Lurdle-lurdle-lurdle-lurdle-Situation-lurdle-lurdle

I was up in Derry last week with my class. We did a module this semester on Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Conflict and we were meeting a few groups to see what was being tried up North. Bar a tourist trip to the Giant's Causeway and a Pavarotti concert in Belfast it was my first time spending an extended amount of time in Northern Ireland and the first time actually talking to local people. Over the 3 days we met up with representatives from both sides, Apprentice Boys, The Pat Finucan Group, former UVF, INLA, IRA and British army forces, as well as getting a tour of the city walls, the Bog-Side murals and Bloody Sunday site and a British Army base.

I have to admit I was pretty nervous at first; I will be the first to admit that I know very little about the situation in Northern Ireland but I think everyone got something of the trip. There were people like me who just had a Secondary School understanding, foreign students who knew nothing, and then people who had done PhDs and thesis' on the subject. One of the most disconcerting moments was when one of the former-UVF guys, who after 15 years in prison is now a peace-activist, just explained to us in a complete dead-pan voice how when he was 16 he went to a Catholic man's house and shot him dead in his sitting room. I have never met a murderer before. He was very interesting for other reasons though. For the first time I heard about how Unionist see themselves. He considers himself British, he is not fanatical about it, apparently he is a fan of Irish music these days and even taking Irish classes but the fact remains he was born in the UK, has a British passport and considered himself a fully British person. He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that you can sort-of see their point. There has never been a united nation of Ireland, it has always been a collection of different kingdoms and he just happened to be born into one of the more recent ones.

Another interesting point was raised during a Questions & Answers session we had with a panel of ex-paramilitaries from both sides and British Army officers when we asked about the issue of a United Ireland. One thing they were kind-of all in agreement was that it will not be just a demographic decision, i.e. a Catholics majority will mean it will become a reality. The former INLA guy made the point that a lot of catholics in the North are not nationalist and that economically it would be bad for them to join the Republic. Apparently 25% of the North's GDP comes from the British government, through civil service jobs and the like. If it was to become part of Ireland, then there would be huge amounts of jobs lost and we would become responsible for it. It seems like a good idea in principle but after talking to them, I just don't see it happening anytime in the near future.

Urghh, This writing of blogs is more difficulter than originally planned

So I had intended to write a bit about my trip up to the North there last week cuz that was pretty cool. Thing is I am exhausted after a fun weekend that included Dave's Birthday, 2 barbecues and a sleep-over in Fanore. I am in that great state where I am slightly sun-burnt, caked in salt and about to fall asleep. I will just add "Post on Blog" to my to-do list for tomorrow, cuz the come-back starts here. I am pleased to see that the blog resurgence is taking some baby steps. Already Liam, Laina and Amanda have posted new bits and bobs. Keep them coming.

Well if all the cool kids are doing it...

Hark, I hear a call, a call to all across the blogosphere, a call to write and pontificate. Who am I to refuse? So I will keep this short, like Laina I don't think there is much use in going in-depth into what I have done since blogging last; partially as it was only last January and also because not much of note has happened. I am just after finishing the term-time work for my Masters, all I have left to do is a thesis, but I am sure I will whip something up before September. I have also finished all three of my part-time jobs so if anyone has any casual labour going then drop me a line. In my last post I had just started working in the Writing Centre and I am actually very pleased in how that went. I was completely lost at first but then I started to realise that most of my students were far more nervous than me, by the end of it I was guru of all that is good writing, or at least people thought I was. I think most of the time simply having someone give your work a critical read over is all you need, there were times when I had post-grads come into me with essays that I was completely clueless about but they left delighted so i must have been doing something right. The best thing about it i think was the fact it made me a whole lot more critical of my own work, I now am constantly critiquing my own lay-out and editing - case in point, no spelling mistakes yet.

So this post will be more of a statement of intent. Looking back through my old blog postings I noticed we had a good community thing going and i think we should try and get that back again. Think back to the halcyon days of 04-05. Even though we were pretty much all still in college and doing the same thing we managed to talk about it an awful lot. Five years later we are all working/studying in a plethora of different jobs all around the place so there is no excuse that you don't have anything to write about. So if you are reading this leave a comment, or just a link to your own new post - challenge extended. While I cannot really talk with this relatively bland post but I see that we now have the ability to post polls and videos and everything on this thing,
so I for one will be trying to make it a bit more lively.

I am tired and going to bed, off to Derry tomorrow with my class for 4 days, should be a laugh. Will post again when I get back. I hope to see some more posts by then.

Interesting Site of the Day: Biological Rationale for Religion

College and Tech Ramblings

So it has been a good long time since I blogged last and in the mean time Liam has written several posts and even Conal and Steve had written one. Today is the last day of my holidays as tomorrow I am starting a job in the University as camera-man for the graduation ceremonies. I did it at the end of the summer and it is a grand job and is pretty well paid even if it is only for a few days. I wont get the money until the end of February but it will be helpful. In other news I have also gotten a part-time job for next semester, in addition to my security one. I am going to be a humanities writing tutor for the UL Centre for Writing (Link: Centre for Writing) which means I will be sitting down with undergrads and trying to teach them how to structure and write properly. Thankfully we will be getting a bit of training as to be honest I don't think I will have a clue. I know I am a pretty good writer but don't know how much of that is down to technique and how much is just bull-shittery. So I am trying to make sure that all my writing from here on is better, hopefully the training will help me with my essays as well. Plus the money is excellent and its less than 6 hours a week.

As a side-note, after talking to Conal yesterday I am trying out my touch-typing. I can actually do it but I am not sure how, its like my fingers know where to go and are just bypassing my brain. The biggest advantage is that I see my mistakes straight away instead of at the end of a sentence so hopefully that will make up for the slower typing speed.

I have not actually done that much over the Christmas break to be honest. Had a class New Years in Fanore, I will try and get some photos off the people who had camera and perhaps put a few up. Other than that I have really just been bumming around at home. My room is finally clean and organised and even decorated a bit. My computer is running tip-top condition mostly because I spend most of my time on it. I was looking through my Stumbleupon settings there a few days ago and saw that since June 2008 i have stumbled through 19,456 pages, which is nice. I also installed this little programme called Digsby which brings together the chat programmes of MSN, Facebook, ICQ as well as my Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail inboxes. Why am I boring ye with all this stuff I hear you ask. Well one of the pages that I came across was from the New York Times and it actually dealt with a phenomena that, because of all the time I spend on the net, I was was just beginning to notice.

The article, found here, basically talks about how people are becoming more and more connected, they call it Ambient Awareness. I first kind of realised it when I was away. I would be able to tell when people were last online from their Bebo profile and manage to find out what was going on my having a look at the comments on their wall. Plus all the chat functions meant that I could be talking to people all around the world whenever I was online, or talking to them through Skype. Since I came back now I am always signed onto the chat things through this Digsby programme but it also gives me updates about when people sign on, if they change their status, add pictures, get wall comments. Sounds a bit stalkerish but it just runs away int he background and keeps me updated on what is happening. There is also this Twitter thing that thankfully, I have not been sucked into yet. Its like the Facebook status-update thing where you have, I think, a 70 word maximum limit to say what you are doing and you can update it from a computer or phone. Apparently it was used to great effect during the Mumbai attacks and when that plane landed in the Hudson River, people around the world were able to get minute by minute updates by real people who were actually involved.

So between this Digsby and Stumbleupon i am kept constantly up to date with what people are doing, who is online and also the general Internet zeitgeist. Thing is though, other people are not. I find myself getting pissed off when people do not answer me back straight away, or who don't spend every minute on a chat programme. Not being able to instantly be in contact with someone gets me frustrated, even text-messages take too long. It will probably be a bit different in second semester though, between the two jobs and college work I see myself spending an awful lot more time in the university and less at home bumming around.

Links of the Day
The Atheist bus Campaign
(I thought the rule was I before E except after C, why is this different?)
The First Male/Female Vice-Presidential Debate
Turns out Palin/Biden was not the first one

Paul's turn for a Rant

Over the weekend there was a shooting in Dooradoyle where a 28yr old fella was shot dead walking home after the Ireland/Canada game. He was captain of the Garryowen 3rds and from the area. The guards are saying that it was probably a case of mistaken identity and the hit-men thought he was a member of the feuding families.

Now up until now I have been fairly blase about this whole 'Family Feud' thing in Limerick. It has never really affected me and although I do have relatives in some of the areas most of them have nothing to do with it. I have always been of the opinion that as long as they were just killing each other then there was no real problem. This shooting has changed all that though.

When I heard it I actually started feeling very angry. Partly because of what happened but also because of what was going to happen i.e nothing. Perhaps the people who did it will get caught, but I don't hold out much hope. And even if they do, they will spend a few years in prison, make a few contact, learn a few tricks and be back out unchanged men. Treating the symptoms just does not appear to be working. Reading the papers or Limerickblogger.ie I am already seeing the calls for politicians heads to rolls or for extraordinary measures to be taken. While it is all understandable does it really help? It is much easier to be outraged and demand someone else actually does something that to actually do something yourself. Thing is though, people don't want to actually have to do anything to stop this, complaining is much easier.

Why was this guy shot? The obvious answer is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's true but why was there a shooting in the first place? This feud is about a lot of things, history, territory, power and money but mostly about money. And where do they get their money from, a bit of racketeering, maybe some extortion but mostly drugs, this shooting was about drugs. And that in my mind is how ordinary people can help stop all this shit going on in the city. It is the money coming from middle-class casual drug users that is funding these gangs.

There is no such thing as a harmless drug. People who use coke, pills or any type of weed, however infrequently, or who support the use of them have absolutely no moral right whatsoever to condemn or despair at this shooting. The path might be convoluted but the cost of gun that killed this innocent 28 yr old or the payment made to the hit-men that did it was paid for by the joint you took a drag of, that line you snorted, the single pill you took.

Nostalgic and Philosophical Ramblings

Just realised that 'Debate Pt II' down below was my 200th post and written almost 4 and a half years after my first one back in Department of Foreign Affairs. That's a long time by any standards though. I was tempted a few times to just give up on this, I think my record was almost 6 months with no updates at one stage. Glad I kept it though, reading back through it is always great fun, if bittersweet at times. I am no longer the fresh-faced 21 year old that started it, have travelled, lived and worked an awful lot since then. I was in a pissy mood about one thing or another a few days ago but then I just thought to myself, 'Fuck it Paul, you moved to the other side of the world, you relied solely on yourself for 9 months, you have criss-crossed the continent of South American twice, don't let something as trivial as this irritate you'. It actually worked and it got me thinking about the travelling again. Now I know most of you must be sick of me bringing it up but that Year away was possibly the most defining thing I have ever done in my life and I don't see anything coming close to it in the near future. I am just listening to a playlist made up of all the songs, mostly kiwi, that i associate with the trip away. None that famous, and some are actually quite crap but all remind me of certain times, people or places that I met or experienced.

A year is an awful long time to make memories and I have thousands that I find myself just sitting back and dwelling on, especially at times like this when i have an essay to write. Just wimple things like walking into the kitchen of the hostel after the gym with my rolls, protein shake and scrambled eggs. I can vividly remember the smell of the kitchen, the taste of the food, the fatigue from the gym, the comfort of knowing I had nothing really to do for the day. It might seem strange, considering how banal the memory is but that's actually one I come back to an awful lot, I was incredibly happy and content at that time, everything was going well and I did not have a care in the world. Looking back through it I also re-read a lot from the time I went to Maine on my own that summer. Even though there was several pretty extra-ordinary, exciting things that happened during that Summer there are others that stick out the most, drifting around on a lie-lo with lacy in the middle of an abandoned quarry lake, eating Ben & Jerries with Suzanne out in the barn watching Kung-fu movies.

So I suppose its just going to keep happening more and more as we get older (and we are getting older, something last weekend showed me) ie, the constant accumulation of memories; good times, bad times, opportunities missed, opportunities seized, friends made, lost, rediscovered. So for that reason I am going to be keeping this blog, and I think that others should restart theirs. What seems trivial today is could be a treasured memory tomorrow.

Stupid Feminists

So the topic this week in my Research Methodologies class is Feminist Epistemology's and standpoint epistemologies. Now I was as clueless as ever started to do my reading but pretty soon I remembered why I get so irritated at feminism. Now I have realised that the fact that i get irrationally hostile to the whole thing maybe be some musculine self-defense method but something about it just really bugs me. I keep thinking that an entire branch of anything being devoted to why 50% of the population is better than the other is not very fair. And thats the vibe I pick up from it, not 'we are women, we are different' which I fully agree with and think should be investigated but instead 'we are women, our way is better'. For instant the piece I am reading at the minute is talking about several theorist views on the Scientific Method and why is is so masculine-based. Now the scientific method is, in my opinion, as neutral as possible, it strives to have no values whatsoever and deal only with hypothesis, antithesis, stc. Now what these feminist theorists were saying that all this would be rendered obsolete once the........to be honest I am not sure about what she was saying but the general just was that women can have periods and abortions and that in the face of this the way we think about biology today should be changed. I can get ye the quote later. Or another was talking about how women have to deny being women in order to survive in a lab.

I have actually stopped readinto be honest. Now I have to be fair and say that the editor of the Chapter, a feminist herself did point out that a weakness in these theorists was that while they talked about how the need for for a change in the way we see science is necessary they could not give any concrete examples, which is in itself a pretty damning indictment for how they think of science.

Its not just these particular things that annoy me, its the idea that I feel that I cant be irritated by them because i am just a man and 'I would not understand'. Perhaps that is true but in that case dont expect me to want to or even try to.

On the demon drink

So i have discovered something about me and drink. I can usually drink as much as I want and not get a hang-over, I might feel tired but I don't get headaches, or nausea or furry tongue. Instead I just find myself really fucking down for days afterwards. I know this at this stage so I just ignore it and get on with stuff. Tonight was the exception though, I had a presentation today that I felt went pretty badly, then I skipped capoeira, and did not get to finish my reading for tomorrow or the essay I was working on. I went to bed early because I was still shattered from the weekend of drinking and studying. That was nearly three hours ago, my head is just so full with shit that i cant turn it off and so cant sleep. What makes it worse is that I have class early tomorrow morning and I know I will be just a wreck for it. Hopefully this being up will get me tired enough to drop off, not holding out much hope though.

The 1st Presidential Debate in 90 Seconds

This is not the Palin/Biden debate but the Obama/McCain Debate that went on last week. The graph thing along the bottom is some new-fangled thing where people pretty much just pick if they are being swayed or not.

Presidential Debate in 90 Seconds

Debate (part 1)

Just a quick run-down of the Vice-Presidential debate. I am writing this in real time as I hear it so, while i will run a spell check at the end, dont expect much from the formatting, grammar or style front.


Introduction

• Palin starts by sounding idiotic 'Hi, can I call you Joe?'
• Biden says that they will have to slow down the proposed doubling of foreign aid.
• Palin actually comes out and says she will not answer the questions the moderator or Biden says and say her own thing, which seems to revolve about her talking about Alaska the whole time.
• She wont stop talking about her history with energy stuff, pity what her future plans are rubbish.

Climate & Social Change

• She has managed to mention hockey moms and six-pack Joes int he first ten minutes
• She has just denied climate change being man-made, then said she does not want to argue about the cause.
• Biden: It is completely man-made.
• They both support capping carbon emission.
• Biden: Completely support constitutional and legal equal rights and benefits for safe-sex couples.
  
• Palin: She is for it as long as it does not affect the definition of marriage as between man & women, but is otherwise very 'tolerant'.
• Biden: He say he agrees with her in relation to marriage definition.

Iraq

• Palin: The surge has worked in Iraq, we do not need to leave early.
• Biden: Have a structured withdrawal in the next 16 months and give power back to the Iraqis. A timeline is needed, let Iraq spend its own money.
• Palin: Democrats plan is a white flag.

Iran & Pakistan

• Biden: Pakistan is nearly more dangerous than Iran as it already has nuclear weapons. Mccain's focus on Iraq instead of the taliban and Afghanistan is a huge mistake.
• Palin says that the central war on Terror is in Iraq. Iran cannot be allowed to get nuclear weapons. Obama is naive for agreeing to meet with Iranian leaders without pre-conditions.
• Palin: Dropped that she had a conversation with Kissenger last week. TERRORIST HATES AMERICA AND FREEDOM.
• Biden: we have to listen to our allies and 5 past Secretaries of state and talk to their enemies, McCain say he is willing to negotiate but not sit down. Ha, brought up the fact that McCain said he would not sit down with the Spanish government

Israel

• Palin: A 2-state solution is the right one is Israel/Palestine. This is a top policy and they will support Israel, the 'peace-keeping' nation. they will build their embassy in Jerusalem.
• Biden: A passionate supporter of Israel. Bush's administration has been an abject failure in the Middle East. He neglects to mention the Jerusalem thing.
  
• Palin: There has been huge blunders by the Administration but we must not dwell on them.
• Biden: None of McCain's policies are nowhere different than Bush's
  

Maverick Count: 4

When is it okay to Nuke:

• We must just not allow rogue states to get nukes. America will use theirs as a deterrent. ON a side note, a surge is needed in Afghanistan
• (TV loses station for a few minutes, how annoying)
• Biden: McCain is against any arms control.

Intervention:

• Biden: Very pro-intervention. Voted for the war in Iraq but said he was misleaded. Mentioned about seeing the camps in Chad and Darfur himself.
• Palin: I'm a straight-shooting, straight-talking Washington outsider. Saying Biden is all over the place. She agrees that Darfur needs a no-fly zone and intervention. Mentions fricking Alaska again. That is actually pretty clever, making her Alaska experience actually seem like it has something to do with Sudan
  

Debate (part 2)

What would it be like if they were President:

• He would stick to helping the middle class. And an energy policy that is greener and makes 5 million new jobs. To finish the Iraq war and find Osama. Get rid of the Bush Doctrine and replace with it preventative rather than preemptive
• Palin: We are a team of mavericks and we don't agree with everything. She is going to keep trying to convince him on the benefits of a gas line. Needs some Alaska common-sense in Washington. Continue to reduce bureaucracy and the big government.

(I think she just mentioned Biden's dead wife, and then gave a shout-out to 3rd graders in Alaska)

What does the Vice-President Mean?

• They make a joke
• Palin: the vice-president could nearly use more power. She would deal with Energy dependance, Special needs children, and reducing government spending
• Biden: He would get things done legislating. His portfolio would to be an independent consultant to barak and would be working in governance.
• Biden: Cheney has been the most dangerous vice-president in history. He works in the executive branch and should understand that. They should only interfere in the constitution when there is a vote and they should definitely not be part of the legislative vote.

Conventional Wisdom-Palin does not have experience; Biden needs more discipline
What is your Achilles heel?

• Her connection to the heartland to America, being a mom, having a son in the Iraq, her husband and how they know what other Americans are going through. Her world view that America is to be a shining example of exceptionalism. America represents a perfect ideal.
• Biden: his record of independent thinking is a good point. He will bring change. He understands what it is to be like a single parent when his wife and daughters died. Is insulted that he does not understand just cuz he is a man. Actually gets a bit weepy.

Maverick Count: 8

• Biden: Mccain is not a maverick in ways that effect normal people.
  

One time you had to change your mind

• Biden: Used to think that the only important thing was that a nominee had to be a good student, have no skeletons. He mentioned Roe Vs Wade, did not hear what he said.
• Palin: Sometimes she should have vetoed certain budgets and she should not have caved. Up in Alaska we worked together and that is what she will do.

How does a VP encourage bi-partisanship

• Biden: He has never questioned any ones motives on the other side, just their judgement and that is what he would bring.
• Palin: Would hire and use people from all sides of the fence.

Closing statements:

• She likes answering tough questions with out the mainstream media interfering. They will fight for America, the average middle-class family like hers. They have to fight for their freedoms, economic and national security. Talks about Fighting an awful lot.
• Biden: This is the most important vote of people life. The last 8 years have been terrible and change is needed. Mentioned that he is sending a son to Iraq, as is McCain. Time for America to get up together. May God Protect our troops.
  

Winter is a comin'

Ye Gods its cold out. Just back from work there, you will be glad to hear the cycle is getting better. Its trés cold out though, there was hailstones this afternoon and apparently we have had the coldest September in years. I am still sweating like a nun in a sack though.

So i have decided to bite the bullet, get a bit organised and buy me a computer. Thanks to the wonder that is a loan I have gotten my resident techie so do some research and find me a nice desktop PC. Thing is though, peripherals like a mouse, keyboard or monitor is included. I had the great idea though of getting these off Ebay. Very excited I am, never used it before. Managed to find a monitor on it that is around a third of the price of the shops, and that's including delivery so hopefully I will win that particular auction.

College is going alright, got a bit back into the studying. I have a presentation on Monday and although keeping at it is slow going once I do get going the old bull-shit is just flowing out of me. I really have to get cracking on my thesis though, if even just to get an idea in my head. Was in a lecture on Tuesday about the Politics and Political Economy of Development, going through the liberalisation of trade during the 80's and how the World Bank, WTO and IMF have perhaps been doing more harm than good. Now the thing about the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank in particular is that they were set up for the express purpose of helping less developed countries get more like our great white countries but somewhere along the lines they fucked up. SO I was thinking that perhaps I will maybe look at where they are at the minute and how in the future they can get back to basics. An incredibly broad kind of idea but i will just work from there and hopefully meander into something related that i will find interesting. If ye have any ideas or suggestions let me know.

Random Web-site of the Day: Interesting Graph: Us Europeans Are Not as Clever as We Think

Its odd how the memory works. I was in town with Dave the other day at and we were looking for a space in the car-park. Now perhaps it is just 1st world car parks, but the smell of the place immediately brought me back to New Zealand, Dunedin to be precise. The gym I used to go to there was through a car-park and up a flight of stairs. Now as myself and Dave were driving around looking for a place I suddenly began considering what I would do in the gym and what I would eat afterwards. As if that was not strange enough today I went to a barbecue that was held in grassy area and as it turned out I was bitten on the ankle by some bug and it swelled up. What was odd was that the incredibly uncomfortable and itchy sensation in my leg did not really annoy me that much but instead kept me thinking of my time in South America, when I always had a few bites somewhere, and usually on my hands or ankles. It was driving me crazy but every time I started scratching it I had a wave of nostalgia.

Site for the Day: Flight Patterns around the Globe

On Physical Exertion

Argghh, if there is one thing I am shit at is its studying at home. I did not have any classes today, not did I have work tonight so I had a plan to study at home. It did not go as planned though. I am still the same as always, I find it nearly impossible to study back home. Every second I am sitting there is an effort, my mind is constantly thinking of things i should be doing; cleaning my room, having a shower, reading a book, surfing the net. That's why the job is pure handy, I am forced to sit there with my books and no distraction.

On the other hand I did go to Capoeira tonight, which was great fun. I have not been in over a year but it was a good laugh. Its in the Dance studio down in the old sports building and this year it does be free, which is nice. I know I am going to be sore tomorrow though, my legs are like jelly and the cycle home was pure hard. I do have a plan though, on the weeks I am working Mon, Wed, and Fri I will try and go to the Climbing Wall on Tue and Thurs and then when I am working Tues and Thur I will go to capoeira on Mon and Wed. Lets see if I can stick to it.


Site of the day: Why would you volunteer for this?

I am a monkey me

Went down to the climbing wall this evening. Turns out you can call down casually and pay €4 a pop or else sign up to the Outdoor Pursuits Club for a €5 and get free access for the year. Once i realised that it was a no-brainer and you are now looking at the newest member of the OPC. The climbing was a good laugh, I went years ago with my dad and brother but that was at least 10/15 years ago. I am pretty sore after it but being honest i think it is my fingers that are going to be sorest tomorrow, most of the time you are relying on them to pull you up or keep you steady, I remember Niall had a little squeeze thing that might help me build them up. The membership is good for other OPC stuff as well so maybe I will go for a few hikes and what-not, see can I get back some of the fitness that I got from all the trekking a while back.

So in other news I have been invited over to Germany for OktoberFest. One of the girls is organisiing a reunion of all of us that worked together in New Zealand and has asked myself and the other Irish guy who worked there to come. Its times like this that being poor sux because to be perfectly honest I don't think I can afford to go. There is always next year I suppose.

Link of the Day: Even more stalkerish than Google-Earth?

Some news and an interesting Fact

I am writing this from Clonlara computers. There was hardly a soul around for the weekend so I decided to get some brownie-points and come out home to help with the gardening. It has been such a miserable summer the place has not been touched since June I would say. All the garden furniture is in exactly the same position as they were for my coming-home barbecue. We barely made a scratch on it but every little helps.

I purposefully did not bring any books home with me today though, and not just cuz I wanted an empty bag so I could steal food and clothes. During Friday's class the lecturer was trying to figure out when would be a good time to have the essay deadlines; us Master's students are very mature like that. Anyway, i had my calender thing open to see what weeks we don't have anything due in so we could fit in another essay, and I realised that I have a whole lot of work to do. I worked it out before and I calculated that I have 25,500 words to do before Christmas. The first thing is not due in for a month but I am going to start getting cracking on one this week. Not everything is 3000+, there are several 1,200-1,500 word assignments so I will try and start getting them done.

While planning all this I came to realise that I am pretty happy that I left it 2 years before going back to college. I dont think that I am particularly more grown-up or anything, but I'm more prepared for the course, and feel much more enthuiastic that I would have if I had gone straight in. The thought of learning, or sometimes re-learning, all the socio-political terms does not depress me like it would have. Like what Liam talked about in his post last week, I was feeling a bit brain-dead and its good to be studying again. Saying that though my teeth have been very sore this week, I have to make a conscious effort to stop clenching them the whole time. The same thing happened me when I was working in Dolans, the situation may not be inherently stressful but in the back of my mind something is going on.

Interesting Fact For the Day. In 1938 the Nobel Peace Prize committeee had two candidates and they could not chose between them. In the end they gave the award to a 3rd party, a Swiss organisation that helped international refugees. Neither of the two other candidates ever won the award. Their names? Mahatma Gandhi & Adolf Hitler

A Word-Cloud of my Blog

Joan might remember me talking about this web-application. Its a website you can go to and either put in a block of text or web-address and it will go through the whole thing, count the words and make this customisable cloud of the most common, with size depending on frequency. Click on it to get a higher resolution picture. Glavin

Link: http://wordle.net/create

Things I Want/Need

1. A new Computer: Preferably a Desktop, powerful enough for gaming. was thinking about a lap-top but you can get a more powerful desktop for cheaper and, being honest, I think a laptop wont be much better. I dont want internet access at work cuz its too much of a distraction.
   
2. A proper Mp3 player: Not an iPod or Sony, that limits it a bit but still. I have one on my phone and also a 1gb Zen but thats just annoying. Need good ear-phones as well, normal ones fall out of my ears.
   
3. A New Set of Clothes: Everything I own is either old or second hand. I have nothing thats anyway formal and all my shoes are well old and smelly. I am pretty used to wearing rags after the year away but I would not mind some new shit.
   
4. An Idea for my Thesis: Something interesting that I will enjoy working on. several people in the class have already gotten supervisors for theirs as they came to the course with a clear idea of what they wanted. I am clueless.
   
5. Gym membership: And the time and motivation to go. Would also like to be able to go to Capoeira more often and also was thinking of joining the OPC, if only for the rock-climbing, I want to do that again.
   
6. Enough Money to buy proper Food: Might sound odd coming from me, but I actually like more than bread and potatoes, some meat or eggs would be nice. I tried a few new things while I was away but forgetting about not having the money to buy them, I am very lazy when it comes to cooking, sometimes potatoes are too much hassle.
7. The Ability to Write well: I have been reading up on grammar and all that lark, going to be doing a lot of writing this year and want to get good grades. Having good grammar and writing style come automatically would be a help.
   
8. To go back to New Zealand: /sigh, nuff said
9. To be able to see properly: Since I wear my glasses almost every waking moment it is always a shock to me to see how blind I really am. Laser surgery is definately on the cards
10. A New Library: There are so many books that I want to get right now, and not just fantasy/sci-fi ones, there are a lot that I saw while travelling that I could not buy.
    

Interesting Link for the Day: The Absurdity of Airport Security

/edit (21/10/08): added some more

Old People All-Round

I am having a problem in class these days with asking questions, not only that i don't ask them but also with the fact that other people do. Like i mentioned before, we all get on in the class but there is a bit of a competitive element. I can go a whole class however, and not feel the need to ask any question or make any contribution, and in my class that makes me the odd-one-out. I just don't feel the need. The whole making contribution thing is over-rated as well. There are one or two guys, and one girl, who are constantly talking away; in fact last friday we only got half-way through the lecturers power-point show as we started having a huge big discussion. The thing was though that I did not feel that the discussion really added anything, it was interesting but really just opinion and blathering from the class. Was talking to one of the girls afterwards and she felt the same, perhaps its what we have to live with being in a class that is completely full of mature Students.

1 week down, more to come

So first week of Uni over. Went out on Friday and had a good larf, only spent 20 quid so that is all good. Joan 'surprised' us by coming down without any notice. I had work till 10 so i only got in a bit after 11 and went straight to Costello's to meet up with Joanie. Its a pity I had work so late as i had several beers and a bottle of Jim Beam back in the house. Saying that though I managed to get pretty drunk, which was nice.

Over the weekend then i had planned on doing a bit of study and cleaning up a wee bit. Of course since I am a Master of Procrastination instead I just cleared up my room. what I did do however was go right back over this blog and dress it up a bit behind the scenes. Ye may not have noticed but i changed around the fonts and colours a wee bit. The most time-consuming thing was going back through all 189 other posts since 2004 and add labels. They are the the word things at the bottom of every post and along the side. That was actually kind of cool, got to re-read all posts from Foreign Affairs, Maine, 4th Year and of course New Zealand and South America. Of course how long my enthusiasm for this blog thing lasts remains to be seen.

Oh Joan!

"Philadelphia? Thats supposed to be funny isn't it"

Gorram interweb

Today i realised just how dependent i am on the internet these days. So i spent the summer bumming around at home Stumbling around the old interweb and i was doing the same when I moved up here to Dave's house. So in the new job I have several hours to burn guarding my desk, the thing is that I don't have a computer or anything to distract me. Thats mostly a good thing as it means that I spend all the time reading and whatnot. Starting studying again though means that I have met all those stupid socio-political terms that i had forgotten about. Its when i am stuck in the middle of some dense chapter that I wish I had the internet. its weird how second nature it is to be able to immediately check up the spelling or meaning of any word, or to wikipedia some incident or theory. The building also has really crap phone coverage and so very often texts don't get through or received so i am completely isolated from all the technology that has kept me entertained me all summer.

I am going to have to get a lap-top at some stage this year though and to be honest i am not sure if I want to get it set up for internet at work. Today for instance i spent a full 4 hours reading and writing notes for a lecture next week and even then I only got half of what I wanted done. If I have internet access my productivity levels will probably plummet, even now I am writing this instead of going to bed even though I know that i am going to be exhausted tomorrow and also that I have a 9 o'clock lecture.

Olde Schoole, Literally

So, as of Monday I am officially a post-graduate student back in UL. I am doing a Masters in Peace & Development Studies. What & What & What I hear you say, well in short its a Masters that studies conflicts around the world, what causes them and how can they be resolved. Hopefully by the end of it I will be better qualified for a job, probably in the UN, Foreign Affairs or maybe some NGO.

My class is pretty small, only 12 of us, and so far we have gotten on pretty well. I feel a bit under-experienced to be honest. f the twelve there are around 5 who have come straight from college and the rest are in their late twenties early thirties, with one guy in his fifties. They have all been working in real world jobs, in places like Peru, Washington, Chad, Darfur and Iraq. I am not sure what i can bring to the table. While we get on well, I do feel that there is, or at least will be, a bit of competition between us, there are only a certain amount of books and the lecturers only have a certain amount of time. I think I will have to get a bit Machiavellian on their ass.

So I have also gotten me a part-time job on campus. I have actually been a busy little bee for the last two weeks, making out lists every day and actually sticking to them. So after looking in lots of different places I chased down a job as Monitor in the new Jim Kemmy Building on campus. Basically what the job entails is me sitting behind a desk from 6 until 11 making sure noone steals the building. Its a handy number, mostly because i don't have internet access so I am forced to actually do some reading. I have actually read, and written notes on the required reading for 2 of next weeks classes. I am well nerdy I am. If there was one problem with the job however is that i get home pretty late. Since I only have 2 morning starts I don't see Steve in the morning and he is in bed by the time i get home at night, I usually only see dave for a bit before he heads to bed as well. That might change in a few weeks though as there may be someone else doign the job with me and we will work consecutive days, giving me a few evenings off.

All in all I am pretty excited about it, will see how it goes.

Winter is a comin

Bah, so our great plan to come here to Santa Cruz and lay out by the pool sunning ourselves has been foiled slightly. The first few days were great but for the last 3 it has gotten cloudy and cold. Dont really know how I will manage back home as the 'cold' over here is 20*C and I am freezing. Its looking up now though and will probably get good this afternoon or tomorrow. Thank God though, we were going crazy with boredom to be honest. I know people say we should be enjoying our last few days but neither of us can wait to get home at this stage. Bumming around, floundering with the language, I am getting tired of it. Less than a week now.

Are actions right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?

It is done, it is completed. Arrived in Santa Cruz yesterday and I am now finished with long, multi-day bus trips, nights spent trying to get comfortable and putting up with loud people and screaming children. Am here in Santa Cruz and not moving until i fly to Rio, which is something I will organise today, then its to the pool to chillax.

Plans and Machinations

So we have decided what we are going to do with ourselves for the last leg of our trip. Our original plan was to fly from Lima, Peru to Salvador, Brazil and beach-hop our way down the coast to Rio and then fly home. Turns out we will have to pay nearly 500euro for plane tickets and then we will still have to spend 2 weeks in beautiful but expensive Brazil. Our second plan was to go to the coast of Peru and laze on the beaches there. Thing about that plan is that the beaches in south Peru are not supposed to be great and would involve a 2 day travel to them and then back to the airport at the end. So we came onto a great plan this afternoon, well I actually thought of it last night but I did not think Cathy would like it until she suggested it herself today. What we are going to do instead is head back east to Bolivia, to Santa Cruz to be precise. We stayed there before in a really nice hostel with a pool and everything. Its around a constant sunny 30* there and we can just relax and do nothing for 10 days in a cheap, cheap country before flying out of Santa Cruz airport to Rio and then spending 3 day there before coming home. Sweet as bro.

The Teflon wears off

Just finished the last post and was perusing the old interweb and sure didn't i see that Bertie has resigned, we don't get no news in the mountains. About time I say, don't know how that man got back into power, would not have happened if i was in the country for the election I tell you. Looks like Cowen is going to take over, He was myself and Liam's boss when we were working in Foreign Affairs, twas a funny bastard.

In other news, Happy Birthday Joan. Was trying to think back over your last few birthdays there on the bus ride home; 20th:Make-up party in Dublin, 21st:Drunken messy party in Elm Park, 22nd: Night out in Costello's, Kerrin was around, as was Grainne, 23rd: I feel bad but i cant remember, it was only 2 weeks before i left, we must have done something special. Hope you have a good one this year, the numbers just keep getting higher.

Macho Pikachu

Well bejesus begorrah, just finished what was definitely the most physically strenuous 5 days of my life, 60hr weeks working in NZ construction yards included. I meant to write a smaller post before i left but a weird Dutch guy kept talking to me about all the kids he's had with different Peruvian women so I just ran off to bed since i was getting up at 4 the next morning.

Arrived in Cuscu, Peru last Monday and after settling in the hostel, which actually has hot water (luxury), we set off around town trying to see if we could organise a trip on the Inca trail. As we went from place to place we realised that it was hopeless, all the tickets were sold until the end of July. We said we would just try and organise an alternative. Eventually we found this place advertising a 5-day/4-night hike that winds through the mountains for 4 days and then ends up at a town at the base of Machupichu where you stay for one night and then spend a day in the ruins. It was $190, expensive things are always in US dollars, but we got it for 180 using our bargaining skills. Everything was included in that, transport, 4 breakfasts, lunches, dinners, tents, mattresses etc. It was only after we were hiking for a while and got talking o others in our group that we realised how good a deal we got, they all spent more than $300. We got it for cheap I think as it was late Monday evening and the tour as leaving Tuesday morning, a little commission for the agency is better than none. The high price also meant that we were the only backpackers doing it, the rest of the group was between 28-44 and we had 2 doctors, a lawyer and a chef.

In the 4 days of trekking we usually got up at 6 and started walking at 7. We would walk for around 10 hours in total and cover around 20km. So that only 2kph I hear you say. Well what made it so god-awful hard was that our lowest point of trekking was at 6000ft and we were trekking up and down and around mountains, the average height was around 10,000ft. One particularly grueling day we went from 6500ft, up to 14,000 and then back down to 6000ft. Our legs were like jelly and every breath was tough. At that height even turning over in your sleep makes you breathless. I am actually really glad that we spent a few days in La Paz city in Bolivia as thats around 11,00ft and even though i had a headache for the first 3 days it definitely helped us acclimatise. After walking more than 80km in 4 days it was definitely needed.

On the end of the 4th day we reached the town of Agua Callientes at the base of Machupichu and we were put up in a hotel with real beds for the night. The plus of that was kind of negated by the fact that we had to get up at 4 in the morning to start hiking up to the ruins at the summit. It took us a little over two hours of trekking up stone steps cut through the jungle but we finally got there and queued up for the opening at six. It was a pure misty morning and because we were some of the first there it was pretty class, all shrouded with cloud and empty. Later on we decided that we cant get enough of the pain so we climbed up a nearby peak and got a real good panoramic view of the city, pictures will be up next week. At around 11 we had seen everything we wanted to see and all the fat, old american tourists were beginning to arrive so we dumped those losers and headed back down to a humoungous lunch that we very much deserved. So ends the amazing story of Paul's masochistic week in Peru.

Competition:Give me a good title for this post

Spent the last few days in the Amazon Basin in the North of Bolivia. It was well class, easily one of the highlights of the whole South American trip. We flew out Tuesday morning in our own little 15-man jet over, and sometimes actually alongside, a big mountain range and eventually landed on a grass airfield in the middle of the jungle. We went from 3800m and 5*C to 300m and 32* in one hour. It felt good to get back into the heat though, the coolness of La Paz was getting to me.

So we spent one night in Rurranabaque, which is a small town where the tours are based out of. Forgot what it was like to have to try and sleep in 25*C heat, i.e difficult. The next day 8 of us piled into a Range Rover and headed off for a 3 hour ride along a dirt track to the River Beni, passing traditional huts made of mud and roofs of reeds along the way. Then it was a 1 hour boat ride through wetlands to our Lodge on the river. We stayed there for 3 days and two nights. We were lucky in one way in that it was rainy season, or at least the end of it and while it did not rain while we were there the river was flowing fast enough so mosquitoes were not that much of a problem, i got around 6 bites in three days which is better than Rio. We were unlucky in other ways in that the river was around several metres higher than usual and so there were not as many creatures to be seen, during the dry season they are much less shy and more eager to get to the waters edge where you can see them.

Saying that though we still saw tons. On the first day we just went for a boat ride up the river and saw lots of monkeys, yellow, howler, weird ones. Lots and lots of freaky birds, river snake and alligators. That night we also went to see the sun set over the pampa's fields which was pretty cool. The next day we went anaconda hunting but since the water was so high, nearly crotch high, they could be passing within a few feet of us and we would not have known, when its dry you can find them actually slithering through the mud. We did see lots of funky insects and stuff, ant nests in bushes where the ants ran from plant to plant along the algae on the water surface, bees the size of you thumb, wasps as big as you little finger-at one stage we heard this huge drone as a swarm of something flew over the fields near us, sounded like a racecar in the distance. After that we found a pod of fresh-water dolphins that lived in the river. they were around 5/6 foot long, pink and blind. They would come up to you and nibble at your feet or arms to see what you were and after a while they would come over to us in the water and you could try and swim along with them. That was well class, so much so that we went back later to a different spot and swam with a different pod. After that then we went piranha fishing which was a bit scary. Had a bit of meat on the end of hooks and when you dropped it into the water it would be gone in a flash, any of us would have been screwed if we had fallen in, not killed but definately mauled in just a few seconds. Cathy the jammy dodger caught one, pictures are in the process of being put up on her site.

The last day was we just went on another tour just to see what we could find and also to go swimming with more dolphins that we found. Was a bit worried about the alligators and stuff that were around but then we found half an anaconda in the rushes. Apparently the dolphins are very territorial and will attack anything that comes into their turf. Good thing i did not know that or i would not have gotten into the water. Several times when i was in the water i was thinking 'what the hell am i doing here?', not only because the entire situation was so surreal but also because i am petrified of sharks and here i was in 20ft murky water waiting for a large carnivorous animal to come out of nowhere and gnaw at my feet. The whole experience was class though. Cathy is putting up pictures but its very slow going and they wont be proper ready i.e rotated, cropped and sorted for a few days, she does hate it when people see her unfinished photo sets.

In other news, kelly, the girl who was travelling with us until Bolivia, has come down with Dengue Fever. Its a nasty viral infection that is sweeping through Rio and Brazil at the minute. Spread by mosquitos its goten so out of hand that the military have been called into Rio to enforce and aid in containment measures, draining stagnant water places and stuff. There is no vaccine against it, you just have to avoid getting bitten. Its not life-threatening, at least if caught early, just like a really really bad flu and you white blood cell count is fucked. She got it in time however and is alright, although having to go to a hospital in a different country is never fun. SHe is grand now though, have yet to find out what her plans for the rest of her trip are though.

So give us a few days and there wil be class photos up on flickr. Heading to Peru tomorrow, going to spend some time on Lake Titicaca and then off to Cuzco and to organise the Inca trail, then back to Brazil for a final 2 weeks of Capoeira and beaches.

Bolivia is odd, very odd

So thought I would write a short one since I will be out of commission for the next few days I think. Left Santa Cruz on Thursday and had a very uncomfortable 16 hour bus journey where we travelled 4000m up to La Paz in the freezing cold, not a good nights sleep. Arrived in La Paz and staggered down to our hostel. Again the place is far better than its reputation says, have had no problems in the 5 days we were here. What I did have a problem with however is the altitude, I have had a headache since last Saturday and it is only now beginning to fade, I was also panting like a paedophile every two minutes and felt like I had a weight on my chest, used to wake up feeling nauseous. Was not that productive to an enjoyable trip but I still had a good old time. Yesterday we had possibly the most surreal experience so far in South America when we went to a Bolivian Wrestling match. It was standard enough affair, fat guys in spandex throwing each other around, there was always a good guy and bad guy and the referree was always in cahoots with one of them. Then as the night went on it got a bit weirdo when the fights started getting a bit more extreme, guys getting thrown not only out of the ring and into the crowd, one of them getting a concussion and others being thrown onto crates that never broke meaning he just bust himself up. Then the Angry Cholita’s arrived. A cholita is a bolivian woman dressed in the traditional shawl and cap and skirt, you see them everywhere overhere.What was different about these was thay were psychotic and beat seven types of shit out of everyone, then the midgets arrived…..

Bolivia

Arrived here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia early Wednesday morning and am leaving today for La Paz, the capital. Have to admit I am very surprised by the place. I was expecting dirt roads everywhere, and begger kids following you around the place while everything is bought from stalls on the street. What i got instead was just a regular South American city with wheelchair ramps on the kerbs, fancy shopping area and plenty of people who speak English. I know that Santa Cruz is Bolivia's richest city but I was told that the whole country was a Third World one. I think its a case as well of us getting more used to the South American way of life as well. We went up to the bus station today to get our tickets and it was no hassle at all, we are finally getting the hang of asking for basic things in Spanish and learning simple things like the numbers and what not. We were also walking through a market area on the way home and even though we both had our credit cards and passports we felt quite safe. I think it may have been because when we first arrived in Chile, even though its one of the safest countries in South America, we were completely paranoid and scared to death by all the horror stories we heard when really all you have to do is show a bit of common sense.

Only a few weeks left now before home, down to the vinegar strokes of the trip as they say.

Paddies day in rio, huzzah!

So here´s a slightlt drunken St Patricks post. The holiday dynamic is changing today. Kelly, the other girl bar Cathy who came over, left us today to travel the coast of Brazil and Argentina rather than endure the hardship of Bolivia and Peru. Myslef and Cathy are heading to the airport tomorrow to fly to Bolivia for fun and frolics, then onto Peru then going back to Brazil to meet up with Kelly again for a weeks to chillax on the beacehes for which its famous for. that should be a laugh.

As for St. Patricks Day, myself and the C-dog spent several hours drinking on Ipenema beachand now are back in the hostel watching Return of the King, that bit was not planned but its on so it must be watched. later we are going to the Iriah bar ( i know, i usually ahte the shit but its Paddies Day) to meet Bernardo and some of his friends, hopefully we will be still conscious.

Hurrah!!!

Its not all bad

Alright so i think a more cheerful post is needed. Since I wrote the last post i went away for a few days to an island called Ihle Grande and came back to Rio. For the last 3 days it has rained and been relativly cold and a lot of my homesick feelings have gone. I think its because i have gone so long without being stuck inside somewhere because its cold and wet outside and i got rose-tinted glasses about it, in reality it sux and makes you go a bit crazy.

So now i am ready and rearing to go again and get on with the travelling, Rio is actually quite boring when it is wet and you are trying to save money. Flying to Bolivia on Tuesday to start that leg of the trip. Only around 39 days left before i get home and mytself and Cathy have actually planned something for every day of it, should be a laugh.

Also, I am very jealous of the guys and ho going snowboarding, that would be a larf, might try and do it in Peru if such a thing is possible.

Do you ever have a song that can change your mood so much that it scares you? it has been 5 weeks since i left New Zealand and around 8, thats 2 months, since i said goodbye to my Kraut friends. But just now, while sweltering in a Rio de Jeneiro night i heard Leona Lewis Bleedin´ Love for the first time since i left and all of a sudden felt like crying again cuz i missed the gang so much. Its an incredibly sappy pop song I know but it was playing the whole time we were hanging around together. Came out of nowhere to be honest but still put a huge downer on the evening.

I have been feeling homesick for the last few days actually, for New Zealand and Ireland. Spent 9 months in NZ and did not miss home once but now i feel like its just been an incredibly long, prolonged goodbye and i would like to get back to one or the other. South America is great but i am feeling tired, jaded of travelling and I dont feel like I am appreciating all the stuff i am seeing. I know people will say that its stupid to miss home when i will be back there for the forseeable future and that i should just enjoy SA but i just dont care any more. The idea of spending an evening in Castletroy just hanging around doing nothing appeals to me infinitely more than another week in Rio or the idea of a weekend in Fanore is vastly more preferable to a trip to Machu Pichu. Ye probably cant understand how on earth i could think like that but its true and has been for a while, a huge case of the Grass being Greener on the Other side i think.

Introduction To Brazil

Okay, so just a quick update as this computer does appear to be very popular, the joy of sharing a hostel computer between 20 people. Arrived here in Rio de Jenerio two days ago after a 22hr bus ride from Iguazu Falls. Had a brilliant time there, saw the falls on day 1 and 2 and when we went to book our tickets out found that there was noone available for 4 days so we just proceeded to get very drunk for the next few days. There was a class bunch in the hostel, which was pretty nice itself with a big courtyard and pool. Very sucky thing happened thoughwas that Cathy was uploading her photos onto Flickr and while she had perhaps 30% done someone formatted the entire memory stick which sucked. Luckily she had them saved onto the desktop, except that was deleated when the computer restarted. Long story short we no longer have photos of perhaps the most impressive thing we have seen since we arrived. Kellie-Ann has a few up on her Flickr though so check that out.

We are thinking of spending perhaps five days here in Rio then heading out 150km to sea to an island called Ihre Grande to veg out for a day or two, lots of lovely surf beaches, chill out beaches and treks to do as well. Have to get onto organising that one. Met up with a friend of mine called Bernardo that i met in New Paltz all those years ago. Was pretty cool to see him, went out for a quiet drink last night on the lagoon but might be going for a big night out on Friday. There does be a huge club in the city that he can get us on the Guest List for, might be a larf. Then on the weekend might be meeting up with Carol and Manuel, two other Braziliens i met in New Paltz.

Have to organise a wee bit here as i am nearly halfway through the South American trip. Looking into a few flights to cut down on the travel time, weird how 15 hours seems like a short trip at this stage. Re-evaluating the route we had originally planned, might cut down the Amazon trip and get a flight to the coast. Really looking forward to the Brazilian coast though. Was on Ipenema beach today catching some rays. That was a humbling experience, never saw so many examples of the perfect human form before, dont know if i will be able to go to an Irish beach after that. The plan is to spend the last 2/3 weeks beach hopping from Belem (which is actually on the equator so will be stinking hot) down to Rio. If we time it right i should have enough money for the entire way.

Opening up a bottle of whiskey at the minute, its so god awful hot, around 33*. I also have a confession to make. I have a problem. I also have to apologise to Joan for ever giving her hassle over her Coke addiction, I have become ten times worse. I am now drinking a bottle of coke at least, every day, sometimes more. Just get so hot and crave nothing more than the sweet, sweet tast of a chilled coke, hmmmmmm. Think i will go buy a 2lt bottle for my whiskey.

Iguazu falls

Golly wizz i am tired. Here in Iguazu at the minute, on the Brazilian and Argentinian borders. There are some crazy falls here and we popped into the brazilian side to have a gawk at them today, pretty sweet but what really interested me was all the cool animal life we saw. The falls themselves are right in the middle of the rainforest even though they are just 30 minutes outside the city. Just walking along the path we saw so many different types of bug it would make any primary school boy estatic, tons of different type ants, a tiny albino spider and moth, i put my hand on a railing for a minute and when i looked again there was a 2 inch praying mantis/stick insect on it, lots of creepy crawlers and above our heads in some places 4 foot webs with 3 inch spiders sitting in them. Well class, no mosquitos either which meant you got all the good stuff with none of the bad.

We are going again tomorrow and doing the argentinian side which is much larger and will involve several hours of walking, should be a good laugh. Came home on my own tonight cuz the girls are staying in a restaurant having a few drinks, feeling a bit New Zealand home-sick.

Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires

bha, i forgot how much effort writing this thing can be, especially when it is so very hot. I am here in Buenos Aires at the moment after stopping off in Mendoza and Cordoba along the way. We have realised that we seem to only bestopping in the big cities so we are going to try and take it a bit slowly and stop in a few small towns and National Parks between here and Brazil. Like i said it has been incredibly hot recently with the average around 30degrees. It is really humid and one day in Cordoba it actually got to 35degrees. That was not too bad though as we just sat around the hostel all day and then started drinking that evening and got to see a 10 hour lightning storm before it finally broke and started pouring rain around 4 in the morning, good times.

Buenos Aires is really nice so far, we have learned to only go to hostels that have air-conditioning. Its a really sweet city and feels very safe. We have learnt our lesson in that regard though, i no longer carry around my backpack so my sum possessions around town are my suncream, a map and around 20-25 euros worth of money. Not carrying anything worth stealing actually means you worry so much less, which is good. Like i said Buenos Aires is pretty sweet, you could spend ages here and the girls actually are spending all day today in town shopping as the sales are on. Its ridiculous really, there is a Christian Dior shop with fancy waistcoats going for 40 euros or leather jackets going for 30. Yesterday we went for a 3 course steak meal that came to a grand total of 12 euros. Of course then you have things that are imported that cost the exact same as home and sometimes are even more expensive, books and electronics being a case in point. I can actually see our stay here expanding past the alloted 4 days. Think i wil buy present for a lot of ye cretins here and then ship them home tobe opened when i get back.

I have been having really weird dreams lately, just plain old dreams of home that are actually very depressing. In one i was after arriving home and met a few of ye except that ye had gotten fat and old and could only talk for a few minutes before having to get back to yer desks, then was walking around town to meet the parents and go home and i was so cold and depressed cuz i was never going to see my New Zealand friends again. There was another one last night when i was walking down William Street with Liam and we were pretty much just arguing about money and loans and shit, again i was just home and really cold. I suppose its just a kind of immaturity on my part about not wanting to actually face the real world once i get back. One thing i am noticing about travelling around with Kelly and Cathy is that I am forgetting New Zealand more and more. Its an odd thing really, they will be talking about some musician or event that happened in Limerick and i was wondering why i had never heard of it, before realising that i have not been in the country for nearly 10 months. pity that

In other news Cathy has her flickr account up and running, its www.flickr.com/cathyduffy It has similiar but different pictures than Kelly.

I Aint Dead....although i wished i was

Alright, so i am here in SA (thats South America, get with the lingo, gringo, hahahah) for one week so perhaps i whould let ye in on my Latin adventure.

The story begins back in New Zealand. Paul has gotten a loan and it is in his current account. Since he has not used his irish current account in around 6 months he has forgotten his PIN number and has cleverly requested that Bank of Ireland send his PIN home where the parents will email to him straight away. In the mean time he transfered enough funds to his credit card to get him through the week. And an expensive week it was, backpacks, malaria tablets, stuff for my medkit and miscellanious necessary stuff. But on Wednesday i said goodbye to Derek&Fiona`s apartment, mystal their dog and headed off to the airport. I had checked my bags in and went to pay the ridiculous `departure tax´that they foist you with. I was also going to get some $US to keep me going in CHile til my PIN arrives. SO i go to the money place

$100US and i`ll pay the departure tax please.
Credit Card Declined
Haha, just $50 dollars and the departure tax then.
Credit Card Declined
Hmmm, just the departure tax then
Credit Card Declined
................shit

Did not have a fucking clue what to do at this stage as i had absolutely no cash on me and was already cutting it tight with the plane. After standing around thinking of any alternatives in the end i had to call Fiona in the city and ask her to leave work and come in and pay for me, which sucked major bum for all involved, I paid the departure tax and ran up the stairs and got into the queue for security while i hear that my flight has stated boarding. I eventually get true, grab a packet of M&M´s from the shop and get to the plane just as they were going to call my name. Cue the most stresful flight of my life as i just sat or lay there for 10 hours wondering what on earth i was going to do when i landed in Chile not knowing anyone, not having any spanish, and not having any money to to get a place to stay or even to get transport to the city. By the time we were approaching the mainland i kind of knew what i had to do. There was an Irish couple sitting a few seats ahead of me and although it was the most mortifying moment of my life, i went up to them and told them my dilemma and asked could they help me out by paying for my hostel for a night. They very kindly agreed and i got a taxi into the city with them and stayed at a lovely hostel called EcoHostel. I sent a pretty frantic email to a few people asking where Cathy was as i needed her to arrive the next day or else the Irish couple would be leaving and i would not have gotten a chance to pay them back, or leech off them more. Luckily a few hours after a crashed into bed, a 14 hour time difference between NZ and SA and a ten hour flight with no sleep will help you do that, i was brutally awoken by Cathy jumping on my bed so that story ended pretty well. I got money opff her, paid back the irish couple and then my PIN number was sent over, huzzah.

So for those not in the know, Cathy is a friend of mine from Ireland who decided to come over and do the South American leg of the trip with me and her friend Kellie-Ann also came with her, so know there is three of us travelling. It is a bit weird travelling with other people and actualy having to take their opinions into account, you become a very selfish traveller when you are on your own, you can come and go whenever and wherever you please, it takes a bit of adjustment taking other people opinion into account and having to do things that you dont want to 100% do, because the group does. The plus point is, well one of them, is tht both Cathy and Kellie-Ann are professional photographers and now i dont have ot take a single photo for the rest of the trip, even if we do stop every 2 minutes to snap a tree or piece of graffetti. Kellie-ann has a site where she is putting all her photos www.flickr.com/kellieann and Cathy will be wsetting hers up soon. You dont have to join or anything so tis good for all yous who cant see my bebo ones.

We left Santiago after a few days and arrived in Mendoza, Argentina on Monday, will be here for a day or two yet i say. I am going to hve to get better at the old travel writing, have seen the blog of another couple that i met and its very good, not just boring listing `what they did today´so i will try that in future. Hasta Loega for now

An End of an Era

So tomorrow is going to be my last day of my New Zealand holiday, I am actually flying out on Wednesday but early enough and that will all be spent in the airport. Over the last few days I have found myself just sitting around staring into space and replaying the last 9 months over and over in my mind and what can I say? They were a blast.

I remember arriving in Queenstown, wondering around lost and jet-lagged for a week, heading to Dunedin and my first night in Central Backpackers and then all the class times I had there, my first road trip, making castles out of beer cans in the sitting room, playing WoW for hours in the internet cafe, heading back to Queenstown with my board and going snowboarding for the first time, changing hostels every week and meeting so many random people, doing a skydive, running out of money and having to work 60 hour weeks but then road trips on the weekend with group I was hanging with, hitch-hiking to Nelson, Doing the Abel Tasman walk and camping out for the first time, hanging around in Wellington bored before heading to Napier, all the great times in Napier working and playing, 15 of us sleeping under the stars on a beach, drinking and talking shit on the steps of The Warehouse, lazy afternoons in the courtyard and hard days talking shit for hours in the orchards, a crazy Christmas dinner for 38 under the hot sun, going back to Wellington for New Years, getting pissed most nights with 15 Germans, the shitty goodbyes when they all left for the South Island, then the road-trip up here to Auckland.

I can’t believe it has been nine months, feels like more than a year; Queenstown seems a life-time ago. I have met, befriended and said goodbye to so many people in that time as well. Some of them I can barely remember but there were so many that I would consider friends; Denise, Richard, Blair, Shane, Joelle, Angus, Nick, Rachel, Bev, Lucy, Andy, Stein, Lucille, Sylvania, Josh, Jo, Emmerson, Natalie, Marco, Jim, Jen, Mirna, Neil, Lucy, Ruth, Flo, Kirsty, Gerrit, Dave, Hila, Sue, Miyuki, Alex, Corey, Elle, Lina, Lisa. All people who I still feel sad about having to say goodbye to.

I suppose I should talk about what I have learnt from my time here in New Zealand and whatnot. Self-sufficiency is a big one, there were times when I got lonely and was stuck in a place were I felt I had no friends, sometimes for weeks at a time. Times like those you have to get used to your own company and to organising everything for yourself. On the other hand however, very often it was as a result of those bad times that I got to encounter the good times; feeling lost when I first arrived in Queenstown lead me to move and have a great time in Dunedin, my shit first visit to Wellington motivated me to move to Napier where I had the best few months of my holiday. The value of these friendships are also important, no matter how stunning a snow-capped mountain or pristine golden beach is, if you have no one to share it with then what’s the point? You learn to be philosophical about these things, good times come and good times go, as do good friends. You have to learn to juggle the skills of making acquaintances and developing friendships quickly with being able to let go and say goodbye, very often in the space of a few days. You also have to learn humility, I have stayed in stayed in some very shit hostels, been reduced to wearing cloths held together with safety pins, worked for some ignorant fuckers and in some really hard, thankless jobs.

If I were to do the trip all over again there are some things I would do differently but all in all I am happy with how it went, less time in Queenstown would be good, as would more in Dunedin, better budgeting would have helped but working was part of the experience. Surprisingly I am not actually that sad about leaving. After Wellington I said goodbye to my German friends, which was hard, but afterwards I kind of faced that fact that my money was running out and I was just not in the mood for more sight-seeing. For the last 3 weeks I have been here in Auckland staying in a friend’s apartment, which has been great. It was such a relief not to have to share a room or worry about someone stealing my food. Doing domestic things like walking the dog or just lazing around the house for the day was also great fun. We went on a few weekend and road trips but nothing major and that has been grand.

The time off has given me lots of time to catch up on my internet and organise this trip to South America. That is goingt to be fun, have organised an itenary of sorts and will hopefully meet up with some friend of mine in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, one of the plus points of having studied and travelled internationally i suppose. Dont know what the internet access will be like once i get over there and there is no Vodafone so dont think the old phone will work, will try and keep this thing going but leave me comments, even just your initials, just so I know if people are reading, saves me sending emails. Ciao for now

Nose to the grindstone and all that

So spent a few days here in Rotorua, kind of a diappointment to be honest. Heard lots about the thermal springs and parks around but they all cost money so fuck that. I have kind of came to the conclusion that my holiday in New Zealand is kindof at an end. I have a little over three weeks left and i think i will give up on the rest of the sightseeing and instead just go straight to Auckland and work til i leave, perhaps a few weekend trips could be cool but at this stage i dont really want to see any more beaches.

So working for a few more weeks then off to Chile i go. Like i said, i arrive in Santiago on the 6th of February then meeting Cathy, a girl i worked with in Dolans, on the 7th and we are going to run, skip and jump all the way acreoss South America. Should be fun

Happy Christmas, New Year and all that Jazz

So it has been several weeks since i last wrote to this thing so i suppose i owe ye an update. Not going to bore ye with all the nitty details but in short the last 2 months or so have probably been the best of my trip so far. I was staying in an awesome backpackers called the Stables Lodge, the weather in Napier was class and i met lots of amazing people, several of which i got pretty good friends with, as you are want to do under the circumstances.

I was working pretty hard for several weeks and in the end i had a big argument with the boss and quit. in some ways i was loath to leave the job in the sense that i actually did not mind the work. It was often boring and repetitive but i was working with loads of local Maori guys and also two friends from the hostel. So we would just spend the day weeding or apricot picking in the sun talking about everything and anything. When you are doing nothing but that for 10-11 hours a day , 5/6 days a week you get to know people pretty well.

After a four day vacation to Taupo where i swam in hot springs, did a bungee jump and then met up with Michelle for lots of alcohol, i returned to Napier to get ready for Christmas. Getting ready for Christmas of course had to involve a night when around 15 of us found this cove around 20 miles from anywhere and spent the night on the beach, sleeping on the sand in a circle around the bonfire.

Christmas was also pretty sweet. There was 38 of us and everyone helped either cook, decorate or clean up afterwards. I made lots and lots of fried potatoes and they went down very well. Lots of drinkenness ensued. Around the 26th then i said goodbye to sunny Napier and a bunch of us made our way down to Wellington, its just a 4 hour trip but we made it last 3 days, sleeping on beaches and in forests before getting to Welly on the 30th. There was no room in the inn so most f us either slept in their cars on the street or, as what was in my case, a tent in the garden. New Years itself was a series of very late nights, average 5am bedtime, lazing around on beaches and lots of alcohol.

So all in all it has been a sweet sweet few weeks, which i why yesterday it was so hard to say goodbye to everyone i met in that time and move on on my own. They had started in the North and were moving down while i was going the opposite way. I was re-reading Sarah's now almostdefunct blog and she describes it pretty well when she says the 'sundering just makes you want to curl up and die'. I know i have harped on about this a few times, when i left Dunedin and again after Queenstown but this time was so much worse, tears were involved. The bigger the high, the deeper the low it seems. Though i am in a really nice hostel in a pretty town called Wanganui at the minute i dont actually care. Whats the point of all this if you are just doing it alll by yourself.There was one particular fella that i got on really well with, a german guy called Gerrit. He reminded me a lot of Niall in that he was 6"Huge' and big. We were working in the orchard together and i kind of adopted him as a younger brother for the two months. It psucked especially to say goodbye to him and also to two of the ggirls. We have made promises to met up in Germany during the summer and since most of the people i met were german i joined their equivelent of Facebook, called Studiverzeichnis, does not exactly roll of the tongue i know.

I will get over it I know but does not stop me feeling shit about it now. I already have plnned to meet up with some friends from Queenstown and Arcscoil Ris in Auckland so that will take my mind off things. I also have sorted out my South America trip more. I actually spoke to a very polite and helpful customer service person with Quantas ands i am now definately flying into Santiago on the 6th of February and then leaving Rio de Janeiro a few months later and arriving back in Shannon, via San Paolo, London and dublin on the 24th of April. I may also have a travel companion in the form of one of the girls who i worked with in Dolans. She is looking into tickets but if everything works out according to plan she will be meeeting up with me in Shannon, which will be nice.

So apologies for the long, rambling post, but i would think after a 2 month absense it was needed. I will try and get back to the short, regular posts from here on in. I have also put up photos on my bebo and facebook if you are interested, bebo site being

www.kernunos.bebo.com