This Friday just gone, we had a lecture (no, really!).
In it, the lady of the moment was talking about personalities that are often associated with certain professions. Incredibly, pharmacists are generally known as conformists, and are not recognised as a group for throwing up wild characters.
My subconcious mustn't have liked that, because that night I went out and got trashed, staying out drinking until 5am, and then last night I cruised gaydar for an hour before meeting a willing participant in Brighton, going back to his house, and having sex with him.
That'll teach her.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Uurrrgghh!
Nursing the hangover from hell today, although I still made it into lectures (granted, they didn't start until 2, so I got up at 1:50).
I went to a GAA raffle held in an Irish pub, and met all the Irish students on my course. I swear, it is possible to take a look at someone's face, and know instantly that they're Irish, before you even engage them. I think we all share some nationwide resemblance at some level. In spite of the fact that it was seriously ghettoised (birds of a feather, and all that) and Irish songs were being sung at high volume on the bus into town (in the UK) I enjoyed myself. I got absolutely shit-faced in the honey club and then fell home at about 3am. In spite of all my moanings in the past about noise in student residences, I was making enough noise last night to wake everyone at 4am. Oh well, what goes around comes around, as they say...
Cell biology today and I just sank deeper and deeper into the seat. If there is a way of fast-tracking the mechanics of DNA replication into my brain, I'd love to know about it.
I got an e-mail from the guy who is in charge of promoting the food waste unit. It's not looking very lucrative, as most of the work days are on Thursday and Friday, which I wouldn't be able to do. First day is at Tesco, on the 30th of this month. I'm not sure if I want to do this, but I need the money so I'll press on. Hopefully it'll be fine.
Thanks to my indecision about two upcoming LGBT events, I looks like I have now forfeited my place on them. Dammit! Denis, you are going to have to be more proactive!!!
I still have heard nothing back about the grant yet. I'm ringing them tommorrow. I also have to get onto accommodation and ask them to give me another week before I hand over the first installment of the fee. I'm already two weeks behind. They're going to love me in that department, I can tell. Thanks to someone's absent-mindedness, I won't have the bank loan until next week.
Joy sunshine rainbows and pink fluffy things...
I went to a GAA raffle held in an Irish pub, and met all the Irish students on my course. I swear, it is possible to take a look at someone's face, and know instantly that they're Irish, before you even engage them. I think we all share some nationwide resemblance at some level. In spite of the fact that it was seriously ghettoised (birds of a feather, and all that) and Irish songs were being sung at high volume on the bus into town (in the UK) I enjoyed myself. I got absolutely shit-faced in the honey club and then fell home at about 3am. In spite of all my moanings in the past about noise in student residences, I was making enough noise last night to wake everyone at 4am. Oh well, what goes around comes around, as they say...
Cell biology today and I just sank deeper and deeper into the seat. If there is a way of fast-tracking the mechanics of DNA replication into my brain, I'd love to know about it.
I got an e-mail from the guy who is in charge of promoting the food waste unit. It's not looking very lucrative, as most of the work days are on Thursday and Friday, which I wouldn't be able to do. First day is at Tesco, on the 30th of this month. I'm not sure if I want to do this, but I need the money so I'll press on. Hopefully it'll be fine.
Thanks to my indecision about two upcoming LGBT events, I looks like I have now forfeited my place on them. Dammit! Denis, you are going to have to be more proactive!!!
I still have heard nothing back about the grant yet. I'm ringing them tommorrow. I also have to get onto accommodation and ask them to give me another week before I hand over the first installment of the fee. I'm already two weeks behind. They're going to love me in that department, I can tell. Thanks to someone's absent-mindedness, I won't have the bank loan until next week.
Joy sunshine rainbows and pink fluffy things...
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Shit
I got a letter from the Irish Grant Authority this morning (well, I didn't, my father did, but for the purpose of argument...) and it contained news that very quickly eclipsed every other issue I currently have or have had.
The authority said that they were not awarding me a grant for this programme of study. They said it was because I already had a degree in Engineering. I very quickly e-mailed them and told them that I did not actually finish the degree (I dropped out in third year) and as a result I came under the heading of a 'second-chance student', i.e. five years have passed since I was last in college, and I can now start again with a clean slate because I didn't complete the first course.
It's an error on their part from where I'm standing, but now I'm nervous. What if, for some reason, they ultimately decide that I'm not going to get it? I would be SCREWED. For those of you who don't know, this is worth about 3000 euros a year, i.e. 12,000 euros in total for the four years of the course. If I don't get it, I'll have to work a whole load of extra hours in some part-time job to pay my way (thus putting paid to any interests I might feel like pursuing while I'm here) or else get a huge loan (most unlikely, as the bank were reluctant enough to part with money this year for the few essentials I needed). Alternating between constant study and a shit part-time job would be the worst possible way of doing this.
I had a discussion with one of my flatmates recently about the costs of college (she's Canadian) and she seems pretty reconciled to the fact that by the time she finishes her course (also Pharmacy, she already has a biology degree behind her) her parents will have spent about half a million in total on her education. The whole thing about sky-high education costs is nuts. If I was facing the tuition fees that most Americans/Canadians face, I simply wouldn't proceed to third level. It wouldn't mean that much to me.
It got me thinking about how whether the general public is entitled to a free third-level education. The cost of it has to be paid in some way, and some economists compare the education of students to that of a consumer buying a service. Why should they not pay for it?
Well, here is another way of looking at it: At last check, and I'm talking about the Irish government here, revenue from taxes was not being spent in a way that yielded tangible benefits for even a substantial minority. Sweeping generalisation there, I think you'll agree, but one such example that springs to mind is the health service. These days when I see a shot of the inside of the Mater (hospital, Dublin) on television, it looks no different to an ad-hoc clinic quickly thrown together to deal with casualties in the middle of a war zone in a developing country, and the finance minister at the time (who has since been shipped out to the EU commission) has gone on record and said that the service was so inefficient he refused to put money into it until it was reformed. Well, that's alright then. That leaves a whole lot of money unspent on one of our most important but also most financially demanding services. Anyone got any ideas about how we can spend this money instead?
Paying to help people and institutions realised their full potential would be a start. By that I mean free fees. Institutions need money to continue to thrive, and the main way they do this is by charging for their services. So far, agreed. How should they get it? Well, if the government isn't spending in any noticeable way for our benefit, then why not let them pay?
Well, they are, for now, so that's fine. But they have made moves in the past to try and abolish this, and if they attempt to do so again on the pretext that the state coffers can't accommodate it, you would be well justified in asking
'Well...eh... where has all our money gone then?'
Because it certainly doesn't seem to have been spent on anything else. Interestingly, fees were not universally paid for by the Irish government at a time when income tax was at it's very highest (70's and 80's) in Ireland. I wonder where that money went? Well, Mr. Charlie Haughey, you detestable, rapacious crook? I'm waiting for an answer....
Sarcasm aside (I'm not genuinely suggesting that the government prioritise free education over a decent public health service, though the latter should closely follow the former), it makes sense that the government help their citizens realise their full potential. Hands up the authority figure who wants a nation full of frustrated, unchallenged underachievers? The cost of educating them can always be claimed back through the extra tax collected on their enhanced earnings over their lifetime, and they'll put more back into the economy in the long run anyway.
This doesn't really address the situation in other countries though. For a start, I know that American universities (especially the top ones) charge a small fortune on a year-by-year basis, the standard reason trotted out for this being the one of the economist above. One small problem: The consumer/service analogy breaks down here, as we are talking about people, and something that will not so much enhance their life, as define it (yes, yes, I know your job isn't everything, but you spend most of your waking life doing it, so all things considered, it pretty much defines a substantial part of your existence). Yet, any American I know just shrugs when it comes to this subject, as if to say, well, that's the way it is. Maybe it's just my socialist streak coming out again.
One other thing I have to wonder aloud about: If universities and other institutes of higher education are being paid in the way that they always were, why, now more than ever before, are they getting into bed with big business for the sake of sponsorship? This wasn't always the case, but now it looks like they're trying to have their cake and eat it. And also, why are almost 7o% of places on some university degree courses, such as Medicine, being set aside for foreign students, thus driving the required points for Irish students sky-high. Is it because they pay, in one year, roughly twice as much as an Irish student does for the entire degree?
Lastly, I'll readily admit that the sight of a group of overprivileged, self-centred, pretentiously accented shits protesting outside the Dáil would induce the most liberal leftie to vote for charging them to the hilt, but there are those of us out there, believe it or not, who would attract more sympathy. Don't forget that.
Anyway, here's hoping I get my grant sorted.
Really hoping.
The authority said that they were not awarding me a grant for this programme of study. They said it was because I already had a degree in Engineering. I very quickly e-mailed them and told them that I did not actually finish the degree (I dropped out in third year) and as a result I came under the heading of a 'second-chance student', i.e. five years have passed since I was last in college, and I can now start again with a clean slate because I didn't complete the first course.
It's an error on their part from where I'm standing, but now I'm nervous. What if, for some reason, they ultimately decide that I'm not going to get it? I would be SCREWED. For those of you who don't know, this is worth about 3000 euros a year, i.e. 12,000 euros in total for the four years of the course. If I don't get it, I'll have to work a whole load of extra hours in some part-time job to pay my way (thus putting paid to any interests I might feel like pursuing while I'm here) or else get a huge loan (most unlikely, as the bank were reluctant enough to part with money this year for the few essentials I needed). Alternating between constant study and a shit part-time job would be the worst possible way of doing this.
I had a discussion with one of my flatmates recently about the costs of college (she's Canadian) and she seems pretty reconciled to the fact that by the time she finishes her course (also Pharmacy, she already has a biology degree behind her) her parents will have spent about half a million in total on her education. The whole thing about sky-high education costs is nuts. If I was facing the tuition fees that most Americans/Canadians face, I simply wouldn't proceed to third level. It wouldn't mean that much to me.
It got me thinking about how whether the general public is entitled to a free third-level education. The cost of it has to be paid in some way, and some economists compare the education of students to that of a consumer buying a service. Why should they not pay for it?
Well, here is another way of looking at it: At last check, and I'm talking about the Irish government here, revenue from taxes was not being spent in a way that yielded tangible benefits for even a substantial minority. Sweeping generalisation there, I think you'll agree, but one such example that springs to mind is the health service. These days when I see a shot of the inside of the Mater (hospital, Dublin) on television, it looks no different to an ad-hoc clinic quickly thrown together to deal with casualties in the middle of a war zone in a developing country, and the finance minister at the time (who has since been shipped out to the EU commission) has gone on record and said that the service was so inefficient he refused to put money into it until it was reformed. Well, that's alright then. That leaves a whole lot of money unspent on one of our most important but also most financially demanding services. Anyone got any ideas about how we can spend this money instead?
Paying to help people and institutions realised their full potential would be a start. By that I mean free fees. Institutions need money to continue to thrive, and the main way they do this is by charging for their services. So far, agreed. How should they get it? Well, if the government isn't spending in any noticeable way for our benefit, then why not let them pay?
Well, they are, for now, so that's fine. But they have made moves in the past to try and abolish this, and if they attempt to do so again on the pretext that the state coffers can't accommodate it, you would be well justified in asking
'Well...eh... where has all our money gone then?'
Because it certainly doesn't seem to have been spent on anything else. Interestingly, fees were not universally paid for by the Irish government at a time when income tax was at it's very highest (70's and 80's) in Ireland. I wonder where that money went? Well, Mr. Charlie Haughey, you detestable, rapacious crook? I'm waiting for an answer....
Sarcasm aside (I'm not genuinely suggesting that the government prioritise free education over a decent public health service, though the latter should closely follow the former), it makes sense that the government help their citizens realise their full potential. Hands up the authority figure who wants a nation full of frustrated, unchallenged underachievers? The cost of educating them can always be claimed back through the extra tax collected on their enhanced earnings over their lifetime, and they'll put more back into the economy in the long run anyway.
This doesn't really address the situation in other countries though. For a start, I know that American universities (especially the top ones) charge a small fortune on a year-by-year basis, the standard reason trotted out for this being the one of the economist above. One small problem: The consumer/service analogy breaks down here, as we are talking about people, and something that will not so much enhance their life, as define it (yes, yes, I know your job isn't everything, but you spend most of your waking life doing it, so all things considered, it pretty much defines a substantial part of your existence). Yet, any American I know just shrugs when it comes to this subject, as if to say, well, that's the way it is. Maybe it's just my socialist streak coming out again.
One other thing I have to wonder aloud about: If universities and other institutes of higher education are being paid in the way that they always were, why, now more than ever before, are they getting into bed with big business for the sake of sponsorship? This wasn't always the case, but now it looks like they're trying to have their cake and eat it. And also, why are almost 7o% of places on some university degree courses, such as Medicine, being set aside for foreign students, thus driving the required points for Irish students sky-high. Is it because they pay, in one year, roughly twice as much as an Irish student does for the entire degree?
Lastly, I'll readily admit that the sight of a group of overprivileged, self-centred, pretentiously accented shits protesting outside the Dáil would induce the most liberal leftie to vote for charging them to the hilt, but there are those of us out there, believe it or not, who would attract more sympathy. Don't forget that.
Anyway, here's hoping I get my grant sorted.
Really hoping.
Monday, October 18, 2004
The weekend has come and gone...
..and as usual I have done f*$@ all for it. No studying and no partying. There is a rule somewhere stating that when you are a student, if you're not doing one, you should be doing the other, and I just broke it. For the last time.
One thing I did fit in was the cinema. Went to see Inside I'm Dancing, made by those of 'East is East' and 'Billy Elliott' fame. I quite liked. It was shot in Ireland, with pretty good dialogue, and most of the actors (including the two principles) were relatively unknown, which I always prefer. If you have the time, go see. 'Saw' has been recommended to me as well (thanks J), so that goes on the 'next' list.
I've never really referred to the harmony of the living arrangements up until now, as they've always been fine, but it now looks like cracks might be appearing. When you throw six strangers together in an apartment, it's inevitable that something somewhere will be done by one person to piss off another person, whether by accident or design. For once it has very little to do with me. Hopefully it'll all pan out well. Time will tell.
One thing I did fit in was the cinema. Went to see Inside I'm Dancing, made by those of 'East is East' and 'Billy Elliott' fame. I quite liked. It was shot in Ireland, with pretty good dialogue, and most of the actors (including the two principles) were relatively unknown, which I always prefer. If you have the time, go see. 'Saw' has been recommended to me as well (thanks J), so that goes on the 'next' list.
I've never really referred to the harmony of the living arrangements up until now, as they've always been fine, but it now looks like cracks might be appearing. When you throw six strangers together in an apartment, it's inevitable that something somewhere will be done by one person to piss off another person, whether by accident or design. For once it has very little to do with me. Hopefully it'll all pan out well. Time will tell.
Friday, October 15, 2004
Just out of curiosity...
We had a lecture today about communication skills of pharmacists (again!) and the speaker made one or two points that piqued my interest.
The first one was about speech patterns. Apparently, when it comes to accents and dialects, Irish, amongst others, speak relatively quickly compared to the English. No surprise there, going by my experience so far, but then he pointed out that in a survey done on the correlation between regional accents and perceived social status, Birmingham came out the worst. That is, if you have a brummie accent, people think you're way down the proverbial ladder. Interesting/damning piece of trivia. For any English people reading this, is that really the case?
Secondly, and what would seem extremely debatable, is the 'olfaction' of people. In other words, how they smell. The speaker maintained that Japanese people don't eat dairy products, and because of this, are much more sensitive to the smell us caucasians emit: The smell of sour milk! This I have to verify. If there are any japanese people reading this, feel free to comment and tell me if this is true. I would love to hear from you. He also maintained Indian people smelled of curry as a result of their diet, which seemed a bit puerile, so the next time I see an Indian person, I'm going to go right up to him/her and have a good sniff around. Or not.
There are pictures of me up on realbrighton.com, when I was out on the gay night last Tuesday. I was going to post them up, but I look like absolute shit in them (being 150,000 sheets to the wind didn't help), and I can now draw two conclusions. One, I have not lost all the weight around my face that I thought I had, and two, I have lost a lot more hair from my head than I originally thought I had. Bah! ;_;
I'm not sure what I'm going to do this weekend. I should study, and try and break the addiction that this habit of blogging has become. Or maybe I'll just go to The Bulldog and chance my arm.
Hmmmm.
The first one was about speech patterns. Apparently, when it comes to accents and dialects, Irish, amongst others, speak relatively quickly compared to the English. No surprise there, going by my experience so far, but then he pointed out that in a survey done on the correlation between regional accents and perceived social status, Birmingham came out the worst. That is, if you have a brummie accent, people think you're way down the proverbial ladder. Interesting/damning piece of trivia. For any English people reading this, is that really the case?
Secondly, and what would seem extremely debatable, is the 'olfaction' of people. In other words, how they smell. The speaker maintained that Japanese people don't eat dairy products, and because of this, are much more sensitive to the smell us caucasians emit: The smell of sour milk! This I have to verify. If there are any japanese people reading this, feel free to comment and tell me if this is true. I would love to hear from you. He also maintained Indian people smelled of curry as a result of their diet, which seemed a bit puerile, so the next time I see an Indian person, I'm going to go right up to him/her and have a good sniff around. Or not.
There are pictures of me up on realbrighton.com, when I was out on the gay night last Tuesday. I was going to post them up, but I look like absolute shit in them (being 150,000 sheets to the wind didn't help), and I can now draw two conclusions. One, I have not lost all the weight around my face that I thought I had, and two, I have lost a lot more hair from my head than I originally thought I had. Bah! ;_;
I'm not sure what I'm going to do this weekend. I should study, and try and break the addiction that this habit of blogging has become. Or maybe I'll just go to The Bulldog and chance my arm.
Hmmmm.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Not a lot to say...
Had my induction at the gym yesterday and then got on with breaking a sweat. Will do the same again tommorrow. A programme for making my build a little less like Kate Moss will follow in about 2 weeks, the instructor said. Some of the equipment is a bit ropey, but the treadmills are the Rolls Royce of running machines, and that is what I'll be concentrating on for the next while.
Today a practical. It involved not real patients, like I initially thought it would, but just actresses. I avoided getting picked, and it was interesting seeing how the four 'volunteers' each dealt with their consultation. It was funny in parts, seeing how each individual dealt with the quirks of each 'patient'.
Some of us went to a brief welcome ceremony held by the British Pharmaceutical Society this evening, in Brighton Hospital. It was all rather understated, but there was an interesting presentation on the history of the profession (going right back to the cavemen days), and there was free wine and finger food. My own personal jury is still out on whether or not this is the right thing for me to do, but I will stick with it. I reckon I'll be better off with this than without it, regardless of what I end up doing.
Tommorrow I must attend a demonstration of a food waste composter in action. This is not college-related, but for a job that I may end up doing at weekends. I will be present at places like shopping centres to provide information on this gadget, and promote it where necessary. What in God's name do I think I'm getting myself into?
Lastly, there has been an oversight with the bank and they have agreed to loan me more than they had initially declared. This means that a laptop could be within my reach. I could just repay the excess immediately, but I could also compromise and get a G4 Mac without all the extras like Office and an iPod, which would cut down the cost by a third. We'll see. I have to store my mp3s and my pictures of big hairy men somewhere.
Today a practical. It involved not real patients, like I initially thought it would, but just actresses. I avoided getting picked, and it was interesting seeing how the four 'volunteers' each dealt with their consultation. It was funny in parts, seeing how each individual dealt with the quirks of each 'patient'.
Some of us went to a brief welcome ceremony held by the British Pharmaceutical Society this evening, in Brighton Hospital. It was all rather understated, but there was an interesting presentation on the history of the profession (going right back to the cavemen days), and there was free wine and finger food. My own personal jury is still out on whether or not this is the right thing for me to do, but I will stick with it. I reckon I'll be better off with this than without it, regardless of what I end up doing.
Tommorrow I must attend a demonstration of a food waste composter in action. This is not college-related, but for a job that I may end up doing at weekends. I will be present at places like shopping centres to provide information on this gadget, and promote it where necessary. What in God's name do I think I'm getting myself into?
Lastly, there has been an oversight with the bank and they have agreed to loan me more than they had initially declared. This means that a laptop could be within my reach. I could just repay the excess immediately, but I could also compromise and get a G4 Mac without all the extras like Office and an iPod, which would cut down the cost by a third. We'll see. I have to store my mp3s and my pictures of big hairy men somewhere.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Word, man.
Yeah, whatever.
I went to an R n' B club last night with all the other flatmates bar one. The club was called Core, and it was 'Mo' Money' night. Even though 50 Cent and Beyoncé were the order of the day, I quite enjoyed it, the atmosphere being very chilled and one of the bouncers looking rather tasty. I was struck by the amount of black guys weighed down with chain necklaces and baseball caps on backwards. A good night was had, and there was no crushing queue for pizza after, we got it within 10 minutes. One thing I've noticed about Brighton thus far, is that the city is pretty relaxed after the clubs close. Even all the people coming out onto the street doesn't render it very threatening. At home, fast food places have started closing before the nightclubs because they can't deal with the zoo that ensues there afterwards. Even when there was a slight mix-up over whether or not we had jumped a taxi queue (we hadn't), the matter passed off without any disturbance of the peace. If that was Dublin, fists would have been flying in two seconds.
I've just out that I have to do a five-minute presentation at some stage soon, and get peer-assessed by my class afterwards. My topic? Influenza. Oooh-er. But then, we're all in the same boat. I also have mid-term exams in about 6 weeks. And on Tuesday, I get to do a practical which apparently involve dealing with real patients, and if I'm lucky, I get filmed while doing it. I'll be the one skulking at the back, praying I don't get picked...
Induction for the university gym tommorrow. £97 for the whole year is very good. It'll be good to get back in training.
I went to an R n' B club last night with all the other flatmates bar one. The club was called Core, and it was 'Mo' Money' night. Even though 50 Cent and Beyoncé were the order of the day, I quite enjoyed it, the atmosphere being very chilled and one of the bouncers looking rather tasty. I was struck by the amount of black guys weighed down with chain necklaces and baseball caps on backwards. A good night was had, and there was no crushing queue for pizza after, we got it within 10 minutes. One thing I've noticed about Brighton thus far, is that the city is pretty relaxed after the clubs close. Even all the people coming out onto the street doesn't render it very threatening. At home, fast food places have started closing before the nightclubs because they can't deal with the zoo that ensues there afterwards. Even when there was a slight mix-up over whether or not we had jumped a taxi queue (we hadn't), the matter passed off without any disturbance of the peace. If that was Dublin, fists would have been flying in two seconds.
I've just out that I have to do a five-minute presentation at some stage soon, and get peer-assessed by my class afterwards. My topic? Influenza. Oooh-er. But then, we're all in the same boat. I also have mid-term exams in about 6 weeks. And on Tuesday, I get to do a practical which apparently involve dealing with real patients, and if I'm lucky, I get filmed while doing it. I'll be the one skulking at the back, praying I don't get picked...
Induction for the university gym tommorrow. £97 for the whole year is very good. It'll be good to get back in training.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Rant
"No deity that men have ever worshiped is more ruthless and more hollow than the free market unchecked...".
From 'In the strawberry fields', from 'Reefer Madness and other tales from the American underground', by Eric Schlosser.
Well, that's another essay down, with 1 to go. 2, if you count the epilogue-type one at the end. Where the first one was an eye-opener, the second one was just plain depressing. This essay concentrated on the use of illegal (and mainly) Mexican immigrant workers during the peak of the strawberry-picking season. As is often the case with these things, the corporations involved exploited the fact that the labourers in this case were desperate for work and would live in almost any kind of conditions while doing it, and as you'd expect, they were grossly underpaid. Interesting how some bigots see Mexican immigrants as little more than vermin, when the latter are doing at least as much for the economy of the West Coast as anyone else, albeit unwittingly. I could go on about this more, but I recommend you just buy the book instead.
This got me thinking about my own principles in this regard. I'm now firmly in the money-isn't-everything camp, but that wasn't always the case. Right throughout secondary school, I had dollar signs in my eyes, and my career of choice at this stage was going to be law. Some of this was probably down to the glamour that is traditionally associated with the profession (all you crime dramas out there, take a bow) but the main motivation was the money. In one sense, this ideal was a good thing: Law has always had competitive entry requirements and I was a lazy bastard at school. I would never have made myself do honours in everything if there hadn't been some reason behind it other than the advice of my parents and teachers. But then somewhere along the line, I think about halfway through my leaving cert year, I had a change of heart. I ended up putting Engineering as the first choice on my CAO form, and went down that route instead.
What happened after that is the long and not always uplifting story of my first attempt at college, but somewhere along the line I stopped caring about money in the insane, trample-all-over-the-little-folk way that I did when I was younger, and all things considered, it's just as well. One guy that I used to live with who had studied economics for a while made the point that capitalism was the law of the jungle applied to human society, where the so-called weak are moved to the bottom of the hierarchy and the 'strong' to the top. I discounted this at the time, but now it makes perfect sense, and would go someway towards explaining that while financial success still means something to me, how I or anyone else comes into it is also as important, and it also highlights why I am no longer automatically impressed with wealth in other people.
So yup, I am now a committed semi-socialist leftie and proud of it.
Lastly, two essays that I like on the internet, which are more or less in the same vein as what I was saying above:
Kurt Vonnegut: Cold Turkey
Julian Edney: Greed
Interestingly enough, in the second essay, the model of Smithian economics being rebutted by John Nash Forbes' theory of equilibria is only given a passing mention, and could be used as an example in the section 'The Nuts Game', at the end. As far as I know, Smith said that 'what is good for the individual is good for the group', i.e. if each member of a group pursues the goals that are best for itself, then the group as a whole prospers. What I think Nash was saying was that each member of a group must do what is both good for itself and the group, and the equilibrium that is reached between both of these is known as a Nash equilibrium.
Ok, wank over. I think I'll look into this more though.
From 'In the strawberry fields', from 'Reefer Madness and other tales from the American underground', by Eric Schlosser.
Well, that's another essay down, with 1 to go. 2, if you count the epilogue-type one at the end. Where the first one was an eye-opener, the second one was just plain depressing. This essay concentrated on the use of illegal (and mainly) Mexican immigrant workers during the peak of the strawberry-picking season. As is often the case with these things, the corporations involved exploited the fact that the labourers in this case were desperate for work and would live in almost any kind of conditions while doing it, and as you'd expect, they were grossly underpaid. Interesting how some bigots see Mexican immigrants as little more than vermin, when the latter are doing at least as much for the economy of the West Coast as anyone else, albeit unwittingly. I could go on about this more, but I recommend you just buy the book instead.
This got me thinking about my own principles in this regard. I'm now firmly in the money-isn't-everything camp, but that wasn't always the case. Right throughout secondary school, I had dollar signs in my eyes, and my career of choice at this stage was going to be law. Some of this was probably down to the glamour that is traditionally associated with the profession (all you crime dramas out there, take a bow) but the main motivation was the money. In one sense, this ideal was a good thing: Law has always had competitive entry requirements and I was a lazy bastard at school. I would never have made myself do honours in everything if there hadn't been some reason behind it other than the advice of my parents and teachers. But then somewhere along the line, I think about halfway through my leaving cert year, I had a change of heart. I ended up putting Engineering as the first choice on my CAO form, and went down that route instead.
What happened after that is the long and not always uplifting story of my first attempt at college, but somewhere along the line I stopped caring about money in the insane, trample-all-over-the-little-folk way that I did when I was younger, and all things considered, it's just as well. One guy that I used to live with who had studied economics for a while made the point that capitalism was the law of the jungle applied to human society, where the so-called weak are moved to the bottom of the hierarchy and the 'strong' to the top. I discounted this at the time, but now it makes perfect sense, and would go someway towards explaining that while financial success still means something to me, how I or anyone else comes into it is also as important, and it also highlights why I am no longer automatically impressed with wealth in other people.
So yup, I am now a committed semi-socialist leftie and proud of it.
Lastly, two essays that I like on the internet, which are more or less in the same vein as what I was saying above:
Kurt Vonnegut: Cold Turkey
Julian Edney: Greed
Interestingly enough, in the second essay, the model of Smithian economics being rebutted by John Nash Forbes' theory of equilibria is only given a passing mention, and could be used as an example in the section 'The Nuts Game', at the end. As far as I know, Smith said that 'what is good for the individual is good for the group', i.e. if each member of a group pursues the goals that are best for itself, then the group as a whole prospers. What I think Nash was saying was that each member of a group must do what is both good for itself and the group, and the equilibrium that is reached between both of these is known as a Nash equilibrium.
Ok, wank over. I think I'll look into this more though.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Update
Well, the last few days have been normal enough. Monday on my timetable is completely free, which is cool. I paid to join the gym, £97 for the whole year, and I have an induction on Monday coming. Time to get back in training.Tuesday saw us have our first practical for the course PY131/2: Respiratory and dermatological therapies in Pharmacy. The lab was basically a 'communications workshop' which saw us doing role playing, story telling, and a game that resemble musical chairs (Don't ask!). Our supervisor sounds uncannily like Anne Robinson from The Weakest Link, but not as bad.
That night, I went to the LGBT Brighton-Sussex association meeting. We basically went on a big gay pub-crawl, which was cool, though for some reason an inordinate amount of the bars that we visited were for lesbians. Go figure. Everyone seemed to know someone else (either that, or friends were made in record time!) so I really had to put myself out there, but everyone seemed grand. There were one or two slips on my part (when a girl talked about her partner, I asked 'Where is he from?' DUH Denis! Not clever!), and of course, the night would not be complete without me making a toe-curling attempt to chat someone up ('Can I steal a Kiss?' Urrrgghhh!), but everything went down well, though I didn't pull. The only fly in the ointment was that I was hoping that Hot Greek Guy would be there too, by magic, but he wasn't. I fear he may be straight. Sniff ;_;
There is another international students night tonight. Maybe I'll gatecrash it and find him there. But I'm hungover, so I might not. We'll see.
Thanks to the boozing, I overslept and missed three lectures this morning. First and last time, Denis!
Lastly, my bank manager won't lend me enough to buy a laptop, in addition to my other borrowings. It's probably for the best in the long run, but I would have liked a G4 powerbook with an iPod. Now it looks like it's going to have to wait. Oh drat and bother! Maybe I'll get a turntable and build up my vinyl collection instead.
That night, I went to the LGBT Brighton-Sussex association meeting. We basically went on a big gay pub-crawl, which was cool, though for some reason an inordinate amount of the bars that we visited were for lesbians. Go figure. Everyone seemed to know someone else (either that, or friends were made in record time!) so I really had to put myself out there, but everyone seemed grand. There were one or two slips on my part (when a girl talked about her partner, I asked 'Where is he from?' DUH Denis! Not clever!), and of course, the night would not be complete without me making a toe-curling attempt to chat someone up ('Can I steal a Kiss?' Urrrgghhh!), but everything went down well, though I didn't pull. The only fly in the ointment was that I was hoping that Hot Greek Guy would be there too, by magic, but he wasn't. I fear he may be straight. Sniff ;_;
There is another international students night tonight. Maybe I'll gatecrash it and find him there. But I'm hungover, so I might not. We'll see.
Thanks to the boozing, I overslept and missed three lectures this morning. First and last time, Denis!
Lastly, my bank manager won't lend me enough to buy a laptop, in addition to my other borrowings. It's probably for the best in the long run, but I would have liked a G4 powerbook with an iPod. Now it looks like it's going to have to wait. Oh drat and bother! Maybe I'll get a turntable and build up my vinyl collection instead.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Slowdown
Well, the initial mad scramble of socialising is over now, and things are winding down. I was right: classes don't begin until next week, but that suits me. The last couple of days have been a blur of queueing and frustration. I enrolled on Monday after queueing for an hour outside the passport photo machine and they didn't even ask for my photos. Gah! I then had to queue to pay a bench fee for lab coats and stuff, but the line was so long, and I didn't have the cheque anyway, so I gave up and went away. Some of this really should have been organised better. On Monday night, I went out with my flatmate, a Swedish guy called Michael, on a pub crawl organised by the college. Of course this made registration on Tuesday so much easier, but the queues were mercifully short this time. Oh, and before you ask, yes, you would think enrolling is the same as registering, and yes, you would think that they would combine the two procedures into one, but no, not around here.
Last night was quiet, except for the occasional bit of noise outside my flat. I'm living in on-campus accommodation and apart from the mature/international students that I live with, the rest of the area seems to be populated by 18 year olds. Which can be annoying, especially when there is drunken giggling out in the square at 12 at night. Yes, I'm showing my age, but Christ, at least I can handle my drink to the extent that I don't wake up a whole area when drunk, or at least not intentionally. I'll give it some time, as we are still in the first week of term, but after that...
Today I went to the freshers fair and joined the Brighton LGBT society, amongst others. There is a pub crawl for that next Tuesday, I believe. I won't go out until then. Especially since the first installment of my accommodation payment is due on October 12th. Oh, and did I mention that I underestimated that amount by a factor of, oh, 50%? You can understand my terror. I need to get to get set up for a bank account here quickly. And then get a loan, even more quickly.
After the freshers fair, I met up with Tess and Jess, two American girls. They had been to a march for peace in town, as Tony Blair was visiting. Unfortunately by the time I got there, it was winding down. Some other time maybe. It seems that I'm getting back in touch with my student protestor roots. This is good.
After that, I left them and went to the cinema to see The Village. M. Night Shyamalam has now established a pattern for himself that he seems happy to stick to. Yes, I'm talking about the twist/revelation that comes at the end. This worked very well for the Sixth Sense, was rather forced for Unbreakable, and merely added to the storyline for Signs. In this one, it works in two ways, one which is a bit ropey, and one which is quite effective, though overall the story drags a bit in places. His use of music in film is also good, with lots of discordant screeching strings in all the right places. Critics are starting to say that he is beginning to repeat himself, and they're right, but plenty of filmmakers have done this and still managed to entertain well. In each of Shyamalam's films, there is always some kind of incidence of flawed humanity taking place alongside the suspense, and it makes for an interesting story.
Interesting point: Bruce Willis was in the Sixth Sense, and then in it's successor, Unbreakable. Joaquin Phoenix was in Signs, and now in the next consecutive film The Village. A pattern seems to be emerging. I've gotten to like Phoenix, and he was good in this. Also, William Hurt was good as the patriarchal figure, though maybe it was the beard. Very Benjamin Harrison.
Got my timetable sorted, which is reasonable compared to what it was like when I was doing Engineering. 14 hours on average for the first semester, and 17 hours for the second. When I was in Engineering it was like 30-35 hours a week.
Lastly, I fear my drinking over the last few days has caught up with me: The whole of my upper body is covered in hives. I'm almost certain that's it's my system saying 'No More Booze!'. I read once that this happened to Robert Smith out of the Cure. A more prosaic explanation could be that I'm allergic to the soap I am currently using, but that doesn't explain why they've suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If they don't go away in the next few days, off to the doctor I go.
Later...
Last night was quiet, except for the occasional bit of noise outside my flat. I'm living in on-campus accommodation and apart from the mature/international students that I live with, the rest of the area seems to be populated by 18 year olds. Which can be annoying, especially when there is drunken giggling out in the square at 12 at night. Yes, I'm showing my age, but Christ, at least I can handle my drink to the extent that I don't wake up a whole area when drunk, or at least not intentionally. I'll give it some time, as we are still in the first week of term, but after that...
Today I went to the freshers fair and joined the Brighton LGBT society, amongst others. There is a pub crawl for that next Tuesday, I believe. I won't go out until then. Especially since the first installment of my accommodation payment is due on October 12th. Oh, and did I mention that I underestimated that amount by a factor of, oh, 50%? You can understand my terror. I need to get to get set up for a bank account here quickly. And then get a loan, even more quickly.
After the freshers fair, I met up with Tess and Jess, two American girls. They had been to a march for peace in town, as Tony Blair was visiting. Unfortunately by the time I got there, it was winding down. Some other time maybe. It seems that I'm getting back in touch with my student protestor roots. This is good.
After that, I left them and went to the cinema to see The Village. M. Night Shyamalam has now established a pattern for himself that he seems happy to stick to. Yes, I'm talking about the twist/revelation that comes at the end. This worked very well for the Sixth Sense, was rather forced for Unbreakable, and merely added to the storyline for Signs. In this one, it works in two ways, one which is a bit ropey, and one which is quite effective, though overall the story drags a bit in places. His use of music in film is also good, with lots of discordant screeching strings in all the right places. Critics are starting to say that he is beginning to repeat himself, and they're right, but plenty of filmmakers have done this and still managed to entertain well. In each of Shyamalam's films, there is always some kind of incidence of flawed humanity taking place alongside the suspense, and it makes for an interesting story.
Interesting point: Bruce Willis was in the Sixth Sense, and then in it's successor, Unbreakable. Joaquin Phoenix was in Signs, and now in the next consecutive film The Village. A pattern seems to be emerging. I've gotten to like Phoenix, and he was good in this. Also, William Hurt was good as the patriarchal figure, though maybe it was the beard. Very Benjamin Harrison.
Got my timetable sorted, which is reasonable compared to what it was like when I was doing Engineering. 14 hours on average for the first semester, and 17 hours for the second. When I was in Engineering it was like 30-35 hours a week.
Lastly, I fear my drinking over the last few days has caught up with me: The whole of my upper body is covered in hives. I'm almost certain that's it's my system saying 'No More Booze!'. I read once that this happened to Robert Smith out of the Cure. A more prosaic explanation could be that I'm allergic to the soap I am currently using, but that doesn't explain why they've suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If they don't go away in the next few days, off to the doctor I go.
Later...
Friday, September 24, 2004
My name is Denis and I'm an alcoholic
Christ, I'm nearly shaking with blood poisoning from all the drinking I've been doing over the last few days. Three consecutive days on the piss. It's been a long time since I did that. So far it looks as if everything is going OK. We have all been divided into separate groups for the international student orientation week and are being led around by a black hip-hop Wu Tang Clan fan called John-Paul. The international students seem like a nice bunch (for some reason, a disproportionate amount of them seem to be Greek, including a hot dark-haired bearded guy who I met last night whom I suspect of being straight! Damn!) and I've already met a few of my future classmates. So far so good, though while the consumption of alcohol is a necessity in these meet-and-greet things, it also take some control away from you in terms of the impression you make. I'm going to have to learn to strike a balance.
Tuesday night saw us being ferried out to the Falmer campus (I think that's what it was!) to have some drinks in the students union bar. That went fine, though my cigarettes got lifted, intentionally or unintentionally, during the night (yes, I've fallen off the wagon but will get on it again when everything calms down).
Wednesday was a tour-of-campus thing which finished up with us going to this club called the honey club. In the queue, the orientation co-ordinator got searched at random, so I took the opportunity to yell 'terrorist' out of the side of my mouth. Two minutes later, the same search happened to me. As you can imagine, she found this quite funny. Inside I got split up from everyone and ended up getting rather pissed. I saw this guy who was the image of Keanu Reeves, and of course in my drunkeness I felt the need to go up and tell him. He ran.
When I met up on Thursday with other people, they were laughing at how I was the night before. This is worrying, coming from people who are more entitled to irresponsibility than I am because of their youth (!) and of course I ended up coping with it by getting equally as drunk on this night at Club New York on Dyke street (!!). This is where I meet the very hot greek guy. An excerpt from the conversation:
Me [looking in mirror in club]: 'I like this mirror, I actually look good in it'.
Hot Greek Guy: 'You look good anyway'
And later...
HGG: 'There is this island off the coast of Greece,' [Can't remember what he called it] 'You should go to it'.
Me: 'Do they all look as good as you there?'
HGG: 'Oh, better'
I like self-effacing. I think I'm going to have to investigate this chap further. Oh, and I also made a blatant attempt to chat up the barman ('By any chance are you into guys?' Uurgh.) but he took it as a compliment even though he turned out to be straight. At the end of the night, I told him I hoped I would see more of him in future, and he said that he would always be down there on a Thursday night.
I can't decide if the above was cool or not. Best to put it behind me, I think. Damn those shots of tequila going for £1!!! And Tess from Indiana for suggesting them!!! I might give the place a bit of a wide berth for a while.
Today, I turned up at exactly 12:00 as arranged at the meeting place but no-one was there. It might be a blessing in disguise. I know it's Friday, but I really think a quiet night in is the right thing for me tonight.
I also have been set up with a mobile phone here, at last. Which is a not-inconsiderable source of relief to me. I still have to book my Christmas flights. I tried doing it a while ago, but the BMIbaby website went down just as my payment was about to be validated. I feel like killing someone. Their website administrator, mainly. I'll try again tommorrow.
Tuesday night saw us being ferried out to the Falmer campus (I think that's what it was!) to have some drinks in the students union bar. That went fine, though my cigarettes got lifted, intentionally or unintentionally, during the night (yes, I've fallen off the wagon but will get on it again when everything calms down).
Wednesday was a tour-of-campus thing which finished up with us going to this club called the honey club. In the queue, the orientation co-ordinator got searched at random, so I took the opportunity to yell 'terrorist' out of the side of my mouth. Two minutes later, the same search happened to me. As you can imagine, she found this quite funny. Inside I got split up from everyone and ended up getting rather pissed. I saw this guy who was the image of Keanu Reeves, and of course in my drunkeness I felt the need to go up and tell him. He ran.
When I met up on Thursday with other people, they were laughing at how I was the night before. This is worrying, coming from people who are more entitled to irresponsibility than I am because of their youth (!) and of course I ended up coping with it by getting equally as drunk on this night at Club New York on Dyke street (!!). This is where I meet the very hot greek guy. An excerpt from the conversation:
Me [looking in mirror in club]: 'I like this mirror, I actually look good in it'.
Hot Greek Guy: 'You look good anyway'
And later...
HGG: 'There is this island off the coast of Greece,' [Can't remember what he called it] 'You should go to it'.
Me: 'Do they all look as good as you there?'
HGG: 'Oh, better'
I like self-effacing. I think I'm going to have to investigate this chap further. Oh, and I also made a blatant attempt to chat up the barman ('By any chance are you into guys?' Uurgh.) but he took it as a compliment even though he turned out to be straight. At the end of the night, I told him I hoped I would see more of him in future, and he said that he would always be down there on a Thursday night.
I can't decide if the above was cool or not. Best to put it behind me, I think. Damn those shots of tequila going for £1!!! And Tess from Indiana for suggesting them!!! I might give the place a bit of a wide berth for a while.
Today, I turned up at exactly 12:00 as arranged at the meeting place but no-one was there. It might be a blessing in disguise. I know it's Friday, but I really think a quiet night in is the right thing for me tonight.
I also have been set up with a mobile phone here, at last. Which is a not-inconsiderable source of relief to me. I still have to book my Christmas flights. I tried doing it a while ago, but the BMIbaby website went down just as my payment was about to be validated. I feel like killing someone. Their website administrator, mainly. I'll try again tommorrow.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Dispatch from the front line
Finally, after the day from hell, I have arrived in the B&B with all my luggage intact. The day can be broken down into distinct phases:
Phase I: Get up this morning and get ready. My father does my head in by helping me pack, and RUINS any chance I have of enjoying a relaxed breakfast. It is only afterwards that I realise he made it somewhat easier for me, but nothing sends my parents into a neurotic frenzy quite like a looming flight departure.
Phase II: Arrive at airport. I have excess luggage which works out at 7.45 euro per kilo. I end up paying an extra 105 FUCKING EURO!! ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE!!! It is only then that the baggage assistant lets it slip discreetly out of the side of her mouth that the flight has been delayed by two hours. Two hours. As my parents like to arrive early for these things, we are two hours early for the original flight. So a wait of four hours looms ahead of me. Four hours.
I was sorry to say goodbye at this stage. My mother was very tearful, and all I could manage was 'It's for the best, Mam'. She said that she knew this, but she cried anyway. I left them and headed for the departure lounge. The guy who took my ticket seemed to know me as he addressed me by my first name, even though it wasn't on the ticket. I hadn't a clue who he was, so I just looked at him blankly and then walked through.
The flight was then delayed by almost a further hour. I resorted to pacing up and down the duty-free to amuse myself. Just as I went to go to the Little Boy's Room, the boarding call came.
Phase III: Get to Gatwick. As usual, I didn't enjoy the take-off or landing, but everything was OK. Struggle with my 60kg of luggage and after going up and down the same ramp in the wrong direction TWICE, I eventually figure out where the trains are and get a porter to help me carry my suitcase, two holdalls, a duvet, and a guitar down to the platform. I manage to get the train.
Phase IV: Get to Brighton and wrestle with the luggage trolley for 5 minutes before LOOKING at the explanatory diagram over it, and finally getting one free. I manage to get a taxi after a while, and get to the B&B in Kempton (nicknamed 'Camptown' because of it's position in the middle of the gay quarter. Wa-hey!).
I've been here before for the course interview, but once again, my impressions are good. I tipped the taxi driver for helping me with my bags and he thanked me profusely. He could teach a thing or two to the taxi men back home. Everything still looks as good as I remember it and the pier, now open, is stunning.
The orientation programme for international students starts tommorrow. Fingers crossed.
I think I'm going to like it here.
Phase I: Get up this morning and get ready. My father does my head in by helping me pack, and RUINS any chance I have of enjoying a relaxed breakfast. It is only afterwards that I realise he made it somewhat easier for me, but nothing sends my parents into a neurotic frenzy quite like a looming flight departure.
Phase II: Arrive at airport. I have excess luggage which works out at 7.45 euro per kilo. I end up paying an extra 105 FUCKING EURO!! ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE!!! It is only then that the baggage assistant lets it slip discreetly out of the side of her mouth that the flight has been delayed by two hours. Two hours. As my parents like to arrive early for these things, we are two hours early for the original flight. So a wait of four hours looms ahead of me. Four hours.
I was sorry to say goodbye at this stage. My mother was very tearful, and all I could manage was 'It's for the best, Mam'. She said that she knew this, but she cried anyway. I left them and headed for the departure lounge. The guy who took my ticket seemed to know me as he addressed me by my first name, even though it wasn't on the ticket. I hadn't a clue who he was, so I just looked at him blankly and then walked through.
The flight was then delayed by almost a further hour. I resorted to pacing up and down the duty-free to amuse myself. Just as I went to go to the Little Boy's Room, the boarding call came.
Phase III: Get to Gatwick. As usual, I didn't enjoy the take-off or landing, but everything was OK. Struggle with my 60kg of luggage and after going up and down the same ramp in the wrong direction TWICE, I eventually figure out where the trains are and get a porter to help me carry my suitcase, two holdalls, a duvet, and a guitar down to the platform. I manage to get the train.
Phase IV: Get to Brighton and wrestle with the luggage trolley for 5 minutes before LOOKING at the explanatory diagram over it, and finally getting one free. I manage to get a taxi after a while, and get to the B&B in Kempton (nicknamed 'Camptown' because of it's position in the middle of the gay quarter. Wa-hey!).
I've been here before for the course interview, but once again, my impressions are good. I tipped the taxi driver for helping me with my bags and he thanked me profusely. He could teach a thing or two to the taxi men back home. Everything still looks as good as I remember it and the pier, now open, is stunning.
The orientation programme for international students starts tommorrow. Fingers crossed.
I think I'm going to like it here.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
I am not nervous. I am not at all nervous.
Oh Yes I bloody am!
Well, the packing is almost done, but I will not be happy until I am actually over in that apartment in Brighton with my things safe and sound. The amount of luggage I will be bringing is fast starting to mushroom beyond what I thought it would be, and the washing machine is still going. I refuse to panic. I have got myself into worse messes than this one. Flight tommorrow at 2:30. Christ, I have elephants stampeding in my stomach.
I'm looking back over the past few days with some satisfaction. Thursday night I went for drinks with Jane. Friday night I met up with Kate and a few of her friends in Cork for a meal, and then last night, the cherry on the cake. I went out for a scrumptious meal in Mallow and then had lashings of alcohol afterwards. The only cockup was ordering deep fried brie for a starter and then goat's cheese for the main course. Christ, I was weighed down. I still ate the sticky toffee pudding for desert though. I was joined during all this by Jane, Jaq, and Jo, and I had a ball for the whole night. It's at times like this that you realise who your real friends are, and also those who aren't (i.e. those who didn't bother meeting up with me at all, or even phoning). But I am not in the slightest bit bitter. A new beginning is almost upon me, and hopefully I'll see the three again in November when they come over to me for Jaq's 30th.
I got presents last night too. The books: Reefer Madness (already started) and The Da Vinci Code (this is supposed to be very good). I also got a funky friends pink stationery set to remind me of the 3 girls when I'm over there, which was very cute.
God only knows when I'll get near this blog again, but I'll make an effort to throw something in during the week. After all, I started it to record all of this mess in some shape or form.
Things to do:
Pack hand luggage (one bag)
Pack Guitar (one bag)
Pack Toiletries/Pack CDs and minidiscs/Pack stationery stuff (one bag, I pray)
Pack Clothes (one suitcase, or I'm dead)
Duvet (done)
Burn porn and docs onto CD.
Pray.
Well, the packing is almost done, but I will not be happy until I am actually over in that apartment in Brighton with my things safe and sound. The amount of luggage I will be bringing is fast starting to mushroom beyond what I thought it would be, and the washing machine is still going. I refuse to panic. I have got myself into worse messes than this one. Flight tommorrow at 2:30. Christ, I have elephants stampeding in my stomach.
I'm looking back over the past few days with some satisfaction. Thursday night I went for drinks with Jane. Friday night I met up with Kate and a few of her friends in Cork for a meal, and then last night, the cherry on the cake. I went out for a scrumptious meal in Mallow and then had lashings of alcohol afterwards. The only cockup was ordering deep fried brie for a starter and then goat's cheese for the main course. Christ, I was weighed down. I still ate the sticky toffee pudding for desert though. I was joined during all this by Jane, Jaq, and Jo, and I had a ball for the whole night. It's at times like this that you realise who your real friends are, and also those who aren't (i.e. those who didn't bother meeting up with me at all, or even phoning). But I am not in the slightest bit bitter. A new beginning is almost upon me, and hopefully I'll see the three again in November when they come over to me for Jaq's 30th.
I got presents last night too. The books: Reefer Madness (already started) and The Da Vinci Code (this is supposed to be very good). I also got a funky friends pink stationery set to remind me of the 3 girls when I'm over there, which was very cute.
God only knows when I'll get near this blog again, but I'll make an effort to throw something in during the week. After all, I started it to record all of this mess in some shape or form.
Things to do:
Pack hand luggage (one bag)
Pack Guitar (one bag)
Pack Toiletries/Pack CDs and minidiscs/Pack stationery stuff (one bag, I pray)
Pack Clothes (one suitcase, or I'm dead)
Duvet (done)
Burn porn and docs onto CD.
Pray.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Am I really that bad?
I got up this morning at about 8am to go to the toilet. My mother peered around my bedroom door 5 minutes later, with a look of genuine concern on her face.
Mother: Are you OK?
Me: Yes.
Mother: Why are you up this early?
I'm starting to feel like the Prince Regent in Blackadder. My favourite quote ever (from Part III Episode 2: Ink and Incapability):
There is also this equally mirthsome section (Part III Episode 6: Duel and Duality):
Incidentally, the guy who was leaving that night was my first lead ever, and was a big supporter of the policy of 'however late you are, work it up at the end of the day'. The other lead mentioned above was my second, and a vociferous opponent of flexitime because it didn't suit him. He was also a bit of a dimwit, and full of managerial hot air. You know the type. Anyway, this guy conducted my end of year performance review, and I got slated. He used my punctuality as the main talking point, but then argued that he had tried to press for flexitime himself, only to see it rejected. Yes, his pants was very much on fire. He also implied that I would have scored more highly for the whole year, but Team Lead One had given me a low score. Bollocks again.
Anyway, in my exit interview from this company - I had got a job somewhere else eight eternal months later - I let the HR person know exactly how incompetent he was and how inappropriate some of his comments were (he was constantly asking Joanne, who worked on the same team as me at that point, what the story was with herself and me) and soon after that, one of his clients complained about him and he got demoted.
Demoted Team Lead was always very personable though, which made it hard to dislike him. I still never really forgave him for that review but I'm beyond caring these days, and would actually be curious to see what he's upto now because he eventually got made redundant from that company.
Anyway, I have digressed substantially. My point: I love my lie-ins.
My trip to the doctor yesterday was OK, apart from the 45 minute wait (why do they make appointments, only to have you queue for ages along with everyone else?) and the horrible needles. I was in hospital before for a ruptured ulcer, and I was used as a human pin cushion by all the interns while I was in there. Since then, I've always had to avert my eyes when getting an injection. My GP is a pretty sound bloke though, and I hope I get someone half as decent over in Brighton.
I also verified my tax return and, no, it's not a mistake. I did owe the government 800 euro. Cobblers. It has been paid, and I now drown in bankruptcy. AIB must be contacted immediately. Grant application also gone off, the benefit of which I will be lucky to see before the end of the academic year, knowing me.
Later...
Mother: Are you OK?
Me: Yes.
Mother: Why are you up this early?
I'm starting to feel like the Prince Regent in Blackadder. My favourite quote ever (from Part III Episode 2: Ink and Incapability):
I've always empathised very heavily with that quote, which goes someway towards explaining why you could count the number of days I've been on time for work on the fingers of one hand.In Prince's House (in bedchamber)
Prince Regent: (wakes, shouts) "Oh, oh, oh, Blackadder! BLACKADDER!"
Blackadder: (enters) "Your Highness."
Prince Regent: "Wha--wha--what time is it?"
Blackadder: "Three o'clock in the afternoon, Your Highness."
Prince Regent: "Oh, thank God for that; I thought I'd overslept"
There is also this equally mirthsome section (Part III Episode 6: Duel and Duality):
You get the picture. I've never been a good riser. I'm fine (unlike some) once I get up, more cheerful than most, it's the getting up that's the problem. The snooze button on my Morphy Richards seems to have been designed just for me. It's not uncommon for me to languish in bed an hour after the alarm has first gone off, being rudely awoken every nine minutes only to turn over, crash my fist on said button, and then plunge back into the land of nod again. Every minute of sleep is precious, and as a result, I have alway tried to live as close to where I work as possible with a view to minimizing the commute so that I can stay in bed longer. I managed this admirably when I first came to Dublin and worked in my first testing job. Eight months into it, I moved into a house literally around the corner from the testing firm. Even after that, however, it was always pushing 10-15 minutes past the start time when I walked through the door. Flexitime, my best friend, did not exist at this company. My reputation was well established by then anyway. I'd already received a verbal warning only a couple of weeks before the move (at that point I was living 45 minutes from work by bus) from a team lead because I was always arriving in anytime upto 30 mins past the start time. I got that warning the morning after a company-sponsored party in honour of a guy who was leaving, though, which was a bit hard to take.[While Blackadder is having a conversation in the palace kitchens with Baldrick, The Prince's bell rings.]
Blackadder: "Ah! The walrus awakes."
The Prince's Bedroom --------------------
Prince Regent: "Ah Blackadder. Notice anything unusual?"
Blackadder: "Yes sir, it's 11:30 in the morning and you're moving about. Is the bed on fire?"
Incidentally, the guy who was leaving that night was my first lead ever, and was a big supporter of the policy of 'however late you are, work it up at the end of the day'. The other lead mentioned above was my second, and a vociferous opponent of flexitime because it didn't suit him. He was also a bit of a dimwit, and full of managerial hot air. You know the type. Anyway, this guy conducted my end of year performance review, and I got slated. He used my punctuality as the main talking point, but then argued that he had tried to press for flexitime himself, only to see it rejected. Yes, his pants was very much on fire. He also implied that I would have scored more highly for the whole year, but Team Lead One had given me a low score. Bollocks again.
Anyway, in my exit interview from this company - I had got a job somewhere else eight eternal months later - I let the HR person know exactly how incompetent he was and how inappropriate some of his comments were (he was constantly asking Joanne, who worked on the same team as me at that point, what the story was with herself and me) and soon after that, one of his clients complained about him and he got demoted.
Demoted Team Lead was always very personable though, which made it hard to dislike him. I still never really forgave him for that review but I'm beyond caring these days, and would actually be curious to see what he's upto now because he eventually got made redundant from that company.
Anyway, I have digressed substantially. My point: I love my lie-ins.
My trip to the doctor yesterday was OK, apart from the 45 minute wait (why do they make appointments, only to have you queue for ages along with everyone else?) and the horrible needles. I was in hospital before for a ruptured ulcer, and I was used as a human pin cushion by all the interns while I was in there. Since then, I've always had to avert my eyes when getting an injection. My GP is a pretty sound bloke though, and I hope I get someone half as decent over in Brighton.
I also verified my tax return and, no, it's not a mistake. I did owe the government 800 euro. Cobblers. It has been paid, and I now drown in bankruptcy. AIB must be contacted immediately. Grant application also gone off, the benefit of which I will be lucky to see before the end of the academic year, knowing me.
Later...
Monday, September 13, 2004
Financial strain go away, come again another day
Christ, it's been pissing rain all day. When the bloody hell is it going to stop?
It's kind of fitting though. This morning, the notice of my tax return for 2003 came through the post this morning. I owe the government 800 euro. 800. The timing, of course, is just absolutely brilliant, broke as I am and about to leave for Brighton next week. I'm coming out in a cold sweat about the financial side of all this. The tax return that I got this morning can now be used as an official document for the grant application, so I can now proceed with that, even though it's already two weeks late. The grant people should understand as it's a legitimate reason for a late application, but the tardiness means that I probably won't get the actual money until halfway through the academic year. This is assuming, of course, that the money I owe the government was computed correctly, and I have a feeling it wasn't, which could mean more delays. And I have to come up with £500 by October 11 for the first term's rent on my apartment. Some serious footwork will have to be executed in the next few days to salvage something from all this. I was going to sever all ties with Allied Irish Banks before going to Brighton, but now it looks like I'll have to keep doing business with them, purely for the sake of a student loan.
Anyway, the weekend was good. Joanne arrived at close to 10pm on Saturday into Mallow thanks to a train delay, but after that we hit town straight away. The Olde Fiddle, the Gallery, and Albert Lynches were the bars that we took in, before heading to Chasers, which was a good laugh. We tried to get into 'Light', basically a refurbished version of the Chapel Lane night club, but it was full! I'll give it a few weeks and it'll be back to it's usual half-dead self. Chasers, a club that doesn't have a charge on the door, has hit it's rival in the pocket, and I can only say that it's deserved.
Yesterday, we were too hungover to do anything, and we just stayed in and watched Copycat. Today we headed into town and I saw Joanne off at the train station. She left me a good luck card before she went, which was nice. Thanks J :-)
I also have to have my Hepatitis B vaccine before I go to Brighton. I was told about this by the university ages ago, but of course I let it slide, and only now has my appointment been made with my GP. I've to see him at 9:20 tommorrow, but apparently a whole course of Hep B vaccines takes months. Hopefully this won't cock things up over in college. I'll speak to him tommorrow. Hopefully it'll be good. It'd better be, I don't think I can take any more catastrophes.
Lastly, it appears that the barely-cordial relations I had with someone I used to work with, on-and-off in Dublin, have had a torpedo driven through them. When I had left work on the 25th of last month, this guy was on holiday, so I mailed him last week after he got back basically wishing him well. I got back my original mail as a reply, but with a load of snide comments inserted by him, which he may have thought were funny, but for me were out of order, pure and simple. I replied back in the same fashion, and then so did he, and then I, and then today he, with more little-kid insults, such as references to how I had failed college before, and how I would fail again as I didn't have what it takes to finish a pharmacy degree (this from someone who succeeded in surprising me by telling me he had been to third-level himself), and how he hoped that this would be how I would 'discover my limits'. This was someone I was never really sure about, for as long as I've known him, but, well, I know him now. This guy was actually in charge of me at one stage, believe it or not. Anyway, monkeys like him are the main reason why I left testing in the first place, and that was one of the many things I said to him, when I mailed him for the last time today. It may not do my chances of working there again during summer months any good, but then again he doesn't have enough influence in there to really affect hiring decisions, and it's for the best that I try to get work in England over the summer from now on.
I'm on the home stretch now. Meeting Kate on Friday for goodbye drinks in Cork. Meeting Mallow people on Saturday night for the same. Meeting Seána at some stage before I go as well. It's going to be a busy week.
It was my mother's birthday on Saturday. 9/11 is a great day to have your birthday these days, isn't it? Naturally I had no idea what to get her, so it was book tokens again. My brother's birthday is on Wednesday. I reckon a card with the overriding theme on it as beer should suffice.
It's kind of fitting though. This morning, the notice of my tax return for 2003 came through the post this morning. I owe the government 800 euro. 800. The timing, of course, is just absolutely brilliant, broke as I am and about to leave for Brighton next week. I'm coming out in a cold sweat about the financial side of all this. The tax return that I got this morning can now be used as an official document for the grant application, so I can now proceed with that, even though it's already two weeks late. The grant people should understand as it's a legitimate reason for a late application, but the tardiness means that I probably won't get the actual money until halfway through the academic year. This is assuming, of course, that the money I owe the government was computed correctly, and I have a feeling it wasn't, which could mean more delays. And I have to come up with £500 by October 11 for the first term's rent on my apartment. Some serious footwork will have to be executed in the next few days to salvage something from all this. I was going to sever all ties with Allied Irish Banks before going to Brighton, but now it looks like I'll have to keep doing business with them, purely for the sake of a student loan.
Anyway, the weekend was good. Joanne arrived at close to 10pm on Saturday into Mallow thanks to a train delay, but after that we hit town straight away. The Olde Fiddle, the Gallery, and Albert Lynches were the bars that we took in, before heading to Chasers, which was a good laugh. We tried to get into 'Light', basically a refurbished version of the Chapel Lane night club, but it was full! I'll give it a few weeks and it'll be back to it's usual half-dead self. Chasers, a club that doesn't have a charge on the door, has hit it's rival in the pocket, and I can only say that it's deserved.
Yesterday, we were too hungover to do anything, and we just stayed in and watched Copycat. Today we headed into town and I saw Joanne off at the train station. She left me a good luck card before she went, which was nice. Thanks J :-)
I also have to have my Hepatitis B vaccine before I go to Brighton. I was told about this by the university ages ago, but of course I let it slide, and only now has my appointment been made with my GP. I've to see him at 9:20 tommorrow, but apparently a whole course of Hep B vaccines takes months. Hopefully this won't cock things up over in college. I'll speak to him tommorrow. Hopefully it'll be good. It'd better be, I don't think I can take any more catastrophes.
Lastly, it appears that the barely-cordial relations I had with someone I used to work with, on-and-off in Dublin, have had a torpedo driven through them. When I had left work on the 25th of last month, this guy was on holiday, so I mailed him last week after he got back basically wishing him well. I got back my original mail as a reply, but with a load of snide comments inserted by him, which he may have thought were funny, but for me were out of order, pure and simple. I replied back in the same fashion, and then so did he, and then I, and then today he, with more little-kid insults, such as references to how I had failed college before, and how I would fail again as I didn't have what it takes to finish a pharmacy degree (this from someone who succeeded in surprising me by telling me he had been to third-level himself), and how he hoped that this would be how I would 'discover my limits'. This was someone I was never really sure about, for as long as I've known him, but, well, I know him now. This guy was actually in charge of me at one stage, believe it or not. Anyway, monkeys like him are the main reason why I left testing in the first place, and that was one of the many things I said to him, when I mailed him for the last time today. It may not do my chances of working there again during summer months any good, but then again he doesn't have enough influence in there to really affect hiring decisions, and it's for the best that I try to get work in England over the summer from now on.
I'm on the home stretch now. Meeting Kate on Friday for goodbye drinks in Cork. Meeting Mallow people on Saturday night for the same. Meeting Seána at some stage before I go as well. It's going to be a busy week.
It was my mother's birthday on Saturday. 9/11 is a great day to have your birthday these days, isn't it? Naturally I had no idea what to get her, so it was book tokens again. My brother's birthday is on Wednesday. I reckon a card with the overriding theme on it as beer should suffice.
Friday, September 10, 2004
The weekend
Friday in the cesspit of my childhood.
Well, it's been a productive couple of days. Yesterday my Dad drove me to Dublin and picked up the rest of my stuff from the house, so now all loose ends have been tied up. I felt a bit guilty for making him drop me off at home before picking up Mam but the car was such an oven from the hot weather I was starting to overheat. Oh well, I made it up to him later by moving a load of turf, so anyway...
It turns out I was wrong about the dilemma of flying to Gatwick. Bmibaby.com does flights from Cork to Gatwick, and my one has just been booked! Yay me! All I have to do now is book the B&B for Monday night.
Today, I went to Cork to visit my orthodontist. I've been in 'retention' for 3 years now, so he took off the fixed bar from the inside of the front of my bottom teeth. For the first time since I got braces, my mouth is now clear. This is good.
After that, I went to the cinema. Before I start on the film I have to ask: When did holding a conversation at normal volume in a cinema become the accepted norm? Nearly every time I've been to the cinema lately, I've invariably had to almost shout at someone to be quiet before they stop talking. It's at its most prevalent in the muliplex-type cinemas, but is a rare enough occurrence in the more arthouse cinemas. This makes sense: The latter attract a serious audience who actually want to see a film, whereas the former is a draw for any old joe gobshite, but at some point people seemed to start actually paying 6 euros just to use a film as background noise while they have a conversation. I derived a theory from the book 'No Logo' (Naomi Klein) about how the more like a shopping mall a place is, the more people are in 'browse' mode, just wandering around in a daze, not actually engaging themselves in anything. No coincidence then, that the cinemas that resemble a shopping mall in appearance, with the bar, snack section, and coffee counter, attract a bored, dazed, and (to put it very mildly) sheep-like clientele. The UGC in Dublin suffered from this, and by all accounts (though I've never been) the Liffey Valley centre is the same. I nearly came to blows with a bunch of pre-teen brats today in the Gate cinema in Cork, and even the usher had words a few times. They eventually left, about half an hour before the end. The next time I come across this, direct action will result. Unfortunately today, the law was on the side of the guilty party by default. Otherwise there would be one or two little shits in a dumpster now.
* DON'T WORRY, NO REAL SPOILERS AHEAD *
Anyway, I saw The Terminal. It's by Steven Speilberg, and as you'd expect, is an enjoyable piece of escapist fluff. He may make them commercial, but he does commercial better than almost anyone else, especially when you consider the competition. Tom Hanks stars as Viktor Navorski, a man from a country that had undergone a coup of some sort just after he left it, and as such, it's status as a country is uncertain. Because of this, he finds that his passport has been revoked, and he is stuck in an airport terminal , and he can't leave. It's wholesome, feelgood, and a bit silly, but worth the few bob of the entrance fee. Ms. Zeta-Jones is in here too, and so is Stanley Tucci, who as usual has been cast as the prick of the piece. The only quibble I have with it is the constant product placement throughout. Speilberg seems to love his brands, they representing, he seems to feel, All That Is Great About America. That, and the way that New York in the film seems to represent some promised land. Aul' Steve must have a boner for the symbolism of the cities of the great red, white and blue. And maybe he could have done more with Zoë Saldana's character (immigration control officer), I think. But, like I said, still decent. You may just need to leave your brain at the door.
The packing of a .44 magnum for the noisy little shits, however, is entirely up to you.
Well, it's been a productive couple of days. Yesterday my Dad drove me to Dublin and picked up the rest of my stuff from the house, so now all loose ends have been tied up. I felt a bit guilty for making him drop me off at home before picking up Mam but the car was such an oven from the hot weather I was starting to overheat. Oh well, I made it up to him later by moving a load of turf, so anyway...
It turns out I was wrong about the dilemma of flying to Gatwick. Bmibaby.com does flights from Cork to Gatwick, and my one has just been booked! Yay me! All I have to do now is book the B&B for Monday night.
Today, I went to Cork to visit my orthodontist. I've been in 'retention' for 3 years now, so he took off the fixed bar from the inside of the front of my bottom teeth. For the first time since I got braces, my mouth is now clear. This is good.
After that, I went to the cinema. Before I start on the film I have to ask: When did holding a conversation at normal volume in a cinema become the accepted norm? Nearly every time I've been to the cinema lately, I've invariably had to almost shout at someone to be quiet before they stop talking. It's at its most prevalent in the muliplex-type cinemas, but is a rare enough occurrence in the more arthouse cinemas. This makes sense: The latter attract a serious audience who actually want to see a film, whereas the former is a draw for any old joe gobshite, but at some point people seemed to start actually paying 6 euros just to use a film as background noise while they have a conversation. I derived a theory from the book 'No Logo' (Naomi Klein) about how the more like a shopping mall a place is, the more people are in 'browse' mode, just wandering around in a daze, not actually engaging themselves in anything. No coincidence then, that the cinemas that resemble a shopping mall in appearance, with the bar, snack section, and coffee counter, attract a bored, dazed, and (to put it very mildly) sheep-like clientele. The UGC in Dublin suffered from this, and by all accounts (though I've never been) the Liffey Valley centre is the same. I nearly came to blows with a bunch of pre-teen brats today in the Gate cinema in Cork, and even the usher had words a few times. They eventually left, about half an hour before the end. The next time I come across this, direct action will result. Unfortunately today, the law was on the side of the guilty party by default. Otherwise there would be one or two little shits in a dumpster now.
* DON'T WORRY, NO REAL SPOILERS AHEAD *
Anyway, I saw The Terminal. It's by Steven Speilberg, and as you'd expect, is an enjoyable piece of escapist fluff. He may make them commercial, but he does commercial better than almost anyone else, especially when you consider the competition. Tom Hanks stars as Viktor Navorski, a man from a country that had undergone a coup of some sort just after he left it, and as such, it's status as a country is uncertain. Because of this, he finds that his passport has been revoked, and he is stuck in an airport terminal , and he can't leave. It's wholesome, feelgood, and a bit silly, but worth the few bob of the entrance fee. Ms. Zeta-Jones is in here too, and so is Stanley Tucci, who as usual has been cast as the prick of the piece. The only quibble I have with it is the constant product placement throughout. Speilberg seems to love his brands, they representing, he seems to feel, All That Is Great About America. That, and the way that New York in the film seems to represent some promised land. Aul' Steve must have a boner for the symbolism of the cities of the great red, white and blue. And maybe he could have done more with Zoë Saldana's character (immigration control officer), I think. But, like I said, still decent. You may just need to leave your brain at the door.
The packing of a .44 magnum for the noisy little shits, however, is entirely up to you.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Ho Hum
Midweek in the town of my childhood.
I've been here for 10 days now and not one trip to the pub. I can understand how people calm down as they get older, but Jesus! My friends over in this neck of the woods are the polar opposite of the ones I have in Dublin these days. In the good old days where I worked, if you stood up on a Friday evening and said 'Pint, anyone?', you nearly had to get out of the way for the stampede. Down here, people don't even seem to go out for weekends anymore. It's a mortgage broker's dream, with half the people I know well and truly settled in houses of their own. Some arm-twisting is going to have to be done.
I'm about to book the flight from Dublin to London Gatwick for Monday the 20th. I have found, to my indescribable irritation, that I can only fly to Stansted or Heathrow from Cork, and I have too much luggage to go through the ordeal of dragging myself halfway across London before I get to Brighton, so I have to fly to Gatwick. This means a train journey to Dublin before I fly out. Fuck!
I'm still ruminating about the choice I've made, but my mother reckons I'm doing the right thing, which is something. I read something in the Irish Times the other day about an arts graduate who was at the mercy of a call-centre corporation before she finally quit and did a primary-teaching conversion course. It's a fate that I fear would befall me if I did Psychology, but I've been down this road before and I'm not going to moan about it again. Incidentally, that article in the Irish Times implied that while there were more jobs here now than there were years back, quite a lot of them are boring, monotonous, or just plain uninspiring, being provided by large multinationals. This rings a rather familiar-sounding bell.
A group of Mallow people I know are heading to Blessington this weeekend in honour of one of the girl's 30th birthday, which is halfway up the country. Which makes it out of my league, financially. As the junket was her idea, she'd better not moan about me not being able to make it. Anyway, Joanne is coming down on the Saturday for two nights so that should be a laugh. On the phone earlier, I said 'Now you can experience first hand what I had to grow up with'. She laughed. I was serious.
My preliminary reading is not going according to plan. The progress is slow and tortuous (I am currently studying trends in the periodic table and redox reactions, gripping stuff) but I keep getting up to make cups of coffee and eat things, which I really shouldn't be doing as I am not getting to a gym at all at the moment. Tommorrow I make a trip to Dublin with my dear Dad in the car as I have to pick up the last few things from my old flat (TV, stand, and some tapes). Not at all looking forward to it but it has to be done.
Lastly, I reckon I will still go ahead and buy that computer in Brighton. The question is, which one? Apple Powerbook G4 or Apple iMac G5. The G4 has the advantage of being portable, and a colour that is not white. The G5 has the better processor. Decisions, decisions. Probably the G4. Oh Barclays, I have a favour to ask of you!
My cousin Mark and his girlfriend e-mailed me earlier to re-iterate their invitation to their place whenever I had the time. which was nice, and very much appreciated. If only I had the time to spare.
Anyway, bed.
I've been here for 10 days now and not one trip to the pub. I can understand how people calm down as they get older, but Jesus! My friends over in this neck of the woods are the polar opposite of the ones I have in Dublin these days. In the good old days where I worked, if you stood up on a Friday evening and said 'Pint, anyone?', you nearly had to get out of the way for the stampede. Down here, people don't even seem to go out for weekends anymore. It's a mortgage broker's dream, with half the people I know well and truly settled in houses of their own. Some arm-twisting is going to have to be done.
I'm about to book the flight from Dublin to London Gatwick for Monday the 20th. I have found, to my indescribable irritation, that I can only fly to Stansted or Heathrow from Cork, and I have too much luggage to go through the ordeal of dragging myself halfway across London before I get to Brighton, so I have to fly to Gatwick. This means a train journey to Dublin before I fly out. Fuck!
I'm still ruminating about the choice I've made, but my mother reckons I'm doing the right thing, which is something. I read something in the Irish Times the other day about an arts graduate who was at the mercy of a call-centre corporation before she finally quit and did a primary-teaching conversion course. It's a fate that I fear would befall me if I did Psychology, but I've been down this road before and I'm not going to moan about it again. Incidentally, that article in the Irish Times implied that while there were more jobs here now than there were years back, quite a lot of them are boring, monotonous, or just plain uninspiring, being provided by large multinationals. This rings a rather familiar-sounding bell.
A group of Mallow people I know are heading to Blessington this weeekend in honour of one of the girl's 30th birthday, which is halfway up the country. Which makes it out of my league, financially. As the junket was her idea, she'd better not moan about me not being able to make it. Anyway, Joanne is coming down on the Saturday for two nights so that should be a laugh. On the phone earlier, I said 'Now you can experience first hand what I had to grow up with'. She laughed. I was serious.
My preliminary reading is not going according to plan. The progress is slow and tortuous (I am currently studying trends in the periodic table and redox reactions, gripping stuff) but I keep getting up to make cups of coffee and eat things, which I really shouldn't be doing as I am not getting to a gym at all at the moment. Tommorrow I make a trip to Dublin with my dear Dad in the car as I have to pick up the last few things from my old flat (TV, stand, and some tapes). Not at all looking forward to it but it has to be done.
Lastly, I reckon I will still go ahead and buy that computer in Brighton. The question is, which one? Apple Powerbook G4 or Apple iMac G5. The G4 has the advantage of being portable, and a colour that is not white. The G5 has the better processor. Decisions, decisions. Probably the G4. Oh Barclays, I have a favour to ask of you!
My cousin Mark and his girlfriend e-mailed me earlier to re-iterate their invitation to their place whenever I had the time. which was nice, and very much appreciated. If only I had the time to spare.
Anyway, bed.
Friday, September 03, 2004
The 'beautiful' game
'Football attracts morons. You'd have to be a moron to deny it. Unlike any other sport or pastime, football is like a magnet for the small-minded. Vicious, hateful, selfish, lifeless vermin flock to football like wasps to a discarded coke can.'
(From this week's issue of The Friday Thing)
That just about sums it up for me. It always has. The 'integrity' of football is under the spotlight again this week, in the aftermath of Wayne Rooney signing for Man United. I had no idea this transfer had taken place until I read the full text of the article referenced above, and I am proud to admit that. I was dimly aware of Rooney featuring in the news more than usual this week, but I thought it was just the tired 'journalism' of The Sun, trying to keep his flame alive after the World Cup,in the same way it has been doing it for David Beckham since he moved to Real Madrid. It turns out he's defected from Everton. Well whoopee doo!
Unfortunately, some Everton supporters have not seen it this way. Some thoughtful people have sprayed grafitti all over Merseyside likening him to Judas Iscariot (I can't help but wonder how many of them have actually read the bible, or even the passage that relates to The Last Supper), and a 'picture' of Paul Stretford, Rooney's agent, has also been rendered, depicting him in a hangman's noose. On top of that, Stretford's contact details have been given out on an unofficial Everton fansite, and as a result, he has received some rather substantial abuse at the hands of these disgruntled Everton supporters. Really, how empty must a person's life be for them to allow an institution such as football, or more specifically a football club like Everton, to exert such an influence on their life? Please God these people don't reproduce, that's all I'm asking.
I can't remember exactly when the rot for this sport set in for me, but I was young. I don't know if my disinterest grew from my lack of aptitude for it, or whether my lack of success in it was down to my disinterest for it, but by the time I hit secondary school, there was very little I hated more than the weekly PE session, with the attendant ritual of team selection for soccer/football/rugby/whatever the hell it was. I was always the last to be picked, and this pissed me off. Not in a boo-hoo-nobody-loves-me kind of way, but because that was the one time I had to acquiesce to being judged by someone else's rules. And I held almost everyone in my year in contempt. This odd-man-out phenomenon probably owed something to the fact that, during the game, when I saw a ball headed for me I generally tended to avoid it rather than intercept it, but I was damned if I was going to make an effort for something I had been forced into in spite of my lack of enthusiasm for it. Someone should have pointed out to my Phys. Ed. teacher that constantly playing ball sports is not necessarily commensurate with physical fitness, and if the latter was the point of the whole class, then we should have been in a gym instead. But I digress.
I got into hurling for a while, but lost interest in that as well. There was a long line of staunch GAA* figurheads on my father's side, and that line ended very abruptly with me. My grandfather, God rest him, was head of Duhallow GAA, and while his son, my father, never quite scaled those dizzying heights, he was prominent in handball and also was a frequent attender of sunday afternoon football matches in BallyGoBackwards. He tried to get me into those. It failed. He tried to get me into handball. It worked for a while (I think I even won a medal once), but eventually that failed too.
When I was very young, under 10, I remember enjoying games of football, but somehow somewhere that stopped. Looking back, I think that this coincided with the latter stages of the establishment of my identity, and it makes sense. I could never have continued to follow sports such as soccer like this. Why? Because of the fact that they are a world-wide institution at this stage, they are the stuff of everymen, and to participate is the ultimate act of conformity.
My brother-in-law once said that football is an instant passport wherever you go. He meant it in a good way, but he was right. It allows instant acceptance into an established world-wide community, and it disguises the fact that, football aside, you could be the most socially inept misfit on the planet with absolutely nothing to say about anything. Some people think this is the beauty of it, and if you want to be assimilated into the general population without ever standing up to be counted, then there lies the appeal. Straight away, you belong. Another rather baffling feature of this sport are followers (I have met ones like these) who can recall tables of numbers relating to the premiership games in a given year with an ease and accuracy that would make an actuary envious.
Irish GAA is much the same but with a rural tinge. It lacks the sleaze of English-based soccer, but it almost makes up for it by having a substantial agricultural element to its following. Which is why I never got into that either. It's a different side to the same coin.
I don't think this dislike stems from a lack of a competitive streak, just a refusal to identify with the followers of these sports. Interestingly, the more specialised sports don't have to suffer these people as a following. To my knowledge, discus throwing isn't followed by loads of lager-swilling non-entities in a pub somewhere. Well, my little band of inconsequential vegetables, can you tell me why that is? I've said before that a movement is in part characterised by it's followers, and this is why football has come to be regarded in the way it is now.
Anyway, back to Rooney. Who cares? He's lucky to be doing what he loves at such a young age, at such a level where he can make a substantial living out of it. He's not so lucky that he was pulled from formal education at such a young age, before he had reached a level that would have given him a chance to make some other living, should the first one expire (If, in fact, Rooney got a string of A-levels before he started playing professional football, please feel free to correct me). He may turn out to be a well-balanced man in spite of everything, but we'll have to wait and see.
I've always noticed that someone's rapid ascent to superstardom is almost always followed by a plunge that is equally as abrupt. What goes up must come down, as they say. I noticed his star rose quickly during the world cup (You've got to believe me, I tried everything to get away from it) and I especially noticed the toe-curling manner in which all of a sudden, lots of sports commentators became an authority on him. Someone should tell these people that constantly talking about someone else, especially when you are part of a queue of many, makes you look like nothing more than a subject of that person.
So there you go. Conclusion: Some football supporters desperately need to grow up, but the sheep mentality that surrounds these things will almost guarantee that they don't. And don't even get me started on Baddiel and Skinner.
Oh, and David Beckham is a dad again. The journalists at The Sun must be wetting themselves with glee. That's them kept in jobs for at least another year.
God help us.
*Gaelic Athletic Association, for you readers who are unacquainted with the finer points of Irish culture.
(From this week's issue of The Friday Thing)
That just about sums it up for me. It always has. The 'integrity' of football is under the spotlight again this week, in the aftermath of Wayne Rooney signing for Man United. I had no idea this transfer had taken place until I read the full text of the article referenced above, and I am proud to admit that. I was dimly aware of Rooney featuring in the news more than usual this week, but I thought it was just the tired 'journalism' of The Sun, trying to keep his flame alive after the World Cup,in the same way it has been doing it for David Beckham since he moved to Real Madrid. It turns out he's defected from Everton. Well whoopee doo!
Unfortunately, some Everton supporters have not seen it this way. Some thoughtful people have sprayed grafitti all over Merseyside likening him to Judas Iscariot (I can't help but wonder how many of them have actually read the bible, or even the passage that relates to The Last Supper), and a 'picture' of Paul Stretford, Rooney's agent, has also been rendered, depicting him in a hangman's noose. On top of that, Stretford's contact details have been given out on an unofficial Everton fansite, and as a result, he has received some rather substantial abuse at the hands of these disgruntled Everton supporters. Really, how empty must a person's life be for them to allow an institution such as football, or more specifically a football club like Everton, to exert such an influence on their life? Please God these people don't reproduce, that's all I'm asking.
I can't remember exactly when the rot for this sport set in for me, but I was young. I don't know if my disinterest grew from my lack of aptitude for it, or whether my lack of success in it was down to my disinterest for it, but by the time I hit secondary school, there was very little I hated more than the weekly PE session, with the attendant ritual of team selection for soccer/football/rugby/whatever the hell it was. I was always the last to be picked, and this pissed me off. Not in a boo-hoo-nobody-loves-me kind of way, but because that was the one time I had to acquiesce to being judged by someone else's rules. And I held almost everyone in my year in contempt. This odd-man-out phenomenon probably owed something to the fact that, during the game, when I saw a ball headed for me I generally tended to avoid it rather than intercept it, but I was damned if I was going to make an effort for something I had been forced into in spite of my lack of enthusiasm for it. Someone should have pointed out to my Phys. Ed. teacher that constantly playing ball sports is not necessarily commensurate with physical fitness, and if the latter was the point of the whole class, then we should have been in a gym instead. But I digress.
I got into hurling for a while, but lost interest in that as well. There was a long line of staunch GAA* figurheads on my father's side, and that line ended very abruptly with me. My grandfather, God rest him, was head of Duhallow GAA, and while his son, my father, never quite scaled those dizzying heights, he was prominent in handball and also was a frequent attender of sunday afternoon football matches in BallyGoBackwards. He tried to get me into those. It failed. He tried to get me into handball. It worked for a while (I think I even won a medal once), but eventually that failed too.
When I was very young, under 10, I remember enjoying games of football, but somehow somewhere that stopped. Looking back, I think that this coincided with the latter stages of the establishment of my identity, and it makes sense. I could never have continued to follow sports such as soccer like this. Why? Because of the fact that they are a world-wide institution at this stage, they are the stuff of everymen, and to participate is the ultimate act of conformity.
My brother-in-law once said that football is an instant passport wherever you go. He meant it in a good way, but he was right. It allows instant acceptance into an established world-wide community, and it disguises the fact that, football aside, you could be the most socially inept misfit on the planet with absolutely nothing to say about anything. Some people think this is the beauty of it, and if you want to be assimilated into the general population without ever standing up to be counted, then there lies the appeal. Straight away, you belong. Another rather baffling feature of this sport are followers (I have met ones like these) who can recall tables of numbers relating to the premiership games in a given year with an ease and accuracy that would make an actuary envious.
Irish GAA is much the same but with a rural tinge. It lacks the sleaze of English-based soccer, but it almost makes up for it by having a substantial agricultural element to its following. Which is why I never got into that either. It's a different side to the same coin.
I don't think this dislike stems from a lack of a competitive streak, just a refusal to identify with the followers of these sports. Interestingly, the more specialised sports don't have to suffer these people as a following. To my knowledge, discus throwing isn't followed by loads of lager-swilling non-entities in a pub somewhere. Well, my little band of inconsequential vegetables, can you tell me why that is? I've said before that a movement is in part characterised by it's followers, and this is why football has come to be regarded in the way it is now.
Anyway, back to Rooney. Who cares? He's lucky to be doing what he loves at such a young age, at such a level where he can make a substantial living out of it. He's not so lucky that he was pulled from formal education at such a young age, before he had reached a level that would have given him a chance to make some other living, should the first one expire (If, in fact, Rooney got a string of A-levels before he started playing professional football, please feel free to correct me). He may turn out to be a well-balanced man in spite of everything, but we'll have to wait and see.
I've always noticed that someone's rapid ascent to superstardom is almost always followed by a plunge that is equally as abrupt. What goes up must come down, as they say. I noticed his star rose quickly during the world cup (You've got to believe me, I tried everything to get away from it) and I especially noticed the toe-curling manner in which all of a sudden, lots of sports commentators became an authority on him. Someone should tell these people that constantly talking about someone else, especially when you are part of a queue of many, makes you look like nothing more than a subject of that person.
So there you go. Conclusion: Some football supporters desperately need to grow up, but the sheep mentality that surrounds these things will almost guarantee that they don't. And don't even get me started on Baddiel and Skinner.
Oh, and David Beckham is a dad again. The journalists at The Sun must be wetting themselves with glee. That's them kept in jobs for at least another year.
God help us.
*Gaelic Athletic Association, for you readers who are unacquainted with the finer points of Irish culture.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Catch up
Whew! Well, it's been an eventful week, that's for sure. I'm back from Holland since monday, and have now moved all my stuff home from Dublin, so I'm gone from there as well. This is the first time I have been based at home for years.
It's been a good 7 days all in all, and to do them justice I'll have to deal with them separately. Be warned, this is a long one.
Wednesday 25th (picking up from the last post): The job finished well enough. At 5:30 I said my goodbyes with company-wide e-mails and left. I was joined in town at about 6:30 for drinks with people who wanted to give me a bit of a send-off. As it was a Wednesday, it understated enough, but it was a nice touch. Thanks to Denis, Pat D, Linus, and Mary for turning up. My plan was to leave at around 9, but the lads told me that when they had said this to the others in the office, a gale of laughter blew around the room. Given that I ended up leaving at 12, I can kind of see where they're coming from now....
Thursday 26th: Vile. I got up reasonably early and got ready for the trip to the airport. The plan was also to fill out the third-level grant application form before I left, but boy, did that idea go out the window. At 11:30 at the house, with everything packed and checkin in 1 hour, I discovered my wallet had gone AWOL. I had very cleverly packed it in the bottom of one of the bags, and it took me twenty minutes to find it. I was a ball of sweat at this stage, and there were hardly any taxis to be had in Rialto. One cabbie who was waiting outside the hospital for a client took pity on me and brought me to the airport. Once I was checked in, everything was cool.
The flight itself was fine, cheap and cheerful, with a company called Basiqair. As usual, my discomfort of flying was present. I can't work out when this came about, as I always had a problem with heights, but as a child we used to fly to Holland and it never really bothered me (apart from the bloody ear-popping), but somewhere along the line, flying became an uneasy experience for me. Now, I always try and get an aisle seat, and if I'm next to a window, that motherfucker shutter is going down! I think there was a long gap between my last flight as a teenager and my first one as an adult, and that was where the worry set in. By the way, I love the manner in which pilots deliver the final announcement, 'We are now preparing to land' which should actually read, 'Please prepare yourself while we simulate an extreme crash landing'. I swear, we must have bounced along the runaway about three times.
Having got into Rotterdam, I didn't have much of a problem finding anything, as almost all of the Dutch are pretty much bilingual, with English being almost second nature. They don't even need explanations. Consider the following conversation, where I was looking for directions at Rotterdam Centraal train station:
Me (at information desk): Excuse me. Platform twelve?
Woman (regarding me with curiousity): What?
Me (pathetically attempting Dutch): Spoor twelf?
Woman (quickly becoming irritated beyond belief): Yes, but what is your question?!
Once I had randomly pressed a few buttons on an electronic machine (it was all in Dutch), I had my ticket and headed off.
Got to Deventer and was then trying to ring my mother but none of the phone numbers she had given me were accessible from my phone while it was on a foreign network. Eventually I got through to my sister, and my lunatic drinker of an uncle-in-law (Joop) was dispatched to collect me. An hour and a half later, I was shaking hands and triple-kissing the aunties and uncles. A lot of them hadn't seen me since I was seventeen, nor I them, so it was nice to catch up.
I got settled at my cousin's apartment who was living there with his girlfriend (no brother yet), and was surprised to learn he was only paying 350 euros for what was a very nice place. It was subsidised, being a council house, but it was in a different league to the council houses here. I tried to make friends with their cats, but they seemed more interested in clawing the furniture and they flounced out of the room anytime I started talking to them. Well Shimmy and Epa, that's just fine by me!
Friday 27th: Slept until 1 (well, wouldn't you!), and then got up and visited my parents and brother-in-law and sister, who were stationed in self-contained apartments. Then we went shopping. I couldn't get over how cheap everything was. It really was a revelation. My parents bought fourteen bottles of decent wine for 118 euro. My sister did a big shop, some of which consisted of alcohol, and it came to 40 euro! She just laughed and said that there must have been some mistake. Then the cashier laughed and said no, there wasn't.
Later, my brother arrived with his girlfriend, and they got settled in the room down the hall. Most of the weekend we actually got on fine, mercifully enough, although there still arose the odd occasion where I wanted to stuff him in a blender and hit 'Purée'. But not all that often, relatively speaking. I still think I won't be visiting him that much in London while I'm in Brighton though. It would need to be kept to a minimum, I feel.
We went to the pub later. We said it would just be for one. We ended up staying out until past one. Maybe that was what was intended, by someone somewhere. Somehow the subject of my taste for men came up in conversation with Claire (brother's girlfriend) and Marion (Mark the cousin's girlfriend). Marion was cool with that, but Claire, being a bit of a drama queen, thought I was going to announce that preference tommorrow when I said I wasn't going to lie about not having a girlfriend. I said I wasn't going make any such announcement, as it was my aunt's day. It was cleared up.
Once again, Dutch prices were highlighted. 1.75 euros for a bottle of Grolsch at the bar on a Friday night. Note to readers: If you live in Ireland, leave. If you don't, don't bother your arse coming on holiday, or if you do, bring a huge suitcase of money and be prepared to kiss it goodbye before the end of your soujourn, no matter how short that is. This country is a black hole for money and we are being ridden bareback.
Saturday 28th: Dragged myself out of bed at 10 to get ready for 11. It wasn't pretty, with my hangover, but I managed it. It still went the usual way, I was in the shower and my brother was annoying me with cries to hurry up. Yeah, like that's going to help!
We got to our venue, and met the rest of the aunties and uncles. I wasn't feeling the best but the good-time uncle Joop solved that by practically pouring beer down my throat. It worked, sort of.
The day overall was great. We had a meal, and then met some people and then the party kicked off at about 8. The coffee and beer was served by a hot, corn-fed fresh-faced waiter called Marcel. I want to disrobe him, and run my hands all over his naked body, and grasp his firm buttocks and...... Oh, calm DOWN, Denis......The great thing about the beer was that as soon as your glass looked half empty, a waiter would bring you another one without even being asked. It goes without saying that we were all blotto at the end of the night. Sample dialogue between me and my sister:
Seána: You hide it well, but you're a bit of a cutie.
Denis: When the bloody hell have I ever hidden it?
I also got talking to the one Dutch uncle-by-blood that I have, Gerrit. I always thought him fairly dour and he is a fairly depressive person, but he's actually got an understated, dry, sense of humour and the fact that he is completely unable to schmooze makes him a genuine person. Now that I'm older, I can understand him better. His wife's a cutie too, and she doesn't hide it either.
Afterwards, we went across to the bar and were greeted by a group of people singing Karaoke. As soon as they heard we were Irish, they started singing Boyzone. Christ. We had a couple of drinks there, and met Marcel, who had retired for a few. I shook his hand and said goodbye. I exercised restraint as I felt he was straight, and I was right. Claire indignantly pointed out that I should chat him up in preparation for Brighton, and when I refused, she went out and did it on my behalf, in spite of my instructions to the contrary.
He turned out to be straight, and wanted to get his hands on her! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
Sunday 29th: Slept until all hours. Bliss! Got up and went to have a meal in a restaurant. We had what I think is called a 'chef's menu' where you don't actually order anything. The chef decides and brings all the courses out to you instead. We also had champagne and lashings of wine. I would heartily recommend this place if I could remember the name of it, but all I recall is that it has two michelin stars.
One disconcerting thing that I noticed is that red wine can induce some really anti-social feelings in me, and that happened today. I'm blaming the red wine because it happened before that I felt really angry for no reason, and it was after red wine as well. I was on such a hair-trigger temper that I had to walk to one of my aunt's house while everyone else drove. Overall, sometimes it can be a combination of the wine and being around my immediate family (in particular my brother and sister and her husband) that can do it. It was the only flaw in an otherwise great evening, which I still enjoyed. We all congregated in a sitting room while I moaned about having to leave. The cutie aunt-in-law told me I should simply put everything off for a year and live in Ruurlo. I was tempted.
Before bed, back at Mark's house, I attempted to make friends with the rabbbit. He wasn't having it either, and when I picked him up, he struggled like his life depended on it. Maybe he thought I was looking at him with rabbit casserole eyes. I got a picture of him with the camera anyway. I'll stick them up here at a later date.
With drink and Claire in the equation, we got back to the topic of Denis digging men. Mark is a nice guy, and maybe I'm a bit jaded, but his protests of how it didn't change his opinion of me were very pronounced. Maybe he just felt he had to be emphatic. I just feel that it is something that doesn't need to be said by someone who knows me at this stage. Nevertheless, as it was pointed out, in time all my relatives over in that neck of the woods will find out, and when I come back there it should be a better experience for it.
Monday 30th: Had to get up at 5:45 in order to leave the house at 6:45. My uncle-in-law Wim drove a little less quickly than Joop and by the time we got to Deventer, the train I was supposed to get was pulling out of the station. I got the next one with Paul and Claire, which was an experience. We were probably still pissed from the night before from all the wine, and in the middle of all the commuters myself and Claire had a gigglefit at our inability to find decent seats. At 8:15 in the morning. With hangovers.
I had to change trains twice, at Amersfoort and at Utrecht, but I still managed to make the flight back to Dublin. On the plane, I was seated next to what one presumes were a married couple. Everything was cool until the little brat they had started screaming and wriggling. Then the little girl two rows up from us took her cue from him and did the same. Christ, I like children most of the time, but a chorus of caterwauling in a confined space is more than I can stand. The landing wasn't too bad this time, at least.
On the bus back into Dublin city, I noticed a hot bear guy sitting near me. I ogled him all the way into town, thinking about what I wanted to do to him. I wanted to feel the heat of his naked body next to mine. But I erred on the side of caution. It was only when we got off the bus at the last stop that I noticed the bear paw symbol tattooed on his hot, muscular (enough!) calf. I wanted to run after him but it would have been too obvious on O'Connell Street. Oh missed opportunity!
I went back to the house in Rialto and got some much-needed chill time. Then I went to Sarah's house for a bite to eat and some wine as I hadn't met her out on the Wednesday, but not before buying new runners in Schuh to go with the t-shirt I bought over the internet. My shopping habits have gone kinda gay lately, with all my worry of accessorising, but what the hell. The meal was nice anyway, and Sarah and me had hugs and kisses at the end.
The rest of the night was one of the worst, most stressful heart-attack inducing nights of my LIFE! I got back to the house at 8:15 with the intention of leaving that night for the 9pm train (my bed had been taken over by my replacement) so I brought all my stuff downstairs (8:30) and then got a taxi (8:40). Finally got to Heuston at 8:50 and had to buy my ticket AND get two trolleyloads of stuff onto the train. I also had forgotten my new shoes, but thank God Kieran had driven after us and brought them to me.
The journey home was quite shit as well, as all ten/twelve bags were piled against one door, and depending on whether or not that door faced onto a platform as it pulled into a station, I had to move them across the other door on the other side. At one point some woman moaned that she couldn't get out through the blocked door. I volunteered to wheel her suitcase down the length of the carriage to the next exit, just to shut her up. After, she thanked me. I think her gratitude should have been for the fact that she was still alive. Also, my parents had to go to bed because they were shattered from the holiday, but they booked a taxi for me before they headed off. I tried to ring the cabbie to explain that he would need to be on the platform to meet me and help me with my stuff, but the coup de grâce: my phone went dead. It also nearly flew out the window as a result, but I kept my head. Finally, I texted him.
At 12am Tuesday morning, I was home with all my stuff.
Tuesday 31st (Today): Didn't do much. Looked at some porn on my parents computer, which is what I am typing on now. Bed now.
Looking back, maybe I should have stayed on the couch in Rialto until Tuesday morning, but I had it in my head I was leaving and I wanted my own bed. A shame, as I never got to find out about Sinéad's weekend with the Scottish guy, and tell them about mine over in the Netherlands, but oh well. I might see them again, as I still have to go up and collect my television (no WAY was I attempting to bring that home as well!). Bloody hell, I'm almost sure I'd be beating myself up if I had decided to go the next day. I need to stop criticising myself needlessly.
So that's it. Dublin and flat over. Four years of testing finished. It feels strange looking back on it, now that I finally have time to breathe. I'll soldier on. It needs to be done. I still have to revise that A-level chemistry.
Thank the Lord for that holiday though. It was just what the doctor ordered.
Now I'm definitely going to bed.
It's been a good 7 days all in all, and to do them justice I'll have to deal with them separately. Be warned, this is a long one.
Wednesday 25th (picking up from the last post): The job finished well enough. At 5:30 I said my goodbyes with company-wide e-mails and left. I was joined in town at about 6:30 for drinks with people who wanted to give me a bit of a send-off. As it was a Wednesday, it understated enough, but it was a nice touch. Thanks to Denis, Pat D, Linus, and Mary for turning up. My plan was to leave at around 9, but the lads told me that when they had said this to the others in the office, a gale of laughter blew around the room. Given that I ended up leaving at 12, I can kind of see where they're coming from now....
Thursday 26th: Vile. I got up reasonably early and got ready for the trip to the airport. The plan was also to fill out the third-level grant application form before I left, but boy, did that idea go out the window. At 11:30 at the house, with everything packed and checkin in 1 hour, I discovered my wallet had gone AWOL. I had very cleverly packed it in the bottom of one of the bags, and it took me twenty minutes to find it. I was a ball of sweat at this stage, and there were hardly any taxis to be had in Rialto. One cabbie who was waiting outside the hospital for a client took pity on me and brought me to the airport. Once I was checked in, everything was cool.
The flight itself was fine, cheap and cheerful, with a company called Basiqair. As usual, my discomfort of flying was present. I can't work out when this came about, as I always had a problem with heights, but as a child we used to fly to Holland and it never really bothered me (apart from the bloody ear-popping), but somewhere along the line, flying became an uneasy experience for me. Now, I always try and get an aisle seat, and if I'm next to a window, that motherfucker shutter is going down! I think there was a long gap between my last flight as a teenager and my first one as an adult, and that was where the worry set in. By the way, I love the manner in which pilots deliver the final announcement, 'We are now preparing to land' which should actually read, 'Please prepare yourself while we simulate an extreme crash landing'. I swear, we must have bounced along the runaway about three times.
Having got into Rotterdam, I didn't have much of a problem finding anything, as almost all of the Dutch are pretty much bilingual, with English being almost second nature. They don't even need explanations. Consider the following conversation, where I was looking for directions at Rotterdam Centraal train station:
Me (at information desk): Excuse me. Platform twelve?
Woman (regarding me with curiousity): What?
Me (pathetically attempting Dutch): Spoor twelf?
Woman (quickly becoming irritated beyond belief): Yes, but what is your question?!
Once I had randomly pressed a few buttons on an electronic machine (it was all in Dutch), I had my ticket and headed off.
Got to Deventer and was then trying to ring my mother but none of the phone numbers she had given me were accessible from my phone while it was on a foreign network. Eventually I got through to my sister, and my lunatic drinker of an uncle-in-law (Joop) was dispatched to collect me. An hour and a half later, I was shaking hands and triple-kissing the aunties and uncles. A lot of them hadn't seen me since I was seventeen, nor I them, so it was nice to catch up.
I got settled at my cousin's apartment who was living there with his girlfriend (no brother yet), and was surprised to learn he was only paying 350 euros for what was a very nice place. It was subsidised, being a council house, but it was in a different league to the council houses here. I tried to make friends with their cats, but they seemed more interested in clawing the furniture and they flounced out of the room anytime I started talking to them. Well Shimmy and Epa, that's just fine by me!
Friday 27th: Slept until 1 (well, wouldn't you!), and then got up and visited my parents and brother-in-law and sister, who were stationed in self-contained apartments. Then we went shopping. I couldn't get over how cheap everything was. It really was a revelation. My parents bought fourteen bottles of decent wine for 118 euro. My sister did a big shop, some of which consisted of alcohol, and it came to 40 euro! She just laughed and said that there must have been some mistake. Then the cashier laughed and said no, there wasn't.
Later, my brother arrived with his girlfriend, and they got settled in the room down the hall. Most of the weekend we actually got on fine, mercifully enough, although there still arose the odd occasion where I wanted to stuff him in a blender and hit 'Purée'. But not all that often, relatively speaking. I still think I won't be visiting him that much in London while I'm in Brighton though. It would need to be kept to a minimum, I feel.
We went to the pub later. We said it would just be for one. We ended up staying out until past one. Maybe that was what was intended, by someone somewhere. Somehow the subject of my taste for men came up in conversation with Claire (brother's girlfriend) and Marion (Mark the cousin's girlfriend). Marion was cool with that, but Claire, being a bit of a drama queen, thought I was going to announce that preference tommorrow when I said I wasn't going to lie about not having a girlfriend. I said I wasn't going make any such announcement, as it was my aunt's day. It was cleared up.
Once again, Dutch prices were highlighted. 1.75 euros for a bottle of Grolsch at the bar on a Friday night. Note to readers: If you live in Ireland, leave. If you don't, don't bother your arse coming on holiday, or if you do, bring a huge suitcase of money and be prepared to kiss it goodbye before the end of your soujourn, no matter how short that is. This country is a black hole for money and we are being ridden bareback.
Saturday 28th: Dragged myself out of bed at 10 to get ready for 11. It wasn't pretty, with my hangover, but I managed it. It still went the usual way, I was in the shower and my brother was annoying me with cries to hurry up. Yeah, like that's going to help!
We got to our venue, and met the rest of the aunties and uncles. I wasn't feeling the best but the good-time uncle Joop solved that by practically pouring beer down my throat. It worked, sort of.
The day overall was great. We had a meal, and then met some people and then the party kicked off at about 8. The coffee and beer was served by a hot, corn-fed fresh-faced waiter called Marcel. I want to disrobe him, and run my hands all over his naked body, and grasp his firm buttocks and...... Oh, calm DOWN, Denis......The great thing about the beer was that as soon as your glass looked half empty, a waiter would bring you another one without even being asked. It goes without saying that we were all blotto at the end of the night. Sample dialogue between me and my sister:
Seána: You hide it well, but you're a bit of a cutie.
Denis: When the bloody hell have I ever hidden it?
I also got talking to the one Dutch uncle-by-blood that I have, Gerrit. I always thought him fairly dour and he is a fairly depressive person, but he's actually got an understated, dry, sense of humour and the fact that he is completely unable to schmooze makes him a genuine person. Now that I'm older, I can understand him better. His wife's a cutie too, and she doesn't hide it either.
Afterwards, we went across to the bar and were greeted by a group of people singing Karaoke. As soon as they heard we were Irish, they started singing Boyzone. Christ. We had a couple of drinks there, and met Marcel, who had retired for a few. I shook his hand and said goodbye. I exercised restraint as I felt he was straight, and I was right. Claire indignantly pointed out that I should chat him up in preparation for Brighton, and when I refused, she went out and did it on my behalf, in spite of my instructions to the contrary.
He turned out to be straight, and wanted to get his hands on her! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
Sunday 29th: Slept until all hours. Bliss! Got up and went to have a meal in a restaurant. We had what I think is called a 'chef's menu' where you don't actually order anything. The chef decides and brings all the courses out to you instead. We also had champagne and lashings of wine. I would heartily recommend this place if I could remember the name of it, but all I recall is that it has two michelin stars.
One disconcerting thing that I noticed is that red wine can induce some really anti-social feelings in me, and that happened today. I'm blaming the red wine because it happened before that I felt really angry for no reason, and it was after red wine as well. I was on such a hair-trigger temper that I had to walk to one of my aunt's house while everyone else drove. Overall, sometimes it can be a combination of the wine and being around my immediate family (in particular my brother and sister and her husband) that can do it. It was the only flaw in an otherwise great evening, which I still enjoyed. We all congregated in a sitting room while I moaned about having to leave. The cutie aunt-in-law told me I should simply put everything off for a year and live in Ruurlo. I was tempted.
Before bed, back at Mark's house, I attempted to make friends with the rabbbit. He wasn't having it either, and when I picked him up, he struggled like his life depended on it. Maybe he thought I was looking at him with rabbit casserole eyes. I got a picture of him with the camera anyway. I'll stick them up here at a later date.
With drink and Claire in the equation, we got back to the topic of Denis digging men. Mark is a nice guy, and maybe I'm a bit jaded, but his protests of how it didn't change his opinion of me were very pronounced. Maybe he just felt he had to be emphatic. I just feel that it is something that doesn't need to be said by someone who knows me at this stage. Nevertheless, as it was pointed out, in time all my relatives over in that neck of the woods will find out, and when I come back there it should be a better experience for it.
Monday 30th: Had to get up at 5:45 in order to leave the house at 6:45. My uncle-in-law Wim drove a little less quickly than Joop and by the time we got to Deventer, the train I was supposed to get was pulling out of the station. I got the next one with Paul and Claire, which was an experience. We were probably still pissed from the night before from all the wine, and in the middle of all the commuters myself and Claire had a gigglefit at our inability to find decent seats. At 8:15 in the morning. With hangovers.
I had to change trains twice, at Amersfoort and at Utrecht, but I still managed to make the flight back to Dublin. On the plane, I was seated next to what one presumes were a married couple. Everything was cool until the little brat they had started screaming and wriggling. Then the little girl two rows up from us took her cue from him and did the same. Christ, I like children most of the time, but a chorus of caterwauling in a confined space is more than I can stand. The landing wasn't too bad this time, at least.
On the bus back into Dublin city, I noticed a hot bear guy sitting near me. I ogled him all the way into town, thinking about what I wanted to do to him. I wanted to feel the heat of his naked body next to mine. But I erred on the side of caution. It was only when we got off the bus at the last stop that I noticed the bear paw symbol tattooed on his hot, muscular (enough!) calf. I wanted to run after him but it would have been too obvious on O'Connell Street. Oh missed opportunity!
I went back to the house in Rialto and got some much-needed chill time. Then I went to Sarah's house for a bite to eat and some wine as I hadn't met her out on the Wednesday, but not before buying new runners in Schuh to go with the t-shirt I bought over the internet. My shopping habits have gone kinda gay lately, with all my worry of accessorising, but what the hell. The meal was nice anyway, and Sarah and me had hugs and kisses at the end.
The rest of the night was one of the worst, most stressful heart-attack inducing nights of my LIFE! I got back to the house at 8:15 with the intention of leaving that night for the 9pm train (my bed had been taken over by my replacement) so I brought all my stuff downstairs (8:30) and then got a taxi (8:40). Finally got to Heuston at 8:50 and had to buy my ticket AND get two trolleyloads of stuff onto the train. I also had forgotten my new shoes, but thank God Kieran had driven after us and brought them to me.
The journey home was quite shit as well, as all ten/twelve bags were piled against one door, and depending on whether or not that door faced onto a platform as it pulled into a station, I had to move them across the other door on the other side. At one point some woman moaned that she couldn't get out through the blocked door. I volunteered to wheel her suitcase down the length of the carriage to the next exit, just to shut her up. After, she thanked me. I think her gratitude should have been for the fact that she was still alive. Also, my parents had to go to bed because they were shattered from the holiday, but they booked a taxi for me before they headed off. I tried to ring the cabbie to explain that he would need to be on the platform to meet me and help me with my stuff, but the coup de grâce: my phone went dead. It also nearly flew out the window as a result, but I kept my head. Finally, I texted him.
At 12am Tuesday morning, I was home with all my stuff.
Tuesday 31st (Today): Didn't do much. Looked at some porn on my parents computer, which is what I am typing on now. Bed now.
Looking back, maybe I should have stayed on the couch in Rialto until Tuesday morning, but I had it in my head I was leaving and I wanted my own bed. A shame, as I never got to find out about Sinéad's weekend with the Scottish guy, and tell them about mine over in the Netherlands, but oh well. I might see them again, as I still have to go up and collect my television (no WAY was I attempting to bring that home as well!). Bloody hell, I'm almost sure I'd be beating myself up if I had decided to go the next day. I need to stop criticising myself needlessly.
So that's it. Dublin and flat over. Four years of testing finished. It feels strange looking back on it, now that I finally have time to breathe. I'll soldier on. It needs to be done. I still have to revise that A-level chemistry.
Thank the Lord for that holiday though. It was just what the doctor ordered.
Now I'm definitely going to bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
