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