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.