times I saw it, and I'm pretty sure most other people wouldn't see it that way either. What it most likely did was reinforce in a lot of people's minds that AIDS is some kind of retribution for promiscuity in the gay community ("Oh yeah, it's a shame about him, but he was always sleeping around blah blah blah"), which is interesting in and of itself, because while promiscuity amongst gay men often makes some squirm, promiscuity amongst heterosexual men is still tacitly celebrated.

So, Demme could have done better in some respects. The closing scene, though, showing a home movie of Beckett as a child, was very moving. I've always found that a powerful device in any kind of film, and I've flagged it with high importance.

One thing I've noticed in this essay is the barely concealed contempt for liberals - another term so overused it has also started to lose all meaning - something that is shared by many of the more militant activists in the gay community. I can appreciate that the earnestness sometimes hides something a little darker within the well-intentioned, but which is better: A gay basher, or someone who speaks out against it?

One thing that was missed (and I'm not making this up) was that in the movie poster, Hanks appears to have had some lipstick photoshopped onto his lips, and looks strangely androgynous. What's that about?

Have said all of the above, the film was aimed squarely at heterosexual middle America, and Demme included Springsteen on the soundtrack as a way of reaching people who wouldn't otherwise be aware of the film, or wouldn't consider going to see it. With that in mind, we can't expect all that much, and the film still serves some purpose in that respect.

One quote I leave you with though, which jumped out at me the minute I read it:

"In the post-Philadelphia imagination of the Screen Actors Guild, straight-identified actors will consider such characters as Beckett a prestigious opportunity to explore their histrionic expertise. But God forbid an openly gay actor and actress play Harry and Sally types. Then again, openly gay men and women are rare commodities in Hollywood."

Never a truer work spoken.

A night in Kemptown

I went to the Bulldog last night for the first time in a while.

They've decided against their 24-hour weekend drinking hours, thanks to a recent fight that allegedly was started by a straight couple - or by two lesbians, depending on whose version you hear - and spilled out into the street.

However, compensation has arrived in the form of a darkroom night on Tuesday night. This means that on Tuesday nights, you can go upstairs and get upto things not entirely dissimilar to what you could once get up to in Schwarz bar before it closed.

I went last night (just for investigative purposes, mind!) and had a rather enjoyable time moving around, before settling on a rather dashing chap, whose contact details I have since secured. After that, he walked me part of the way home, which would have been nice were it not for the bloody rain.

Still, it was good. Must do it again sometime.

Thoughts on failing

I've been thinking a bit about someone recently.

In first year, when I was living in halls of residence, I might have mentioned that I lived with an Irishman, who was originally from Carlow.

Sophistication wasn't exactly his middle name, and it wasn't long before he had got an (albeit fairly harmless) reputation as a bit of a muck savage. However, it became obvious over time that good-naturedness wasn't a trait intrinsic to his personality either, and as time went on, he began to alienate the irish students in the pharmacy class one by one, and upto a point where we had agreed to disagree on a couple of things, I was one of them. By the end of first year, most of his so-called fellow countrymen were having very little to do with him.

It's pretty difficult to come over to the UK from Ireland to study pharmacy and not fall in with a group of friends, such is the number of Irish people coming over here to study for that degree, yet he managed it.

When we returned last autumn to proceed into second year, we all noticed, as time went on, that he was keeping very much to himself, hanging out only with the international students in the class, and probably nursing a grudge against the Irish crowd for the way things had turned out. We were all a bit nonplussed, as by then we had all decided that if he wanted to start over, that would be fine. But he didn't.

He wasn't the most gifted student in the class by a long way, and at times I wondered what kind of role he would be able to take up when (if) he graduated. It turns out I was being optimistic, as he failed his summer exams (4 of them), and was not given the option to repeat them.

One of the things I've noticed about the faculty of pharmacy department over here is that if you fall foul of the end of year exams, sometimes the faculty can decide, where you have failed coursework or clinical exams, that you don't get a chance to resit them in the autumn, and if you're really unlucky, that you don't get a chance to do them ever again, i.e. you get thrown off the course. The latter scenario was what ended up being played out for Martin, and in spite of him attempting to appeal the decision made by the board of examiners, he was out.

I can't fault the board entirely, because he would have been at best a very mediocre pharmacist, no matter what area he would have ended up going into. The reason I do feel sorry for him is that he had spent quite a few years, prior to his entry onto this course, just trying to get in. Ideally his unsuitability should have been spotted sooner, and some advice or help offered. Also, he has spent quite a bit of money getting as far as he did, and now it's all for nothing. I've spent quite a bit of money myself already, getting this far, and I'd die if that happened to me.

One of the big motivating factors for people to go back to college as mature students is a substantial dislike for the kind of job you had before, and that is the way it was with me. I gathered, from various conversations, that it was also the way with him. Now he has to go back to that.

That kind of failure is more than a little difficult to take when you're a little bit older than the average young twenty-something. All I can say is that if that had happened to me, the way forward afterwards would be more than a little unclear. Thank God it didn't.

The Pink Patrol

Dublin police go undercover to combat gay bashing

I must say, the image of police in 'jeans that are tight, and shirts that show off their pecs' brought a smile to my face. A good idea too, and not before time.

Interesting that all the perps seem to be from the same gang, though this could just mean that the police are targeting the usual suspects first.

Oh, and while I'm writing in this vein:

Same-Sex Parents No Impediment To Child Development Court Told

First day on the job...

... and it was soft.

The boss is cool, the work undemanding (consisting mostly of helping students open an MS Works file using Word) and best of all, the use of the printing facilities free. I've pretty much printed out all my lecture notes from last week - in colour where I deemed it necessary - and it didn't cost me a penny. The co-workers seem pretty cool too.

It beats standing behind a till for eight hours, having to ask chavs for ID all the time.

In keeping with the tradition of this course, I have my first exam of the year next week. Time to get on it.

An exchange

This morning, during a lecture on medicinal chemistry, thanks to the cold I've caught and the attendant constant nose-blowing, I got a nosebleed. On a Visa bill that Dan had given me earlier (I've had all my mail go to his place while I was staying in the hostel), the man started writing on the envelope, and I replied back. His contributions are in the slightly darker ink. My writing is a bit untidy as I was pinching my nostrils shut with my left hand.

You have to take your entertainment where you can find it in a Friday morning lecture.

Bleurgh!!!

The week is over, and starting it as I meant to go on, I went into all my classes, and not only that, I was early for them. I was rewarded with my diligence by being rained on so much, I have now caught a cold.

I swear, on the walk to college from my house, as soon as I came out onto an open road with no real protection against the wind or the rain save for a poxy umbrella, the heavens would open and a force ten gale would appear out of nowhere. I got soaked from the waist down this morning on my way to college, and later on when I got off the bus near Sainsbury, in the distance I ran to get to the supermarket, it suddenly started raining so hard, my only recently dried pants got soaked all over again.

So that's it. Runny nose and acres of tissues for the next few days.

I start my part time job as a computer helper for the college on Monday. Basically, I sit behind a desk in an office in the computer pool section of the library, do some extremely basic admin work and, when required, answer any computer-related questions the students may have. It's the first time I've ever had a boss who has used words to the effect of 'You can work as little or as much as you like'. Sounds right up my street. The only balls is that I get paid a month in arrears. As if I wasn't broke enough already.

Oh well...

A pet hate of mine.

Oh, for fuck's SAKE!

There is a term in the above Guardian article that in the past has been applied so indiscriminately and, it has to be said, by some of the greatest gobshites that have ever come to popular attention, that it has now ceased to lose any proper form of meaning.

Oh, and the concept is largely fictitious as well, having very little basis in reality.

Can you the reader spot what it is?

Interesting...

I found out, via my sitemeter, that if you type haemhorroid treatment (the english spelling) into Google, this blog is second in the list of search results.

Whatever next?

Landlords and lesbians...

I have finally got the keys to a new and quite nice house with the same two pharmacy students I referred to in the previous post. It nearly didn't happen, as the landlord wanted to convert the sitting room into another bedroom and squeeze a fifth person in there, but we revolted en masse and he compromised.

So now I can relax and chill at long last. Well, apart from the fact that I am now almost penniless after handing over the deposit and month's rent. Roll on the grant cheque.

I went out last night to the Brighton Uni LGBT pub crawl, but arrived too late for it to be any good for me. I ended up in Candy Bar, a pub for girls who like girls. At some point in the night, a fight broke out between two guys, and lots of people (girls an' all) waded in to restrain them. So did I, and the bouncer ejected me afterwards telling me that I had too much to drink, when I'm sure it was just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I promptly threw a tantrum, so the manageress shut me up by promising to buy me a drink the next time I'm in there.

Which should be some time next year, going by my current pattern.

The search grinds on slowly

I was supposed to meet my landlady-to-be last night, pay her the deposit, and get the key to my new place, which fortuitously enough happens to have two girls from my class already living in it. At the eleventh hour, yesterday, she dials directly into my voicemail (the coward) telling me that she has already lined up other tenants to take the rooms instead, but 'isn't sure' and I 'might still be able to move in'.

Add to this the fact that the previous landlord I left behind actually did end up deducting the week's rent from the deposit of one of the guys I lived with in the house, along with £40 extra, for 'leaving the place in a mess' (Absolute horseshit, it was fine when I moved out), and I'm sure you can understand that landlords aren't my favourite people at the moment.

Tossers.

I have a list of other potentials lined up. I have to sort this out quickly. I start classes proper on tuesday.

I coped with yesterday's let-down by going to the Bulldog, getting hammered, and copping off with a bloke whose personality traits suggests that he may at the very least have Aspergers Syndrome.

There was one or two seriously hot daddies out there last night though. I need to get me one of those now.

Holy war? Holy Fuckwits!

As much as Nazinger has put his foot in it (again), I can't empathise with this shit that is currently going on by way of response.

When someone makes vaguely negative references about Catholicism in a public address, do the bible bashers go batshit fucking mental over it like this?

And now, a nun has been killed in the crossfire. A nun.

Anyone who is in thrall to organised religion to this extent seriously has a screw loose somewhere. As for Islam, anywhere it dominates, it may be noted that the advancement of gay rights, or progressiveness in general, isn't all that high on the agenda.

I don't think I ever gave a second thought to Islam prior to Sept 11th, and after that I was more curious about it than anything. Now, after this and all the shit that went down with the Danish cartoons, I'm just losing patience.

Well, fuck them. If they keep behaving like this, public sympathy for them will be a little bit thinner on the ground the next time they get bombed from the sky. Praise Allah!

As for the protests themselves, you can find an article in the Guardian here, about placards. My favourite slogan?

'Behead those who insult the peace of Allah'.

Thank God! THANK GOD!

The results of the repeats came out early!

I'm going into 3rd year!

Oh joy! Oh rapture!

I'm carrying one module (immunology) which I have to resit when it is examined in the summer again, but other than that, I can progress as normal.

Having now got a soft part-time job sorted for the coming year, all I have to do is find a house, and that's it.

Could it be that things are finally going my way for the first time in ages?

Oooooohhhh!!!!

Alliteration, assonance, and ants

An excerpt from an article in this week's Washington Blade, written by Wayne Beesen (Full text here), via Buff Tuff:

This battle of the male brain is now playing itself out in gay society after paparazzi ambushed pop star George Michael coming out of the bushes following a supposed sexcapade with a pot-bellied peasant. [Was Michael acting differently than other gay men?] My comment:

Back in the 70's days, bathhouses were hugely popular and the gay bars had blackened out windows, creating a virtual cocktail-serving closet. Many of the patrons had to have sex away from home to keep the secret from an unsuspecting wife and kids. Of course, there was a portion of men who did have options but who enjoyed unfettered promiscuity for the thrill.

With time, the ease with which people could come out, combined with the fear of contracting HIV, sharply curtailed the carnal carnival the gay subculture once represented. The whole notion that gay men are more libidinous than straight men is a canard pushed by right wing fanatics in an effort to deny homosexuals basic rights. Indeed, one of the most guarded secrets of gay life is that a good portion of homosexuals are as undersexed as their straight counterparts.

Some of these lonely gay sorts keep long hours at the office and never took time to pursue partners. Others are shy and have great difficulty meeting people. Many men, gay and straight, simply have low sex drives and hardly desire gratuitous encounters. From my observation, a surprisingly large portion of men find the notion of hooking up with strangers totally unappealing. It is not looks nor variety, but intimacy that is the greatest turn on.

For the hyper aggressive men who fancy uninhibited sexual exploration, it is easier being gay because you can always find another man looking for the same thing. But, instead of being blamed for a lack of self-control, most gay men should get a medal for restraint. Heck, if straight men could have sex in public restrooms with women, would we ever again be able to use the facilities for legitimate purposes? If straight men could easily pick up women for sex in parks after midnight, would the grounds be so trodden that ants would become an endangered species?

Yeah, gay men have access to sex if they want it bad enough and are willing to take risks, like George Michael did, but the majority consistently chooses not to recklessly cruise.

George Michael may want his sex, but placing the blame on gay culture no longer reflects modern reality. Given a full range of choices, including marriage, gay life increasingly looks as diverse as mainstream culture with monogamously oriented men finally having the option to choose monogamy.

Won't someone please think of the ants?!

Also, I quite like the way 'carnal carnival' rolls off the tongue.

♫ I'm goin' thru chaa-haanges ♫

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At home again.

My mother turned sixty yesterday.

We threw a surprise party for her in my brother's restaurant. She knew that the immediate family would be there (we had to lure her there with an invite), but she had no idea that all of her friends would be there too, and she got quite a land when she walked in the door and we all shouted 'Surprise'.

It was nice to be able to do it for her. She had been a bit down about it seemed that the occasion would pass without some form of commemoration, so she got a nice lift to see what had been organised for her, and it all went rather smoothly, as long as you discount the fact that some of the balloons that we had put up on the wall seemed to mysteriously vanish into thin air less than 5 minutes after they had been put up. Go figure.

While on the subject of birthdays, this blog turned 2 years old over a month ago, and I completely forgot to mark the occasion! Oh well, here's to another two.

I rang the payroll department of lloyds pharmacy today, and in spite of the fact that the dozy pharmacy manager told me she had faxed them all my details, they still had an incomplete record of my time there. The guy I spoke to on the phone suggested that I should e-mail them the details myself. I'm inclined to agree. I'm going to wait until the money is gone into my account, and then the letter of complaint will be sent. This is nothing short of ridiculous.

I flew home Friday morning. It was by pure chance I got a message the night before from one of the former tenants saying that they had all got their deposits back, and that the landlord's hold over me had effectively been relinquished. The following morning, I had my interview with the college for the job (which I got), and then went back to the house, got my baggage, and legged it. I left the key, along with a note explaining the absence of the week's rent. I signed it 'with deepest regret'. The landlord has tried ringing me twice since I've got back here, but I've just ignored it.

I got shafted for excess baggage at check-in, to the tune of £50. I quietly resolved that it would be for the last time. Oh, and I bag I got for a 'bargain' at £5, split all along the seams as I was heading out the door of my house. I suppose I got what I paid for...

The results of the repeats are out on monday coming. I have a knot in my stomach. Regardless of whether or not I proceed to third year, I think the best thing to do would be to go back to Brighton. My parents don't know that I had to do resits, and everyone is assuming that I'm going to go straight into 3rd year. Not sure what I'm going to do about this. It would be such a balls to lose a year when everything is finally starting to go well (well, insofar as I have a nice well-paid job this year which allows me to catch up on coursework from time to time while I'm doing it). Oh fingers, toes, cock and balls, all crossed...

P.S. I fucking HATE my parent's dial-up internet connection.

Christ ALMIGHTY!

The last few days in brief:

a) In spite of the fact that I put up an ad in Netlet (an online accommodation website for the college) advertising the house, the applications to see it come in slowly. Slowly, like chinese water torture.

b) On Tuesday, the landlord rang me asking me if new tenants had been lined up for the house yet, a mere five days after the previous group left. I tell him no, but I'm working on it. He tells me he needs to get the house filled as quickly as possible, and by being there, he can't let it as an empty 6-bedroomed house. He tells me I'll have to leave by Thursday. I negotiate Friday instead.

c) I had flights booked to go home to Mallow on Monday 11th, as a surprise for my mother's birthday. Because I have to leave the house, I have to reschedule the flights to go out on Friday afternoon instead. Price involved for this change: £100, and the tosser still wants me to pay for the week I've stayed in the house (£75). I'd just do a runner, but then it would come out of the deposit of the girl who sub-let her room to me.

d) The stupid BITCH who runs the pharmacy I worked in for a while, messed up my details on the pharmacy computer. The result? I don't get paid until the end of September, instead of the end of August like I should have been. I've drafted a letter of complaint. I'm going to sit on it for a few days to work out what I should do with it. I want to wring her scrawny neck.

After I got the lovely life-affirming instructions from the landlord, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I rang Daffy, and he turned out to be a big help in all of this. Last night the two of us managed to get most of my stuff moved into storage, and then he showed me his room which he's thinking of renting out. My name is on the list of those being considered.

I feel a bit better now, though the last few days have been shit. I have an job interview tomorrow in the college for something that will last throughout the year, and would be very handy to combine with my course (assuming I get through). The flight home is straight after that. Hopefully I'll be able to combine the two without any disasters.

Compare and contrast exam results

The Irish Leaving Cert:

Minister backs bonus points system for maths and science

Poor marks in maths, science in Leaving cert results

English A-levels:

Record passes revive calls for review of exam system

Maths fuels rise in top grades at A-level


"Learning isn't cool"
A comment from a educational officer, on how the basic skills of reading, writing, and numeracy are absent in some young british school-leavers, after spending 11 years in school. It was part of a documentary focusing on how the labour of Polish immigrants is now often favoured over that of workers native to the UK.

Firstly, to deal with the irish conundrum on poor performance in the technical areas.

I don't know if it was always the way with Irish students - I don't think it was, to be honest - but lately, I've seen people over here on my course from my home country who have refined the skill of rote learning down to a fine art. It's something I've never been able to do for as long as I've been in a classroom. My thing has always been solving, re-ordering, analysing, and processing. It's the reason I steered clear of subjects like Business Studies, Home Economics, Biology, and Geography in school. It is, however, the way that a lot of students now seem to get through second-level (and in particular, points factory grind schools), and I can see it on my course. I can't fault it, because it requires no small work ethic, and can net someone a pass in a subject even when they don't fully understand what it is they're studying, but it can't be applied to technical subjects. If grades in maths and the sciences are lousy (and I think a lot of that really is only hype), then that is because students are choosing to just try and bulldoze their way through it with memorization rather than actually getting to grips with it properly.

I remember in first year in school, I had what was a definite contender for worst teacher of the year instructing us in maths. I failed that subject in the end-of-year tests, along with most of the other students, and the teacher was promptly juggled out of our classroom and into another of poor unfortunates waiting to be bored to tears. If you had said to me then that I would end up netting a good B in honours maths in the leaving cert, I would have laughed, but the following year, I was fortunate enough to get a good teacher in the subject, and after that, I never struggled with it again. What I think the problem is, is that a lot of people aren't pushed beyond this initial hurdle. Once you get over the initial incomprehension with the subject, it's like riding a bike. You never forget. Once it does click with you, you will also find that all other technical subjects like the sciences will come much more easily to you as well. This is where the experts need to start, because I've noticed that amongst students who are of enough ability to regard all subjects as equal, the science and maths subjects are always chosen, because scoring highly in them can be a more straighforward matter in a lot of ways. It beats sweating blood and tears over an Irish essay, only to get a C afterwards, that's for sure.

So, good maths teachers are needed to get to the root of the problem, but then that raises the whole issue of how the HDip for secondary school is a convenient qualification to fall into for unemployed and indifferent college graduates, and that's for another day.

Failing the above, you could always get the artistically minded students to watch Darren Aronofsky's Pi and hope for the best. Or get the girls to watch A Beautiful Mind, on the pretext that it's got Russell Crowe in it.

Now, onto where these subjects can lead you.

Mary Harney, the minister referred to in the second link, has been sharing a bed with industrial interests for quite some time now. It is no surprise to hear her encouraging Irish students to sharpen up their technical skills, for then they become viable candidates for employment with the companies she so desperately wants to keep happy and whose investment in this country she works so hard to secure.

It has been said that in order for companies to invest in Ireland, an adequate 'knowledge base' must be present. For this, you can almost read 'worker drones who are prepared to accept minimal rewards for maximum technical endeavour'. It is often pointed out that there are still lots of jobs to be had in the technical and scientific sector. What the media conveniently forget to mention most of the time, is what the nature of these jobs really are. Working in what can be a intellectually very challenging area, designing or refining a product that will generate the company a great deal of revenue, and then having to negotiate a measly 3-4% pay increase in your yearly performance review. Thank you, but no.

That's not to say that the aforementioned academic areas aren't important. You'd have to be an idiot to think that, but they aren't rewarded all that much in the marketplace. For example, chemists (people who have studied chemistry, as opposed to pharmacy, in case you misunderstand), a group of people who have engaged in the study of a subject that is the amongst the most challenging you may care to mention, and who have at their fingertips knowledge that is fundamental to the life sciences, are not amongst the most well-paid in industry in general, and are amongst the least well-paid in the pharmaceutical industry in particular. Fact. I'd feel a little cheated if I'd struggled with that area for a minimum of four years in higher education, and then found out I'd have to take weekend shifts where I worked to make ends meet. That's the situation that one of the mature students in my class found himself in before he went back to college.

I remember roughly 10 years ago, quite a few courses were introduced in the irish universities that were 'close' to industry. By this I mean the courses were tailored towards the passing on of a body of knowledge specific to various kinds of industry. Materials science was one. Marine science was another. Industrial engineering another. Year after year, those courses were only partly filled, with most of those accepting the offer doing so because they hadn't got anything else, or didn't know any better. By not knowing better, I mean that while the courses were being tailored towards certain kinds of jobs in industry, anyone taking them seemed unaware that they would find themselves in a serious bind if that particular industry dried up years later and those workers found themselves at the mercy of their company, unable to leave. That's what happened in IT (and may well still be happening now, for all I know) when the recession hit there. Wage freezes were brought in by the truckload, and there was sod-all the employees could do about it.

Around about this time, a lot of academics in the developing areas moaned that the candidates with the best grades in science subjects were hightailing it into medicine and the like, and ignoring their areas. At this time of going to press, this is still the case. Applications for science and engineering courses are still falling. There is a reason for this. Healthcare courses, having been around the longest of all, have a proven track record in generating rewards for people once they enter the market. Working for a company as an authority in a particular area generates a lot of money for that company, of which you will only see a fraction.

The fact is, if you choose to work in the corporate technical sector, you need to be aware that it can backfire on you, and this is something that people advocating the study of technical subjects don't really tell you. In a particular area, once the number of employees exceeds the number of jobs out there, you're fucked, and this is precisely why I chose for my career something that is not usually perceived as a hotbed of scintillation: There are almost always more jobs than pharmacists to fill them.

And lastly, but most certainly not least, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink, and if Irish students are displaying ineptitude in this area, promising them bonus points if they do well isn't really going to achieve much. Ten years ago, it was appreciated that our syllabus in maths was amongst the most rigorous in the world, next to Japan, and then it was overhauled and made a bit easier. We need to leave the course itself alone now, and go after the students themselves.

And now, onto our over-achieving neighbours.

First a hypothetical question for our audience. If you are allowed to pick three subjects to study at any level in school, hands up those of you who are going to pick subjects that they don't really like, or pick subjects they're not really good at.

Are you getting this, everyone? People are doing well at A-levels because they are studying subjects that they are free to opt for!

The A-level system is somewhat unique in that it allows academic specialisation at a stage in education where most other systems would still have a student studying a number of mandatory subjects. In Ireland, you have to do seven subjects at leaving cert level, of which only 3 (in some schools 4) are chosen by the student. In Scotland, you do five subjects for the higher exams. The French/International baccalaureat, while allowing the flexibility of studying a number of subjects to more depth than others, still requires the reading of a broad range of subjects. In Canada, Australia, and America, the situation is roughly the same. Which is better, allowing someone to specialise early in their academic careers, or instil in them some knowledge of a variety of subjects before they leave school, is a moot point. Allowing a technically minded person to ditch the humanities early on can prevent them from achieving a fully rounded education, but requiring them to study them when they don't want to isn't going to develop in them a great appreciation for the subject either.

Then there are the succes stories of the sciences and maths. This is simply because no-one in their right mind is going to opt for these subjects at A-level unless they are at least halfway good at them. These are simply not doss subjects, not by any stretch of the imagination, and only students with their eye on science, engineering or healthcare courses (again, not exactly a cakewalk at third level) will opt for them. It's not that they're easy, it's that the students doing them are prepared to work hard.

It has to be said, though, 3 A-levels is not the most taxing workload. While the level a subject is studied at probably is ahead of the level the same subject would be studied at under a different secondary school system, it is only winning that race by a nose. This is already reflected in the fact that some students are now opting for a fourth A-level, and some even for five. Yet snot-nosed british universites seem to have a problem with recognising any qualification outside of their own. I was required to get an A in leaving cert honours chemistry in Ireland for the course I'm in now, but my English classmates would have got in with a C in A-level chemistry, and I can tell you now, there is not much difference between the two courses.

Having said that, the whole concept of education has changed since the naysayers in their 60s got their degrees. It's next to essential to get some award of higher education under your belt now before entering the jobs market, and a lot of courses, and places on those courses, are springing up to meet this demand. Students leaving school are much more mercenary about education, and have much higher expectations about it now, and are not just accepting it as a privilege. Then there are the grind schools, whose job it is to squeeze every last drop of attainment out of even the most mediocre of students. Is it any wonder people are opting to extend the best days of their life into their twenties?

Anyway, to sum up this part, if British universities are finding it harder to pick out the 'brightest of the bright' then a broader system like the one I've already discussed should be put in place. It should be pointed out that studies correlating performance in universities between bac results and between A-level results showed that graduates with a mediocre bac still tended to do well at third level, whereas graduates with mediocre A-levels didn't. So there it is.

And now, onto the thickos.

I saw a documentary on TV a while back. I can't remember on what channel, but it was about the influx of Polish immigrants into Britain, and how they are addressing the skills shortage being suffered by this country at the moment. The general point being made was that Polish workers were much more reliable, skilled, knowledgeable and hardworking than their indigenous counterparts. Someone should have introduced the presenter to that stupid pharmacist I had to work with, as I since found out that she is Polish as well, but I digress.

It was pointed out some companies loved the Poles because they were willing to work hard for half-nothing. Dissenting opinions were that the companies should pay more in general, the presenter pointed out, but it was time to get realistic: If certain british based companies found they had to raise the wages of their workers too much, they would simply go elsewhere. Of course, it was easy for the presenter to say that, settled cosily in a nice comfortable job with a national television station. I wonder how he'd feel if he had to hoist around cargos of fish all day for £5.10 an hour.

Anyway, the point was made that british students leaving school after their GCSEs were turning out to be getting thicker by the year. A post-secondary technical college was finding that a lot of them lacked the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, and as quoted above, one expert in education said that it seemed that learning wasn't quite the thing to be into in school any more, if you were concerned with your trendiness quotient. The reasons for this are sure to be many and varied, although if I were to point at something and complain like an old-age pensioner, I would say that the veneration of the most inconsequential of celebritys (Preston, Chantelle, Kerry, Paris, fucking premiership footballers) in the popular media does rather send out the message that though you may be as thick as shit and have nothing to say, if you look halfway good (though not with too much character, mind), and are willing to prostitute yourself for a bit of exposure on celluloid, you don't really have to worry about having to string a sentence together as you'll succeed anyway. But maybe that's just me.

There is also the fact that a culture exists over here that where, if it turns out that you're not too intellectually gifted, the GCSEs can be a convenient drop-off point for some now, whereas in other countries, you're generally regarded as more than a bit of a loser if you leave before you final secondary school exams. So if anyone wants to start complaining about people 'coming over and taking our jobs', they would do well to do a little inward examination first.

But lastly, to return to my first point, when are people going to get that university is not about acquiring a set of skills that don't require Einstein's IQ to master? It's about education. Let the fucking corporations train up new employees in the skills they need. They can certainly afford it, and if their habit is to underpay the people that are most important to their success, they may soon find that they have no choice.

FED UP!

The landlord has changed his tune quite a bit, and has basically said that the first large group of people who comes along will get the house. I'm still there, but on borrowed time, and if I want to stay on I have to assemble a group of people to take on the lease in double quick time. There are lots of postgrads looking for rooms at the moment, but they're as sloppy as fuck about replying to messages and noticeboard announcements that I've put up. This is moving too slowly for my liking, and I've started to look elsewhere again.

Of course the racketeer himself told me this the day before my Immunology exam, so that really put me in the frame of mind for success.

Then, there is an estate agent involved in the business of the house who really doesn't need to be part of the process at all. But then, that's their job description all round, isn't it? I am definitely going to look into property as an investment when I have money. If that landlord can manage it, and he currently owns 30 properties all over Brighton, then there should be a way of breaking into that sort of thing.

Of course during the move-out of everyone else, a bickering match erupted between me and another housemate over some of my stuff 'finding' its way into the bin. What is it about some people not being able to handle these kind of things without doing something unjustifiably stupid?

Once I was finished there, I went on an unmerciful batter, and engaged in a number of trysts in the Bulldog. At one point, I was serviced on one of the side-streets off St. James. I thought about this while it was going on, and eventually came to the decision that it wasn't my style, so I put a stop to it. Then I told the gentleman in question to wait while I visited the toilet in the Bulldog, after which I would go home with him. When I came back he had gone. I went back to the Bulldog, where some more men were descended upon, and of course no night out would be complete without me coming onto the bouncer. Then I met Daffy. After that I went home, and spent the following day in the throes of a lingering hangover.

I don't know how to feel about my exams. I was struck by how many students that I would consider conscientious have actually had to return to resit at least one exam. It is quite possible that I won't progress to third year without having to wait a year to retake those modules.

Going home on Monday the 11th for my mother's birthday. Please God the next two weeks go well.

Yippeeee!

I've managed to take over the lease on my current house. Which means I don't have to move. Which means I have somewhere to stay for the next twelve months. Yippeee!

Shit. I still have lots of study to do. Exams this coming Thursday and Friday.

Again, a bit late...

Drug classification rethink urged

Where basically the shit A/B/C system is trashed and something a bit smarter is put forward. Of course, this probably won't appeal to the binary-minded, but nothing new there...

I was a bit surprised to see GHB so far down the list, though. When taken with alcohol, that makes for russian roulette as much as any of the narcotics. The same for solvents. Then again, I suppose they don't inspire gang warfare as much as the top two offenders.

A rather sobering yet enlightening essay about homelessness. It's long, but worth the read.

The search for a new house and the study for exams grind on slowly, but I'm on top of things at the moment. I'm liking unemployment, though my sleeping pattern is starting to slip. Have to nip that one in the bud.

Anger!

Well, the peak of the year has just been followed by the trough.

I went to work this morning. I arrived in Haywards Heath too late (by 2 minutes) to catch the complimentary work taxi because my miserable (ex) boss insists on getting the taxi at 8:35, not 8:40. I then, by a hairs breadth, missed the bus to work by 1 minute and had to wait until 9:05 to get the next one. I arrived 20 minutes late.

It went downhill from there.

After suffering a morning of her snapping at me over the slightest of things, and refusing to allow me to take documentation out of the shop so I could compile an induction handbook - something badly needed in the place and highly beneficial to everyone there - I cracked after lunch.

I was moved from the counter to the dispensary, and after trying to use the computer without having been given any proper training, I made a labelling mistake. As in, the computer printed out a series of 10 labels in rapid fire. It was the last straw, and I lost it.

The pharmacist was dutifully informed (if that's the word) that it would be my last day today, so to speak. She persuaded me to stay half an hour, and I ended up staying until the end of the shift. Then, as we waited for a taxi outside, she casually said 'Oh, you'll be on Saturday, won't you?'

Hello!

I reminded her of our conversation earlier. She moaned, tried to make me feel guilty, and tried to get me to change my mind. It didn't work, and now, with a bit of luck, I will never see her again.

I'm sick of this though. This academic year so far:

1. I move three times, two of those times just after completing a set of exams.
2. I have no money for the most of the year.
3. When I do finally get a job, it sucks, and I don't see my first paycheque for six weeks.
4. My national insurance number gets messed up, thus ensuring I have to suffer a prolonged (and still ongoing, at this time) period of emergency tax.
5. I fail two exams.
6. When I land what I think is a dream student job, it turns out to be a nightmare.
7. Sundry other shit from sundry other people.

And now I have to be out of my current place in three weeks. Wonderful!

Oh, and Nuclear Physics Bear was supposed to be coming down to see me this evening, but after considering everything, I had to ring and cancel.

Kill me now...

Pride!

Well, as you'd expect, it's been a rather mental weekend, and it turned out, for better and for worse, not quite what I expected.

I got myself out of bed on Saturday morning, bought some booze in Sainsbury and headed for the seafront. There I met up with the Brighton Uni GaySoc and their float. Out of the five fucking spangly fucking beaded curtains that we worked on last night, only three were hanging up. One of the girls assured me that amongst the three was the one I had worked so hard on the night before. Or maybe she was being nice.

As I stood there, texting and trying to get people to meet me (it was only 10:30 that morning), one of the float participants came upto me and said that they needed 'Wheelwalkers', people who walk alongside the float and make sure that no little shits try to run under the wheels. The float couldn't proceed without them, so I 'volunteered'. I was provided with a fetching county council-esque dayglo orange vest to denote my newly elevated status, and off we went.

In due course I was also provided with a bagful of biros, bearing the sponsors logo, to hand out to the spectators as I passed them buy. Most of the children were eager to have one, although I suspect it was because the biros looked like sweets from a distance.

As we proceeded up West Street and turned onto North Street, I saw a crowd of bible bashers, sectioned off by the police, most likely for their own safety. One old man, the shape of his mouth making it highly likely that he was completely toothless, stood motionless, holding a placard in each hand. I can't remember what one of them said, but the other was that old faithful, Leviticus 20 Verse 13. I was genuinely startled. After living in a place like Brighton for any length of time, you tend to think of these people as only living elsewhere.

As we passed the Grand Pavilion, I saw Phil in the crowd with a camera, and the work that I didn't see myself doing when I got up that morning was recorded for posterity.

Once we got out of the city centre, and passed through Preston Circus, I spied two hot leatherbears and cruised them ruthlessly. In fact that was one of the upsides of the job: I got to see quite a lot of talent (the guy who was wheelwalking in front of me wasn't half bad either), and I let them know my opinion of them in no uncertain terms.

Once we got to Preston Park, where the main festival was, there were more morons with placards. One of the guys I live with made the all-too-familiar but no less flawed point, that in a democratic society these people should be allowed a voice too, which is horseshit: They use their freedom to impinge on other people's freedom. The only thing they achieved was to affirm the need for a yearly festival like this.

At this point, I made the ill-advised move of going back into town to meet Dan, and things got quite messy for while, so I didn't get to see as much of the Preston Park part as I would have liked. Alcohol, once again, is to blame for this, and I'm attempting a boycott for a while.

Later that evening, I cruised the streets of Kemptown, and bumped into a rather hot biker bear who told me he worked in Nuclear Physics, for the government. I didn't quite remember his name, so I've christened him Nuclear Physics Bear. We swapped e-mail addresses and have already been in contact since. Who knows where this might lead?

After that, I met up with MizzFlee and Slagella, before chatting up a bear from Bognor Regis and inviting him back to my place. It was then that things went tits up. Once I got home, I was way too tired to do anything, but invited him to stay on anyway, seeing the morning as another opportunity. He took great exception to this and left in a huff. Moral of the story: If your body says you are too tired, don't let your brain tell you otherwise.

The one bit of comic relief was that, on our way home, we passed two girls, one of whom was on the phone. She loudly complained of boredom, saying that all the men in Brighton that weekend were gay.

Duh!

Sunday, I woke up dying, but headed out to catch some more eye candy anyway, along with some open air jazz in the New steine Park. The street party, the sunday night climax of the event, was cancelled this year for legal reasons, and the police re-opened the roads around the town centre at around 8pm. That pretty much put an end to the atmosphere of the street, and along with the fact that I was tired from the night before, I headed home at around 10:30 that night.

This was my first Pride, and I had built it up to be a huge thing beforehand. That kind of thing inevitably leads to disappointment, but I still enjoyed myself, and have learned from the mistakes I made at this one. Next year's will be planned with military precision. A massive beach party took place on Saturday night/Sunday morning, but I was oblivious to it, and was too tired to go anyway. Oh well, I'll know next year...

This morning I was watching a history of Brighton on a video cassette left lying around the kitchen. In it, the commentator siad that there was no other city quite like Brighton in Europe. It's nearest equivalent, he said, was San Francisco. That, along with the whole weekend, brought home to me how right I was to move here, how much I was missing out on before: I never went to a single Pride when I was living in Dublin, and it's only now, since I moved here, that that whole aspect of my life has come to the fore.

Roll on next year...

Fucking Spangly curtains

With only one day to the main Brighton Pride carnival, I rang up the Brighton Uni GaySoc president and asked if there were any pre-Pride drinks happening. She said no, but that they were in the latter stages of assembling the float and I was welcome to help. So I volunteered, turning up at Falmer campus to help with the proceedings.

I spent two hours trying to untangle a spangly beaded curtain. Here is a word of advice, dear reader, if you ever want to use a spangly curtain without any undue hassle.

Don't fucking roll them up beforehand.

So that was that. On the plus side, the guy who volunteered to help me with mine was a cute med student, studying in Manchester, but originally from Gibraltar. His accent was something I've never heard the like of before, but as skins go, he was rather eye-catching.

I left at about 11pm. I left my leather briefcase behind. Please God the caretaker has got it.

I'm back!

It's been a busy two weeks, which explains the entry pattern of this blog at the moment. As MizzFlee says, they're like buses, for ages there are none, and then about three at once.

Wednesday 19th saw me head back to Ireland for my cousin's wedding, on the Thursday. It was fine, though most of the crowd were in the older age category and I didn't know that many. It was the first one where I went to bed early, leaving before most of the others, and - shock! - before the bar had closed. Still, I got to catch up with my cousin - though I hardly saw any of him over the weekend.

The wedding was held in Foxford, a western Ireland town. For convenience, I flew into Knock airport, as it was nearest to the airport. For those of you who don't know, Knock became famous some time back for allegedly being host to what could be called manifestations of the presence of Our Heavenly Creator. Or maybe it was The Virgin Mary who crashed the party, I can't remember. Anyway, there was either an apparition or a moving statue (actually I think the latter may have been Ballinspittle, but who cares?), and now Knock, nothing if not opportunistic, has capitalised on it. There are crucifixes everywhere, and lots of souvenir shops selling hordes of miscellaneous tat line the main street. The atmosphere, after coming from Brighton, was oppressive in some way. I forgot how religion can play such a huge role in some people's lives. I could have done without remembering.

As it happens, before I flew to Knock, I was singled out at Gatwick to participate in a survey about perceptions of airport security. My reward? £25 of vouchers to spend in the airport, which netted me a new CD player.

On Friday, I decided to go to Dublin. I got the train from Foxford to Dublin, noting that while a monthly return was forty euro, I was only going one way, and that was twenty-nine euro. Or so I thought. On the train I got, and when the conductor came around I asked for a single to Dublin. He quietly charged me the same as a monthly return, pointing out that friday was peak time, and in order to get people to stop travelling at those times, Iarnróid Éireann have taken to fucking the customer up the ass. I didn't accept this with the same degree of quietness, and he told me to complain to them when I got into Dublin. I did. They shrugged, and gave me the address of their customer relations department.

I laugh maniacally when people complain about the rail system in the UK over here. They don't know how lucky they are to not have to deal with the fucks that run the Irish service. Bastards, all.

One thing I noticed about Dublin in comparison to Brighton, is how there is so much mingling of the social classes in the former, whereas the latter is for the most part a very middle class city. I was unsettled, walking around for a while, but soon adapted. In one sense, having so many types of people living cheek and jowl next to each other adds character to a city, and once I got over my initial disdain, I kind of liked it. Unfortunately, the presence of some of these people results in Dublin turning into the sewer we all know and loathe at the weekend. Pity one aspect goes hand in hand with the other. While Brighton is diverse, those of lesser means usually stick to their own estates and don't come into the city in the same way. Well, at least that's how I perceive it. It's probably what makes the centre of this town a better place to be, all snobbery completely unapologised for.

Saturday night I went home, met my friends and got trashed. Then I met my brother and his fiancée, who were even more trashed, and things got a little hairy. Unfortunately, alcohol can bring out the unholy toxicity in some people, and this couple are testimony to that. I was disappointed in them, but the man Dan's advice was to forget them. I still wish they would GROW THE FUCK UP, but oh well...

Monday 24th I came back.

The following tuesday I worked my last day in the supermarket. Yes folks, I have finally found another job. As a counter-come-dispensing assistant in a pharmacy. Unfortunately, it feels like a case of jumping out of the frying pan and landing arse-first into the fire. The experience is good, but the duty pharmacist is about as far away from nomination for manager of the year as you can get. She has already told me 'to relax', that I am too 'eager', and that I ask too many questions. I'm still flailing about in there, and the other guy who works in there - incidentally a guy in my year on the course - isn't the best at passing on information either. Today, as the woman snapped at me twice before 11am, I slowly curled up into a ball of rage, and nearly stormed out of there for good at lunchtime. We have spoken a little about it, and when I come back (next Tuesday, as I have the weekend off for Pride. Yay!) we are going to fill in the blanks that I have. The potential for me to learn from this work exists, and it would be a shame to let that pass. I need to know how to do things better than her, if nothing else.