Working 9 to 5.......ya right more like 9-4..the next morning!!!

Alrighty then so i think regardless of other developments in the 'blogosphere' (oh how maddox would be turning in his grave) i think i will continue to use this blog as my primary kind of 'diary' thing.

So i am just home from work there, well actually Eoin came and picked me up and we went to Eddie Rockets, i really have to stop doing that, i aint excercising as much as i want so i have to stop eating so much of that shit, delicious as it may be. David Kitt was playing tonight, he was grand, a big crowd but they were not mcuh drinkers so it was a pretty quiet night. I am working again in Thursday night and then Saturday and Sunday night. If i stick to my ISI schedule then i am on the way to working my first 60 hour week. Did you ever think you would see the day ehh. I am not doing much bar working at the minute but it is not too much of a bother, i am getting at least 8 hours sleep every night so i think i can handle it as lond as that stays the same. One thing about it however is that i am finding myself clenching my teeth the whole time and it is beginning to hurt. Perhaps it is because i am subconsciosly stressed i aint sure I think it might just be the whole working behind the bar and dealing with people. I am not sure why i wanted to work in a bar so much to be honest as i hate dealing with people. As many of ye know i cannot stand having to answer phones and dealing with people face to face is not better. I actually dread starting work behind the bar but that subsides after a few minutes. Pouring pints is easy but i am always worried that i am doing something wrong. I always get into the swing of things and enjoy it a lot as the night goes on but i think that i am doing most of the clenching when i am actually pouring the pint and adding up the persons change in my head. Perhaps i will start wearing a gumshield in bed cuz i think i do it a lot in my sleep as well, i actually wake up with sore teeth.

(Lindsey Lohan suffered from heat exaustion, i am just tired)

So 60 hours ehh, i am going to be rolling in it. What i really want to do with the money is pay off my debts, i got rid of the Credit Card money and am set to get rid of the Credit UNion loan in a few months. I am going to continue living like a pauper and just save money and pay back shit. Imagine not oweing anybody anything, it will be great.

On a connected note, i am now thinking of puching back my leaving til April, the reasons for this are multitude:

1)i will have completely paid off my credit union loan
2)i will have saved up a lot more money
3)if i have paid of the Credit Union loan i can then get a graduate loan from the bank and i wont have to pay that off til i come home, with the Credit UNion i would have been paying while i was away.
4)I will definately have my life-guard and swim-teacher qualification, at the minute getting the lifeguard one looks a bit iffy.
5) i will be going into New Zealands winter and can head straight to the ski-resorts and try and get a bar job there, i will then be set to get a summer job at the start of their summer rather than arriving in January which is nearer the end.
6)I will be able to fit in a snow-boarding holiday in Europe before i go if i am lucky.
7) i will get to see my sister for more than two weeks in two years. As it stands she will just be coming back and i will just be leaving.

The only think making me want to go in January is my pride to be honest, i said to myself and everybody that i will be going then and it sux that i will not be able to stick to it. I cant think of any reason why i should not put it back another bit to be honest. If anyone has any suggestions or somments about this please leave them here or somewhere more private as i am starting to try and get organised and would appreciate any input.

Right i think i will go have my shower and then head to bed, tomorrow is my leisure day, well i might work a few hours in ISI but i told myself i dont have to. Since i work weekends i dont really have any days to do nothing bar the ones i allow myself.

First Post as Paul Sheehan B.A politics major, Yah

So this blogging malarkey ehh, well I will not bother to giving a detailed recap on what has happened since I last blogged, I graduated and have pictures up on my bebo. For those that don’t have a bebo coughcoughconalcough…ahem if you are really desperate then you can look them up on someone elses, although I thought I showed them to you already. Anyway, I notice that everyone has been kind of lax in the whole blogging thing but since we are not actually all in conal anymore and don’t get to see each other as much I do think that we should try and do it a wee bit more, even if it is only a small thing like Pa’s succinct thoughts or Joan’s long-winded whiny feminist rants.

So as many of ye know I started working in Dolans around 3 or 4 weeks ago, for Amanda, Dolans is a big pub/gig/traditional music venue in town. Last week I started pulling pints which while nerve-wracking is a good thing as I get paid a little bit more, I think. For the first while I was just collecting glasses and stocking the bars and getting the place ready before gigs and cleaning up after. The whole while I was doing it I noticed that people were treating me different, I was ‘the cleaner guy’. My first night was an Aslan concert and the place was filled with Scobs and while I was collecting glasses this young fella goes to me ‘keep it up bud, everywhere need people like you’, and another night one of the new bar-men gave out to me for mixing up the Heinekin and Guinnes pint glasses, I just stared at him til he apologised, luckily he was fired the next week cuz it turns out noone else liked him either, which was nice. I actually remembered him from school and he was an idiot there as well. He is a bit younger than me and Conal said it is kind of sad that he is still seen as a twat this much time later but the way i see it he has had 15 years to learn so its not all sociaties fault. I dont see my job as degrading or lowly in the slightest though, so i mop up after people when they spill their drinks or collect their glasses when they are finished their drinks, but some of the looks i get given are weird and if i am working and meet someone in kind-of knew from school a lot of the time they get embarressed if i serve or clean up after them. People are odd.

I am also doing a swim teachers course so i will be qualified to teach lessons when i am finished. Its hard going at the minute as i have been working Friday nights, doing the course all day Saturday then working from 6 til 3 on Saturday night. I have been like a zombie, but the people in work are all sound so it has not been too bad.At this stage i will have bar experience, a swim teacher qualification and hopefully a pool lifeguard certification. Hmmm hopefully it will be enough. I really have to start saving my money though, its getting rediculous at this stage. I am delibrately telling people that i am leaving in January so there will be plenty of pressure on me to actually go or else i will constantly be having to explain to people why i am such a waster. I am still trying to decide my route and all that, some day soon i will sort all that out.

So post college living has been a bit weird to tell the truth. Last week i started doing kick-boxing and in the class of around 100 i knew nobody there bar steve, it was like feeling like a stranger in my own home. Since i am still living out here beside the college and working with students in ISI and living with Eoin, Eoin and Mary i am not completely out of touch but i could not imagine what is must belike for you Pa or Liam who are completley removed from it at this stage. In a lot of ways though i am quite relieved that it is overwith, my evening are my own now and i have no projects, reading or assignments hanging over me. Plus for most of the week i can get up as late as i want except of course for saturday which i so busy i cant actually remember them. On the other hand though it is weird not having such a wide circle of friends around, while i may not have spent all that much time with people in my course i would have met and spoke with a much arger amount of people every day than i do now. At the moment is is limited to people in my house, people form home and people in work. A usual amount for most people but i am used to seeing and knowing much more people in the run of the day.

Alright so a bit of a disjointed post there, i am updating my Bebo page while i write it. I want everyone getting on the posting bandwagon again, Pa has his new job and shit, Amanda is in another country, conal is getting ready for Sudan, Joan is studying again, Liam is living post ISI and steve is back to college so give us all a recap at least.

Family Affairs

Okay so since Pa put forward such a convincing argument and since I actually have something to write about I said I would blog. First of all, a disclaimer. It is Midnight as I write this and I have been drinking since 2 thi9s afternoon so I accept no responsibility for the spelling mistakes included here within or for the slightly sentimental tone that all drunken musings take.. I may even expose this to a spell-checker before I actually post it on work either tomorrow or the day after but I promise nothing.

S o the reason I am slightly inebriated is that today we buried my uncle Sean. He had been sick for a while and I had been expecting a call while I was down in West Cork about the bad news,, which I got last Thursday. I came back up home on Sunday and we have been kind of busy since. I had to break out my suit from its containment and went to the removal last night and the funeral today. As I am one of the ‘men’ I was standing in Cross’s funeral home and shaking hands with all the mourners. It went on for an hour and my hands were killing me after. The strange thing was, and this was with everybody, that we were all grand and even cracking some jokes until y the time came to close the coffin and then suddenly everybody, myself included were in bits.

This morning at the funeral was the same, we were all grand until the very end of the Mass when they started singing ‘The Fields Of Athenry’, a song that was very fitting considering that my uncle Sean was a huge Munster rugby fan and, even though he was in a wheel-chair, went to most of the Munster matches around Europe. We actually were going to have the Heineken Cup as one of the offerings but, even though we had permission to use the cup, we decided against it as it would have taken away from the mass. Anyway, I was in bits once they started singing that, I don’t think I will be able to listen to that for a long time without getting sad. It wil be added to ‘Fields Of Gold’ as a song I cannot think of without feeling a wee bit weepy. So when ever I had to actually face people I was usually blubbering away to myself but for 90% of the rest of the time I was grand. I am hard as nails I swear.

My uncle was a bachelor who really lived life to the limit, even though his illnesses put limits on his enjoyments of several things but he dies after a long long time ill so the last few days wer3e really a celebration of his life rather than a mourning of his death. Funerals usually sadden me, not only because I will miss the person in question, but because I am sorry for the loss and grief that their death cause the family. In my uncles case we were the family and since he had nobody relying on him there was not that air of despondency around the occasion. Sean had a good fulfilled life and even managed to see Munster win the Heinekin cup which was a huge thing fo him, he would have been pleased as punch if we had had the cup for his funeral.
What I really learnt and what made me sad over the last few days is that I have gotten to know my cousins and family and learnt how much I have missed over the years by not taking advantage of what a complete legend of a family I have. I spent most of the day today in the bar after the funeral with my two older cousins aged 28 and 33 whom I have not spoken to for at least 10 years and getting pretty drunk with them. We got on like a house on fire and I really hope I will see em again. I have arranged to take my cousin’s kids to the cinema tomorrow and will take Gavin and my younger cousins as well. I really want to stay in proper touch and have got the number but I am kind of depressed as I don’t really see it happening as, even though all my family live in Limerick, we only see each other on special occasions and don’t know each other that much. The two cousins in question have always been really older that me and this is the first time that we have all been together as ‘adults’ and able to speak as such but they are both sound as a bell and we just spent the evening drinking Red-Bul and Coke and just pissing ourselves, I did not realise that such a thing was possible with my cousins but I hope it will happem again some time soon in the future.

I also got talking to my aunts and uncles and my second and third cousins and just singin songs for the evening. I am known amoung my relations as Paul the Wonder as I am really the first who has finished college and I get a good bit of ribbing about it but I as talking to relations I have not seen for a very long time and just found out that that while some of my cousins are doing very well for themselves, others have gone a bit astray. I realised tonight that a few of my cousins that i was the same age as and very friendly with when I was younger have now families and two in particular are major drug dealers in Limerick. It turns out that I have pretty close ties to the infamous St Mary’s Park Ryan family, something I never copped on to. Its good to have contacts though, incase I ever need anyone bumped off, Liam I am looking at you. For all these guys faults their mother was like an aunt to me we were talking and singing for ages, it had been an age since we spoke and got on like a house on fire.

So today I realised tha ti actually have an extended family. I have never really thought of myself as a family man and dismissed my cousins as people I see rarely and have little to say to but realised today that I have been missing out on a lot. Having two older cousins is weird since I a m used to only having an older sister but seeing my cousin and his two kids I realised that there is a lot more to my family that I had originally thought. I found cousins and distant relations I did not know existed and having that much ‘blood’ relations actually was very cool. I am kind of depressed in a way cuz I know that a gathering like this one will not happen again for a long time but hopefully now I will manage to stay in touch with at least a few of hem that I was not talking to before.

Uhhh, blogging from work, i feel so naughty. Just a short one i suppose, since it seems that i am doing more posts that the entirety of our little community put together. I arrived safe and sound from Barcelona, albeit very tired. Sat next to a random person on the way back home that turned out to be the daughter of one Claudia Beckett, one of the slushs from Clonlara parts, tis a small world.

I dont see myself doing much posting from work in the near future though, i have gotten a job in the Summer Camp so that should be a laugh, conal and Elaine are doing it and one of the guys in works girlfriend's is too so it should be a laugh, i suppose i should mention that Joan is working as well.

ammm, i wish people would blog a wee bit more, just so i can have something to do while in work, our newest recruits Pa and Steve are being uncharacteristically silent. Bebo is good, but not good enough, although Amanda has promised to put up pictures of her and her Maouri boyfriend Benji on her bebo site, they should be fun.

Drugs are bad *Kay

Alright so perhaps a more cheery post is in order. Went to the first full day of Sonar yesterday, that do the the music festival i am here in Barcelona for. Queue was pretty big but we had left it late to go in, around 3. As we were queuing though we heard the Scissor sisters playing on the main stage, we got to listen to their last 4 songs but only got to see Filthy/Gorgeous, they were not actually schedualed to play at all so that was a surprise. They are so lax dusing the day with what youcan bring in. They only sell expensive Bud in there so we just brought in two or three 40cc bottles of San Miguel and proceeded to get a little tipsy while sitting out onthe grass, twas well calss. We stayed there till around 9 then headed bac to apartment to get fed and changed before we got the bus out to the night venue, this mahoosive convention centre areound 25 minutes outside the city. They were much stricer with the alcohol thing out there so we had to sit outside and drink our beer there, that was actually pretty class as there were tons of people out there, we gave some M&Ms to these dutch people so they gave us some orange mixer, which we shared with some swedes if they shared their vodka. We had tons of beer left over that we just did not want to we just gave around 8 of them to some other randomers besides us.

INside was class, went to see Nightmares on Wax, DJ Shadow, and Jeff Myles i think, we were just wonderingaround for a good while as welll as there is three or four diferent halls. There was one in particular that myself and Kay went crazy in, i dont know who it was but it was just filthy electro shit with class a brilliant light show, poor anna wore new shoes to the thing and ripped us all her ankles so by the end of the night there was no junpy jumpy for her. This was at about five in the morning so i had well flushed out all the alcohol from my body, well i think so anyway. We got hopme a while after six and for some reason i got up an hour ago to goon the internet for some reason so perhaps i am a bit drunk still. Just going for breakfast now and hopefully we will be at the day venue before 2. I am just going to pack all my stuff as i think that i will be conming straight form Sonar night to pick upmy gear from the hostel then going straight to thwe airport. If anyone is around tomorrow morning and wants t pick me up from Shannon around 1 just text me and iwill see what i can do.

I do so love my mother's one-line text messages. Ijust found out this morning that one of my neighbours died, she lived across the road from me but i would always stop to chat if i met her. I have no idea what happened her,she could not have been over 60 and i was talking to her only last friday but i just get a text this morning "Christine Lynche died" which has made me a lot more upset than i thought it would. There are a lot of people living in the estate she came from that i truely would not give the slightest damn if they dropped down dead tomorrow, a majority in fact, but she was certainly not one of them and i really wish it was one of them instead of her.

So i just saw that this will be my 100th post, pity it is being written on a shit keyboard so will be oft times illegible. I do be in sunny Barcelona at the minute. Arrived on Monday evening after getting the fright of my life the night before since i thought we were not leaving til Tuesday afternoon, luckily all wnt well and we arrived safe and sound. The hostel is very nice, its clean, relatively cheap and you get nice beds and a locker. It is just overlooking one of the streets on the Gothic Sewctor and since we are on the third floor we can look directly into the Church just across the street, only around 20 foot away. Pity the bells start at 7 in the morning then every half hour, god damn Catholics.I will put up pictures when i get back.
Spent the last two days doing tourist things, went up some crazy Gaudi cathedral yesterday then went to a park designed by him, we got a tiny bit lost once or twice and must have walked at least 8-10 miles yesterday, not including the hundreds of steps in the god-damn cathedral. Today we went to Salvador Dali´s home town and went to his museum, lots oif funky shit there. Tomorrow ius the beach and aquarium and then tomorrow evening maybe to the SonarPub. I am completely disorganised and we do not have a map or programme for this festival at all, i am hoping everything will just work out in the end, whats the worst that can happen.
I will try and post at least once more before i go home and might actually be able to give a description of this famous dance festival that i paid so much money to go see.
Adios (thats actually spanish for good-bye....i think)

So i spent all last night re-aligning my core assets, ie touching myself inappropriately

So i have not been blogging that much recently and the major reason is that i have just not been bothered. Most of the people who read my blog have their own, so they know the reticence that seems to fall over you when you sit down in front of this screen. There has actually been many a time over the last few months when i load up this 'Post new blog' screen, stare at it for a while then go off to look at the World of Warcraft forums. Still we have succeeded in increasing our number and converted Steve '12inchesaround' and Pa 'devilsoldhissoul' to our congretation, which is good and well. Now we get to sample the twisted Malkavian nether regions of Pa's psyche and Steve egotistical self-indulgent rants. Over the summer i am sure that our absent friends, ie Joan and Liam will get off their heinies and actually let us know what is happening in their lives, as probably living with them wont be enough

I have just finished my last essay for University today and have been forced to accompany my missus to the conputer lab so she can type some crazy post-grad thing so i said i will catch up on my blogging. In the last three weeks i have written the equivelant of a second FYP in essays. The one i handed in today was for a really difficult politics class i have but it was actually very interesting when i started getting into the books. Call me a nerd but i enjoyed reading John Locke's Letter on Tolerance and Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. I have spent so much time over the last few weeks writing and editing my essays that i am unable to stop going back over what i write and checking does it make sense, flow right, and sound okay, hence this being probably one of the most grammatically correct, well spelt posts i have ever done. While the sociology essay was predictably shite and boring, the two political papers i wrote were very interesting. The one i did on Security actually made me think that i would like to pursue it in a post-grad, i am sure i saw a Security Studies post-grad somewhere. The one i did on classical writers made me want to get more of their stuff and read it on my own time, i could actually understand it and thought a lot of it was applicable and relevernt today.

To counter-balance this new nerdy trend i have been captivated by the new Big Brother. I know that it is heavily edited and filled with weirdos but i just love to sit and watch them all acting out. Its something that is fun to do in real life but for some reason people dont like you staring at them for hours on end in public. I like to think of it as a sociological experiment. We will se how they play out over the summer.

So i am off to Fanore for the weekend for some rest and relaxation. That frickin last essay really took a lot out of me. Myself and Kerrin are heading down till Monday. A weekend of rest and recuperation should be great fun, plus the Eurovision is on tomorrow night and i am bringing my lap-top so i can play Civ 4. It is looking like a good weekend.

Worst. Holiday. Ever!!!!!!

SO this weekend was like, totally, the worst weekend i have ever had to like, you know, experience!! Eoin, sooo totally forced me to come on some complete waste of time that was his 'roadtrip' to the freaking Giants focking Causeway!!!! I mean, i like so had an uber eventful weekend planned!!!!

I suppose you could say it started with Christophers, like, birthday on thursday night! I sooo had more important prior commitments to i arrived late but the party was really only waiting for me to arrive before it got started!!!! Everybody who was anybody was there, apart from Mein Kamp, who like totally would have blown all the trolly-dollies there right out of the frigging water!!!. Anyway, it was a quiet affair, so overrated, i was like so brutally attacked and like my hand was completelly gashed to pieces and my keys stolen!!!!! I mean, like what sort of lower class tripe do i hang with, i am sooo much better than them!! lol

The next day i was sooo hungover, well less hungover and more, like, not hungover! Eoin rented this complete monstrosity of a people carrier, i was mortified!!!!! There were like seven of us in the car and while i said i was like comfortable it was actually like hell and i, like totally hated every second of it lol!!! We eventually arrived in Eoins 'house' in Naven that evening and i like so had the worst meal of my life. Eoin's mother like totally only made four home-made pizzas, homemade brown bread, gave free beer, toast, spuds and for desert we only got like five bowls of crisps, tortillas, nuts, chocolate and sweets. Talk about living below like the breadline!!!

Next day we saw some like, totally lame pile of rocks called Newgrunge or some shit!! Something to do with ancient people and the sun or some like totally boring shite. I mean really!!!! Next we were dragged off to some complete culchie Wexford hill that was supposedly like the tallest pub in Ireland, duh Eoin its like, friggin Good Friday!!!! After getting sooo completely lost we found ourselfe in like some resemblance of civilization in Terenure, it turns out that Eoin had some totally great plan for a complete short cut. Christchurch is like sooo not a shortcut Eoin!!!!!!!

After getting a guided tour of the Red Cow roundabout for like the second time we started heading up to like the land of the IRA!!! For some crazy reasons the GC (giants causeway for all ye tards!!) was closed or something so we went and like just managed to get a B&B that was like a complete hole. We all had to stay in this room that was like completelly huge and we all got our own single bed, i mean at least throw me a friggin bone and give me a queen-size friggin bed!!!! So we go look at some complete deathtrap that is some ropebridge over likea 200ft drop, i mean what are these weirdo doing on islands in like the middle of nowhere that they need a complete waste of space that is a bridge. Roysh i was like sooo bored but Eoin made us climb mountains and take like a million pictures of some stunning vistas or some crock, i mean i was like not even able to use my friggin phone!!!!

That night was spent in some complete hole of a hotel that had some steak that was only just edible while everyone completely scoffed theirs down saying it was focking delicious or something, i mean they are all like pigs or something!!!! After buying some tripe of beer we like so had to sit in a pub and play completely lame games of pool and darts for ages!!!!. i like totally forgot about how much fags stink and my clothes were like completey reeking when we got backt o the B&B and opened our drinks there. I had to have like a complete prehistoric shower, lame life!!!!

I will like totally finish this litany of disaster tomorrow, the library is like closing and i have to go home and catch a few zzzz, lame lame lame!!!!

This has nothing to do with my road-trip but is a picture of bendy Elain Ryan doing some funky spinning shit. I know this is a bad picture, she has put on a lot of weight in recent years

The crew gather, ready to embark on a journey that would test the limits of their endurance and strength of character. The tension and excitement is palpable as they stand in front of the ancient shrine to Lugh, waiting to receive the puissent blessing only the mighty solar God-head can bestow. Newgrange is also in the background

Eoin, with his steely gaze barely contains behind his jet black visors, transfixes the road with a single glance. In the background Paul cavorts with his eager harem. Christopher remains unseen after the size of his 'junk' is disclosed by an errant rodent. (insider-jokes are for tomorro!!)

Paul points out the 12 ft troll he just tossed single-handedly to the watery depths some three kilometres beneath this flimsy barely suspended 'rope' bridge. Behind him the natives barely conceal their boundless joy, Kerrin is struck dumb with awe

Abercrombie (left) & Fitch (right) enjoy a day at the Giant's Causeway.

I aint dead

Alright so i hear the multitudes screaming for some more words of wisdom from the mouth of Paul. I am down in the library trying to fulfill some of my electronic obligation to all asunder as well as update shit and look up stuff. Perhaps i should not have left this old blogging til last cuz i do not want to re-hash all the stuff i already said.

I am very much relaxed at the mo, i have no essays due until week 12, i.e 4 weeks time so i am just hanging aroung doing sweet fuck all. I should really start doing something. As the the end of college gets closer i realise how little i actually have to do. I have been doing less in college as the years go by rather than more. My lectures this year are all pretty interesting but if there is no percentages going for attendance then i usually dont go. I know i am wasting a huge opportunity but i just cant motivate myself to go. There was a weekend conference on there last Saturday and Sunday on the Israeli/Palestinian thing with speakers coming from American, Israeli, and Palestinian universities as well as yerman who runs the labour party, or else the Socialist party. Did i go, hell no.

To be honest i was recovering from the lack of sleep that arose from the Post Grad Ball. I went along in all my glad-rags with my glamorous Lady and we balled the night away. Fun was had by all. The only downer was that i had to be up at eight the next morning to give a presentation at nine. Now everyone knows how much i like my sleep so that class was absolute hell. I bull-shitted a bit on Marx and Jews then for the next 2 hours tried to force my eyes to stay open and my brain to engage in reality rather than the soft world of dreams. There was only 9 of us in the class so there was no chance for a quick snooz but i have been told that my eyes were rolling around in my head. Still it was worth it, i go to rent out a spiffing tux and the bands and Dj that were there were well good, apart from the DJ's like of Nirvana, and rock music that had all the girls jumping around risking all their poor ankles, i really wonder how they do it.

Hmm i am really out of practise with this blogging malarchy, what does one write about in these things. The Students Union elections are on this week and appearantly this is the biggest turn-out of candidates in the SU history. I am someway interested in it this year, ironic since i will not be here to see any changes, because i know a lot of people running for the position. I actually went to the hustings, a platform for them to give their speil, yesterday and it was good enough. Most of it was predictable enough but there were some funny bits from the suited druggy Ra-head who kept shouting at people and eventually i cringed every thime he spoke. ANother unexpected bit was a friend of mine Sinjin, a long-haired left-wing hippy, actually convincing Chris and Liam, two right-wing disgustingly cute bigots, that he would be the best candidate. There is a reason he pretended to be Jesus in his posters.

i will leave off there but i will post again about my summer escapades, money problems and those long hairs i find on my pillows.

Picture Review part II

The delight of finishing the F.ucking Y.oung P.andas, i have at least one day of Rag Week














Niall, chillaxin on the Canary Islands.















Kerrin falls for the Irish Charm yet again, with horrific consequences

A picture review up to this point

Carving up the some wicked powder on the piste's in Italy. Forget the fact that i fell over soon after this picture, i still kick ass.












Joan and Grainne at Eoin's birthday, best you dont ask












God, i am a sexy beast....Kerrin is too bad either

Pout Central in the aftermath of the exams

Damn right i am a saint

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hail Britannia.....ha

You know its one thing to have written a huge long post and then lose it but its another to write a huge long post, pay for the privilege of using the internet and then lose it all. grrrr. Anyway i am just writing to sate the hunger of those mewling creatures whose only purpose in life seems to be tasting the sweet necter of pauls words. I am in London at the minute in the hotel lobby doing a bit of study. Thats write you heard me right, it has to be done cuz i have been putting it off for so long, i am just doing an hour or two of it before i meet up with shea and we go to the Natural History Museum which should be fun, i am meeting up with Rachel then for a while afterwards.

I will blog about my snowboarding last week when i get home and can post some pictures but it was indeed very good fun. I have been in London since yesterday and have mostly just been walking around. I went to the Museum of Art and Design yesterday which was full of cool shit from Asia, India, Europe and Africa throughout the ages, some class samuri swords and statues and stuff. It was when i went to the comtempory stuff that i decided that i should go look at some modern art, you know how that feeling just comes upon you, well James does i'm sure.

So off i went down to the Tate Modern on the Thames. It was free in like the other place so i just strolled around to my leisure. I saw all the stuff which included some Dali, Bacon and Picasso but all in all i did not really like it. Perhaps it is my complete lack of artistic knowledge or perhaps it was the lack of slepp but i came out thinking that i have just seen mostly a pile of rubbish, i was just not in the mood for thinking about things myself. It was also mostly paintings except for the warehouse full of white boxes and i mostly prefere abstract sculpture or architecture, the museum itself was pretty class and led to a really funky bridge over the Thames.

Afterwards i went home and freshened up and then myself and Shea made our way to Kingston to see rachel's play. It started off in the Theatre with a bit of interpretive dance about getting ready for a night out and then they were handing out invitations and jumping off the stage and it ended up with a conga line through housing estates and dark alleys till it lead to a pub and the rest of the play was in a function room in the back. I must say that Rachel was the best sex crime victim i saw in long time. So between that crazy shit and the Tate in general and then this morning a looked at conor's blog my mind feels funny. The world is gone loco, there is no Truth only lots of truths, its po-mo, or maybe neo-po-mo.....ya

As for amanda, i actually had a dream about you last night, i was in New Zealand in Aucland and rang you to meet you but i got mistaken and said i was in Wellington and then my credit ran out.

And Laina, i though that God acted in his mysterious way and smote down all camera's in that nest of iniquity. i remember mine stopping work in the pub beforehand and only starting to work back in the Hostel. I will have to see this picture, i hope it is not that one with Robert.......

A Withered Horse runs among us

Yip i do be sick and i aint the only one. This post may be a bit out of date cuz the worst has passed but between Eoin's pneumonia, Liams strang rash/throat infection combo, joans racking cough and my feeling like poo i think Mr Pestilence has been having a jolly good time. I personally blame my parents for making me eat meat, i never got sick when i stuck to the potatoes, joan dropping us in the wilderness and making us walk home probably did not help either. I have been chugging the cough syrup like water but i can nae seem to shake it, i hate being sick and i really really want to get better soon.

My exams are ongoing but i have not really been doing anything. I do have one on wednesday but i have yet to start it. I am enjoying myself not studying though, i dont regret not doing more. I will be glad when they are over though, then its straight onto the FYP, i am trying not to think about that one. I am so dedicated to the stufy that i even went to Dolans last night with Liam, Steve and Chris. Twas a good night until my contact lens fell out and that really pissed me off. Perhaps it is because i am wearing them so much more these days but i just cannot stand being blind any more, I dont know how people who have the same eye-sight as me can go through the day not wearing glasses. I just cant function without them, you have not a clue what is happening around you and since you cant see a persons lips, face or gestures properly i find it harder to follow conversations and shit as well. Anyway after that happened and we came back from town i just went home and skipped the after-party party. Not that it helped though, i woke up today with a horrible hangover and i only had a few pints and one vodka shot. uhhh i cant wait for all this exam, essay shit to be over.

I am still hopefully going snow-boarding after the exams. I dont know exactly when but hopefully that will be organised. I have been talking to a few people and the best thing seems to just get cheap flight somewhere and get accomodation and then rent the boards and the ski passes once you get over there. I will have steve look into it cuz he is my bitch. At the minute it is myself, steve Dave horan, kev and one of steves friends going and hopefully that will not change much. Kev may not be able to make it cuz of something but i stern 'NO' should convince him of his loyalties.

Old School City

So i went off the Danielle's 21st in Molly's on Saturday night. While i am more used to attending 21st in exclusive bars i deigned that perhaps this one could be worth attending. I got to see the ex-dyke Elaine whom i have not seen since Liam's 21 around 6 months ago. Her hair looks alright i suppose, she was mugged before she arrived thoug and lost one of her sleeves and around 6 inches off the bottem of her skirt. It was an old school meeting though i saw a good few of Danielles friends that i have not met in ages and Joan & Dave, Kev, Dave eile, Steve, Liam and Kerrin were out as well so there were plenty of us. I love parties, like Liam's Halloween one, where you know nearly everyone there and can just go from person to person and talk to them all. This one unfortunately did not include Conal and Pa and Laura was only around for a bit but what can you do. I tried to explain to Kerrin the tangled web of relationship in our group but it got a bit confusing when i got to Dave and Kev...hmmm.

And just so she can say that there is a picture of her on the 'net here is a licture (ha, that was actually a spelling error but i guess its a pretty good fraudien slip so i'll let it be. licture like picture and lick, get it?? i'm fucking hilarious) of myself and the missus. I think she enjoyed herself, perhaps up until the point Steve dipped her bag into a pitcher or beer, or was it the other way around??

And just to finish here is a picture of the gorgeous McMacin (well thats embarressing, i forgot how to spell Danielles name) Twins, Daneille on the right and Emma on the left. I actually got them mixed up when i came into the bar and was going to give out to Danielle for snubbing me before i realised that it was Emma that i was talking to. She did not recognise me either so i suppose i can forgive her, just

Auld lang sym was not sang here

Are'nt we just the cutest little school boys ever. So this is one of the few photo's i have of my New Years celebration down in Fanore. It twas a good laugh, conal, liam, myself, Dave, chris and steve (starting from left2right) as well as Kerrin, Laura, Yvonne and Joan (left2right again)

I was not sure if the caravan could take 11 of us but it all woked out in the end. Apart from the electricity going after 10 minutes and very a stressful half hour before we got it running again. Still we had gone an bought tons of candles in the meantime so we did not really use the electricy anybar, bar to power the running water which was pretty necessary. Like i said a good night was had by all. We had two swims, the last one of 2005 at around 10 with myself, liam and Dave being the only ones man enough to brave the frigit waters of the Atlantic without any sort of thermal protection. Later on then myself and Chris went for another dip at around 3. If anyone had seen us running half naked through the dunes holding hands in the rain, questions may have been asked but luckily we had pretty much the whole park to ourselves for the night. The next morning then we went for an olde-school walk along the beach and rock pools. Poor little conal was so excited about looking in all the rock pools, he even found a little jelly friend. We left early enough as driving in the dark sucks and very few people got sleep the night before (thanks liam & Chris). But it just goes to show that even without lights, TV or radio, good wholesome fun was had by all. We are thinking of having a return trip some time next semester and perhaps this time Mr Mullane can join us, plus if we are there for a few days we can organise swimming togs and surf boards. hmmm

I hate when sand gets everywhere, dont you?

So how are allmy poor sodden peeps back in the home country. I am on my way back up to the apartment and decided to stop into opne of these internet cafe´s. The weather is a little TOO hot here at the minute, around 30 i think, and i fear that my poor pale irish skin is going to get roasted so i am heading back up to the apartment with its pool and shade. I will have a wee bit of lunch and then probably do some study..thats right study. I have done more research for my FYP this week than in the last three months. Its surprisingly easy actually, there is only so much lying on te beach you can take and i purposefully onñly took school books with me so i have nothing else to do but read while absorbing some rays, who here can say they did two hours of study on Christmas day???

I hope ye are all having a good time earlier, i have been reading the Irish Independant and it turns out that freezing fog is expected, i think it is almost a certainty that i will catch a cold when i return. I have been eating pretty good since i came over, i have eaten more meat in the last 5 days than in the last year, i have either a hamburger, sirloin or fillet of steak every night. They do it quite well over here. I dont have much more news, i dont have time to write a big introspective piece, perhaps when i come back

ONe more thing, i accidently went swimming in the sea with my phone yesterday so it is now capute. Could ye all tell people ye know so that certain folk dont think they are being ignored. I will look into gettin a new one when i get back, more expenses hurrah.

AFFLUENCE!!!!

So here i am in sunny Peurto Rico in the island of Gran Canaria. Actually my brothers have just been thrown off a bucking bronco after our Christmas dinner. We are just having a stroll around the promenade you know. I cant tell you how weird it is, its very much like a good Irish summer over here, around 23-27 degrees in the sun but when a cloud covers the sun you need an old t-shirt on. The place is nice enough, as tacky as expected, they ripped the island apart to build apartments everywhere, they have gouged into the cliffs and built right on the water front. Our apartments are grand, right in the town centre but i bought me some ear plugs so i hear nothing at night. Santa was good, got me a few wee things that i needed. Apologies for the very brief post, these internet cafe´s are cheaper over here but still i prefere not to spend my hard earned money. We went for dinner tonight, i had steak and wdges, the best steak i ever ate i may say. I have not much experience but it was far better than the one i had last night.

I will be off, i hope ye all had a good christmas and i will be back next Friday at 2, you never know i may even post again beforew then.

BLogging is for cool people

So i am finally finished college for Christmas, well i actually finished last frida. Twas a hectic last three weeks. I had an essay due in every Friday and all of them were late, in fact there is one i have yet to hand in, oops. We finished it off with a bang at the work-party on Friday night though. It was on in the Castletroy Park Hotel and it was well class. I am not sure about the meal as i ate very little of it but i did however eat beef and copious amounts of bread rolls. There was plenty of wine flowing and a good time was had by all, i may post up some pictures of it later. I was the drunkest ever at that party though and for the first time ever i had a complete memory blackout, i remember walking back to to estate but nothing after that, i have no recollection whatsoever of going to Liam's house and drinking more, none of returning to my house, none of bursting into my roommate and telling her to get up, i have no idea how my pants got behind the couch or when i fanally made it into bed. ON the plus point i completely emptied my belly before going to sleep so i had no hangover the next morning, just real tiredness from lack of sleep.

That night we decided to see King Kong just to make something of a day otherwise spent stagnating and watching Charmed. It was a good movie but perhaps going to see the 9:30 showing of a 3 hour movie in the state we were in was not the best idea. Like i said the movie seemed very long and had one of the most disturbing scenes i have ever seen in a movie, lets just say i would think twice about going to see it if you are quesy about creepie-crawlies. I am just stumbling around for the last few days doing nothing much. Louise is back from Spain so i will have ot see her soon and i went out last night to the Icon and had a very good time. I am only around for another few days as i am jetting off to the canaries for Christmas. I have not really paid much attention so i dont quite know where exactly we are going but it seems pretty cool and hopwfully it wont rain.

Apologies for the scatteredness of the post but i have nae posted in a while and have almost too much to say. i will try and do another before i leave on Friday and perhaps put up some pictures

Perhaps a it of study would not go astray

Finally i get the chance to sit down and blog. I do not like queuing so i dont use the computers at college, i am rarely at home and i do not like to blog at work so chances to blog are hard to come-by. I made myself sit down today and sort some stuff out. I sent a few emails, sorted out some capoeira stuff, checked out some classes in limerick and now i am blogging, congratulation to me.

I had a mid-term last week and i went into full hermit mode and spent Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday in my room speed-reading thought books. Joan came over Tuesday night and we got talking and since i was sick to death of studying i convinced herself and Liam ton come down to the Stables afor karoke night. We had a few sociable drinks and then went home to sleep before the exam at 9 the next morning. Well thats what i did, Joan was wasted and ran around her sitting room in the underwear and Liam had to study god-bless-em. thats what you get for playing Madden all weekend while i was being very Studious.

Thursday then was the class party which went well enough, congrats to Mike and Sinead for a job well done. The bus was a good laugh and we stopped off at Empty Pockets in Ennis for a few cheap drinks before going to Galway and heading to Cuba's. It was a good night but got a bit messy in the end when one of the girls got drunk and went missin. Thankfully i am not a class rep so i did not have to worry about her. Leave her behind i say. We eventually drove the bus around and found her but several people were of short temper at tis stage. I had hoped to sleep on the bus as i had a class the next morning but i ended up talking [read: grunting] to this chatterbox beside me til we got home at 5. I was sober and not much of a happy bunny. I had been drinking since 7 but when you spread it out over that long a period it kind has no effect.

The next night was Anna'a birthday and we were going to Trinity Rooms. I was a bit worried that i would spend the night surrounded by ladies, admitedly very pretty ladies, so i asked Eoin to some along with his friends from home. I find you have to have a mix when you go out, All-Guy nights are nearly as boring but not as uncomfortable as being out with all women. It was not that bad though, i knew all of Anna's friends and her broter and his friends were out as well. Trinity rooms had a make-over since i saw it last and it was pretty cool. The bass was making my eyes vibrate and the glasses fall off the table. I may put up some photoes when i get the chance.

The night after was Triona's 21st which was a good laugh. Between herself and her friend Claire she seems to know someone from every social circle in Limerick and it was only after that i found out that Jen and Pa had both been invited but thought that they would not know anyone there and did not come. It was an....eventful night and it a pity i had to leave early, i missed Rock The Boat which is always a good laugh. There is still the ISI Cristmas party si suppose. Yet again and for the third time in a row Sinead followed me out. Seriously Sinead i am not interested, stop trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me.

Thew next night i was just not in the mood to go out to liam bought a slab of beverages and made me stay and drink it, we watched some quality art film and had some nice ethnic toast, then watched some nature documentaries on the lap-top. All in all a good night although i felt a bit poorly the next day, perhaps the toast went down the wrong way.

I am getting off my ass and actually doing some work this week. Essay deadlines are beginning to loom and i have to get cracking. I also skipped out on the gym all last week so i shall have to start that up again.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 16th) however i am going to Dolans for Giveamanakick's new album launch. Ten euroes and there will be a DJ and a pig on a spit. Should be fun.

iPods suck almost as much as Pa

I am at this very moment talking to my good friend conal on MSN and he is harping on about how great his broadband is. Pity he knows nothing and soon his computer will crash and BURN. I sometimes think that people should not just be allowed get a computer, its like being a parent. People get a new computer and then fill it full of crap, never clean it, never immunise it, let it hand around bad crowds with no protection and let it get slow and stupid. I mean the first thing you should do with a new computer is get an anti-virus and get free internet downloads like Adaware and Spypot, i have not gotten any spyware or pop-ups since last Christmas. And even if once a month they clean and defrag their hard-drive then their computer will last for ageslonger and they wont have to run off to Daddy to get a new one after a few short irritating months.

My brother asked me today why did i not do computer since i can fix most of the bugs that pop up at home but to be honestI actually hate the things though. I spent hours tonight trying to get my sisters iPod up and running before she headed off to Australia tomorrow. TO be fair to her she spent two hours on her own before i came home trying to crack it. That in itself was quite unusual because i am usually the one who does computer stuff in the house but she did everything that i would have done and still no avail. Still i came home and then tried to sort it out, computers are shit, the internet was acting up, as was my computer plus the home computers and the software was manky. I wont even try to explain but i would not reccommend an iPod to anyone, you can get Creative ones that are much easier and more friendly to use. It took more than three hours to change my songs to iPod format as well. Long story short i managed it in the end but now my eyes are killing me from staring at a computer screen and my testicles have been microwaved all evening so no chance of kids for me.

Ya my sis is heading off for a year tomorrow, its weird cuz i have only been back from America little more than a month. We had a big 'Christmas' dinner yesterday cuz it was her birthday and none of us were going to be around for Christmas anyway so we got the Turkey and ham and stuff and had a big gettogether with all the aunts and uncles. Twas a good night, even though all my relatives live in Limerick i do not get to see them all that often, i have not seen my aunt since Christmas. Tonight we just had a closer family sit-in and just messed around and cursed iPods. It will be sad to see her go but if everything goes according to my master plan then she will only be back a month or two next year before i head off on my travels. I think i have gotten much more used to not seeing people for extended periods at this stage. The world is small and we have plenty of time to see people. Rachel our British friend that we met in New Paltz came over on Tuesday and stayed one night before heading home and Liam will be going over to visit her soon as well. I will see them in the future and if you stay in touch then there is no problem. On that note i will of cours ebe ringing my favourite New Zealand girl soon so she need one worry.

The problem wiht not blogging a lot is that there are too many things to talk about when you do, i could write about how i am trying to start a capoeira club in UL at the moment, or Liam and Owen's class Halloween party or Rachels visit but it is late and i am tired so they will have to be described by personal request. I must off to bed be, a shout out to negro-nose in Dublin and to all ye plebs who live through my blog. ...man i'm down with the lingo

Misanthropy

Do you ever just get in one of those moods where you are just pissed off at the world in general for no discernable reason. I am just in what can only be described as a foul mood which only came upon me at around ten this morning for no real reason. Everything is going well enough, i moved into my new house and the house-mates are sound enough. It will be a very quite house though. I went to Joan's karoke party on Saturday instead of going to Mundy. I would not have minded seeing the Mundy fella but i had a good enough time in Joan's. It was a wee bit quite at times and i think the reasoj could be the lack of alcohol consumption going on, of the people i knew there six of them were not drinking and steve was just dabbling a bit. There was also a lot of foreigners who were not exactly the life and soul of the party. I mean it's a karoke party, the entire reason is to make a fool of yourself singing power ballads in a god-awful voice. Its not the kind of thing that many can do sober as a judge.


I suppose it ties in a bit with Liam's thing of drinking and not drinking. Believe it or not but i actually dont think it is a good thing to just give up alcohol. It should not be a feast or famine kind of thing. I think that moderation is the key, I for instance do not get drunk very often and i cannot remember the last time i got wasted. I will never drink enough to give me a hng-over, i know my limits and then i stop. If you just give up alcohol full-stop then the temptation is always there to fall off the agon and fall off it hard. Of course you have people like David Horan who is well able to have fun while sober but i think most people , myself included, can be a bit dour when sober. Just take Pa last night as a case in point.

I was at a house party there last week and for the first time i actually saw people take cocaine. Now most people know my viewpoint on drugs, that their badk m'kay. Now my beef with drugs is not that they make you stupid, annoying or addicted but rather that is is us middle-class college students who support the scoobs that we so often complain about. Paying money for that shit goes to nobody good and nothing productive comes out of it. Saying all of that though, i was very much tempted to take some. I cannot say why but those excuses seem to pale in comparision. Perhaps if i was afraid of becoming addicted it would have made more sense. I dont smoke hash or get absolutely wasted because quite simply i dont desire it but this time i did want to take some. IN the end however i did not try it and and i was pretty glad, there was absolutely nothing stopping me but my own will-power. Drugs are bad kids.

Anyway i must be off, hopefully someone will mug me so i can pound there head into the floor until i am only smearing chunks of brain off the tiles

something to pass the time

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 30% spiritual. 100% reason-oriented.

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Le Self

Alright since Joan is having a rag about blogs i may as well write a few words. Its different now as i am home, i could write about the awards night on Friday but Liam has already mentioned it or i could talk about going bowling on Saturday which Liam and Joan have already talked about. I could muse on about people and things in college but i would have to severely limit myself. I suppose i could make some deep sociological comment about stuff but none spring to mind. HMMM

Well i have been making good on my promise to myself to get out a bit more, i went to see David Kitt in concert there last week and it was pretty good. He would not have been my first choice but one of the guys was reviewing him for An Focal (the school newspaper) and he had a spare ticket. It was a pretty small, around 50 people but i enjoyed it. On Friday then there was the Work Party which was tres cool, everyone in their glad-rags and slightly inebriated. Much crazy dancing went on, the first time in 4 months for muggins here (apart from the drunken street dancing during the Blues Festivals many moons ago). Saturday was the bowling and cinema which i really enjoyed, twas definately different from most saturday nights out. I think it was really unusual to have such a big bunch of us out and for everything to work out, eight of us bowling and six in the cinema. last night then i went to the Theatre to see a play about Tom Creen an irish explorer who treavelled the Antartic 3 times with Shacleton and Scott. It was very different from what i was expecting and it was well cool. I went to that with young-man Patrick and had a oh so delicious eddies after.

During the intermission wine and cheese reception i met up with Dave Sherlock(with his new beard) Kev King and Dave Horan. That was a weird coincidence as i had accidently texted Dave Horan that day and we had said we would get together for tea and crumpets some time. Kev King also invited me to a party in his place tomorrow which i will endevour to get to. I will first be going to a Sci-Fi night in Laina's place tomorrow, those lucky fuckers are doing an entire module on science fiction in their English section and so are going to get drunk and watch silly aliens, sounds like fun and then i may make my way ito town to ye olde watergate flats for some jollity. I have no class on Friday so that will be alright.

Home Sweet Home.....?

So i have been home for two days now, or perhaps it was three, i am still uber disorientated. I went my longest ever without sleep when i came home. I did not sleep on the plane, even though i thook two of my drowsy pills, and i stayed awake until 7 o clock that evening so i gather it was around 30 hours without sleep. Since i usually get tired after being awake for around 10 hours i was pretty ,uch off my head delirious, i had to just keep talking or i felt i would collapse. At one stage during the afternoon i went to the bathroom and felt the floor moving under me like i was in a boat or a bus. I slept for two hours and then went out, I only stayed out for an hour and a half and then came home cuz i felt like shit. I got to meet a few people so that was good but i was just not in the mood for stuff.

I have enjoyed coming home and seeing people, i spent a lot of ths weekend with good old steve and Laura (i think, i cant remember much of saturday) and i saw Liam and Pa for a wee bit. I also spent a bit of time with the family and with our new kitten. I am looking forward to seeing people at college as well. Truth be told though, apart from seeing the people i have not seen in three months i do not feel that enthusiastic about being back. Perhaps it is reverse culture-shock but i just dont want to be back here, not in clonlara, not in UL or not in LImerick. Perhaps it will pass in time but i just want to be out of the country again doing my own thing. Perhaps it is the fact that i spent the last three and a half months doing my own stuff that it seems a bit clusterphobic to be back i my house surrounded with my family in crappy weather. I like to thik that i have changed over the summer and there are certain ruts and situations i just do not want to be getting back into.

Of course since i have came back most of my day to day experience will be with ye guys so this blog is going to have to become less of a bitch-fest and perhaps more of a commentary thing like Joans. Dont expect as many updates either, it will mostly be mundane irish college things and as brilliant as i am i can only come up with cutting socially analitical discussion every so often. Also forgive the really bad spelling this post. It is nearly half three, while my body is screaming sleep my brain is saying "But its only half ten!!" oir maybe it is the other way around, either way they are not letting me sleep.

Alright, so i say this will be my last major blog before i get home, hostels charge too much to spend much time writing. I am pretty much all packed but i still am going to get up early tomorrow to make sure everything is done and dusted. After last year i am still completely paranoid about forgetting something or leaving something behind. I have two big bags, one of clothes and one of books, my laptop and my back-pack. The two bags are well heavy but hopefully i will not have to lug them around as much. I am looking for a hostel in Boston that is pretty near South Station Bus Terminal, bringing that much luggage through the subway is not a good idea. I will be flying to London at 6 o clock in the evening and arriving in Shannon at around 8:30 on Saturday moring, it had better be sunny i say.

So we had a little going away party last night, twas a civilized affair but a few people from work that usually do not emerge came along and so it was very enjoyable. i got a selection of odd presents, from the plate of potatoes that were sliced to spell BYE PAUL, to a Julie Cooper book and a CD of Cheesy 80's classics and World of Warhammer videos. I also forgot to say that i got the Family Guy movie off Dubs in New Paltz, i watched it today and it is pretty good. I went in to the store today then and said a final goodbye to everybody. This year it has been very different from last. I came over here on my own and now i am leaving on my own. None of ye know the people i met over here or the place i stayed so when i go home it will be like this place never really happened. At this stage however i do not feel that bad about leaving. There were a few people that i will be sorry not to see but i do have their email acounts so i am sure we will stay in touch for a while before gradually stopping. That is something that i have found out since college, between working in Dublin, going to New Paltz, coming here and generally meeting people in college i have met and then lost touch with many many people. When i was younger i could not handle that at all but i am gradually finding it easier, i dont hold out any hopes that i will stay in contact with everyone i meet in college and i will just enjoy it as it happens.

I must be off, it seems that there is no space in any hostels in Boston tomorrow, Uh Uh

I am just packing up my stuff. I get so tired of saying goodbye to people, its exausting and i hate it. Lots of stories from New paltz but at this stage i will just tell ye in person in a few days, or on the phone for the unfortunate souls who dont live in Ireland.

Sean, interrupted while argueing with Amanda about how i was not actually in New Paltz, another humorous surprise. Toilet scratchs his elbow in the background

Here is natalie, taken seconds before my camera died.

Here is one of Joe and his little brother Jack, just a month old. Bless. Obviously this was not taken at New Paltz....well perhaps not obviously.

Here do be one of Lais, Natalie and their room-mate, amanda i think. Hey to Lais if she is reading this.

Boo-hoo-hooo.....again

So i am posting this from Natalie's flat. It turns out that she was in the city fot the last while and that is why i have been missing her. She appearantly has an internship at ABC television station. I am leaving tomorrow at 6:30 so i have pretty much seen everyone i am going to see. I have to say good-bye to New Paltz yet again and it is pretty hard. New Paltz is my college as well as UL. It feels so natural to be here. Lat time i spent two weeks saying goodbye to various international students and come the end i was just sick of it and wanted to go home. That was not the case this time. I have had a great time here and i do not want to leave, not to Maine or to UL. I spent most of the day with joe or Lais and it was eally hard to say goodbye. I will not ever be back in New Paltz again so this time any goodbyes are petty final. I will not be going next year and the year after most people i know will have graduated so this is the last time in New Paltz for me.

I spent a lot of time in my room last year and Joe is like a younger brother to me. I realy hope that i will see him again but i dont know if i will. He is growing magic-mushrooms under his bed and selling them and he has given up the basball team in favourof the ice-hocky team but he seems to be doing good. I went back over to Dub's apartment with him tonight and did 2 power Hours and had a class time. I do not want to leave. I do not want to leave.

Hurrah

So i am posting this from Dubs's room while listening to 'BANANA PHONE' Yes Dubs, who a select few of ye may remember asJoes friend has downloaded the classic and i am listening to it at this very moment. Make sure to tell Eoin in work that i got it.

So i ran away from the hostel as i knew that i would not have gotten back before twelve and i left my stuff in Lais's apartment. I then headed off to Happy Hour at around eight o clock, a bit late i know but i had a shower in Lais's then had something to eat in Gullies. Sop i go in and i se nobody. Sure Vader, Dice and Doug are around but i can only say hello to them, not hang around and talk to em. I went to Oasis, and Gullies as well and decided to give P&G's one mor etry. It was then that i met Laura and Annie. I hung about with them for around an hour and then trhey were heading down to therir apartment for a few drinks and i said i would join them. As i was waiting outside however i met Amanda and Sean (apologies for those who were never in New Paltz and never knew these people, i guess this post is mostly for Amanda, liam and James.) That was pretty sweet and i stuck around for a few before we went down to a cafe to watch Dylan (blondiosh rugby guy who spent a bitof time in Australia) play a gig in a cafe. He was really good but a bit mellow. I got to say hi to vadar and Dice though which was good. I WENT BACK TO p&g's for a bit but then i got bored and decided to head back to lais's where i was going to be sleeping but who did i bump inot but Joe, who i had been ringing all day long but getting no answer. I am in Dub's apartment now and it is pretty cool. He seems to be doing pretty well for himself. i will write more later

New Paltz mark II

Roysh so i got up today and went for a long stroll around campus, its very hot, sunny and sticky here at the minute so i am well glad i did not bring the long pants that i was starting to waer a lot in Maine. For a while i just sat down in fron the the Humanities building reading a book and surprising random people, well not random i knew them but the fact that i bumped into them was random. I rand Lais later on and i went down to her place and talked to her for a while, she said that she would sign me in as a guest in Hasbrooke, i think it was the first time i was actually excited about going to that place. Sitting in there was surreal, i kept imaging i would see Amanda stumbling in, in her pyjama and glasses and looking worse for wear after the night before. I was tlaking to Lais for a good bit but then went down town for lunch. It was two plain subs and a gatorade for me in the Convenience Deli again, ah the memories. Myself and James would go down there every saturday morning and he would try and piece together what happened to him the night before.

I was walking past the Quad when i saw one or two guys that i recognised as being a few of Silja's friends. I got talking to them then had a nifty game of Ultimate Fizbee for around an hour with a big bunch of them. You would not think that i was an imposter walking in their midst. I called down to Amanda eile then, one of Seans friends and i was talking to her for a while, did a few shots of this 150% proof Barcardi Rum which i am still recovering from, twas as strong as that Stroh shit. She did not have Seans number but appearantly he is now playing rugby and so i said i would kill two birds with one stone and surprise him and say hello to a few of the rugby guys. Amanda rand his grlfriend and she said practise was over at 4, unfortunately the silly cow wa wrong and i missed them by half an hour. That plan went out the window. Now i am back in the hostel and i am going to have a shower then call up either Laura and Annie or Natalie and Laura and see do they want to go for something to eat.

NEW PALTZ, NEW PALTZ, IT'S A WONDERFUL TOWN!!!!

So i finally got here, i am writing this for ye from the Hostel that is there on Main Street, it was the one with the slightly disturbing Halloween display of Michael Jackson and a bloody child. Anyway it is so cool to be back. My bus was delayed in New York and then i could not get through to Marie, conals aunt, who i was hoping to meet. I just could not get through to her with the public payphones, i was unsure as to what digits to include or leave out. So that sucked. I went for a bit of a walk abound New YOrk which was as smelly and loud as ever, I liked it though. I also went for a bit of a walkabout in Boston which was sunny and nice and pleasant.

So i eventually arrived in New Paltz a little after 11, Annie and Laura met me at Poughkeepsie train-atation. It was weird to see them, i have began to associate them more with UL that with New Paltz. They dropped me off at the hostel and i was lucky to get a place, reserving a bed would have made too much sense. So then i went for a walkabout the town. I did not realise how much i missed the place. It felt like i never left, my time over here last year was perhaps the best few months of my short life. Walking around was so familiar and i saw a few of the rugby guys and one or two guys from my class. Then on my way back to the hostel and just passing the HAB building who did i meet puking into a bush but....JOE!! The look on his face was priceless, i had sent him an email but he never checked it so he had no idea i was coming. He was a bit drunk so it took him a few minutes to figure out what was happening. He has grown since last year, god bless him, he's an inch or two taller than me now. I got his number anyway and i am going to meet up with him tomorrow. Hopefully i will be able to get onto a few people and meet them in Happy Hour. Even if i dont i will be satisfied having met Joe and the girls and just walking around the campus.

I must be off, theis place is as hippyish as the rest of the town and there is no wall betweent he common room and the bedroom and these bums are trying to sleep. I am actauly exausted yself, i did a lorrah lorrah travelling. I will post again soon

BOSTON BABY!!!

Roysh, here is Laina looking suitably awestruck by the Prudential Towers, or the Prud to those in the know

Happy Almost Halfway to St Patricks Day Day

Roysh, so i have just got the chance to update after my few days in Boston. I have a spiffing good time with Mrs Lainadoodle. I was only in the city for 24 hours but fu times were had. We stayed in the same hostel that the New Paltz group stayed in last year and that was kindof weird. The whole being in Boston again was kind of odd, i kept imagining Amanda or James to run out. Laina was actually staying in the room Rachel was supposed to be in last year.

So i went and did a wee bit of shopping which was helped by it pissing rain, we saw the Famine sculpture again but did not mock it this time. I actually went and spent a bit of money which was nice but a lot of the stuff over here is ver 'American' (obviously) and i nae like it. I went into a few stores that while they looked grand turned out that i was either a few shades too Caucasian or poverty-stricken to feel comfortable. We went down to Crossroads, the local irish bar to get something to eat and drink a wee bit. I had my first Magners of the summer, twas lovely. We then had a pitcher or two and some of the house beer in big glasses. Laina stole some stuff for me. Appearantly they are having a big celebration in all the irish pubs in the city in October called 'Halfway to St Patricks Day Day' which is a very good idea.

Now as i mentioned in my previous post we got a nite-club called Julliet's reccommended to us but unfortunately we could not find it so we went into this big one with a queue in frint of it that seemed popular, plus there was no cover. It was only inside that we realised that while it may not be an actual gay-bar it was very...very gay friendly. Still the music was alright and we had a few drinks there. It was my first time in a gay bar and while i dont consider myself homo-phobic in the least it was a little jarring to see so many same-sex couples dancing away. Now New Paltz and Maine is choc full of lesbiens but that was actually the first time i had ever seen two guys kiss, poor innocent irish guy that i am.

The next morning we got up resonably early at nine and while i checked out we settled on going to the Science Museum. That was a good laugh even though unfortunately there was no Lord of the Rings Exhibition there. The first place we looked at was all these optical illusions that in my state at least meade me feel very quesy. There was also a butterfly garden there that had huge flapping things in it, the terrified look on Laina's face made it worthwhile. Lots of other cool stuff, i bought a venus-fly-trap which will be cool. We left it too late when we were leaving though and i very nearly missed my bus home which would have sucked major ass, luckily the taxi-driver was hanging for a piss so he was in as much of a hurry to get to the station as i was.

Now hows that for an update. Today was my last day working in the book section at work and it shall be relatively dearly missed. I only have 5 or 6 working days left and i still have to organise my trip to New York. I was going to do it this evening but i started watching Kung-fu movies + Manga + X-Men2 so i got kind-of sidetracked. I was reading the Irish Independant as well today and heard about the vandels at Thomand Park. Appearantly they left a note saying "fuck the guards, fuck the system, signed scumbags" Now that note tells me they were either very socially aware knackers or what i think more likely is that they are the middle-class scowbs of Caherdavin, i know the type........

NEW BOSTON UPDATE

Its half two in the mornming, i went ot a nite-club for the first time in 4 months, tw3asa a good laugh. We went to Crossroads and had a nite-club reccommended to us. We could not find it though and went into the first one we found. Pity it was full of raving homo-sexalxss and fag-hags. Myself and Laina had a good time though. Forget Marc, robert is the new man. saw somew irish guys there, i was very disappointed in the state of irish manhood.

NEW UPDATE...........just for pa

i am in Boston, i have 30 seconds left on the computer in the Hostel. Having a great time with Laina

*America Update*

So today is Sept 11 again. I bought the New York Times Sunday Edition today and actually sat down and read the thing. I bought it several times in New Paltz but is always just turned into an unread pile in the corner. Now i read todays edition from front to back (no mean feat i tell you, thats over 200 pages) and i was really surprised by the lack of articles on Sept 11th stuff. There was no talk of any big concerts or marches or nought. Now i know that that may not surprise us at home because it happened so far away but last year in New Paltz several of the major TV stations gave hours to relatives rading out the names of the dead. One year it was parents reading the names, next year it was children and i cant remember what it was last year, then there was a big candle-lit vigil around the campus, which was kind-of spooky. This year i have heard nothing. I suppose it is kind of over-shadowed by the whole Hurrican Katherine thing, its a pity they could not have spelt the name right.

With regards to that things seem to be settling down in some way. They are still taking people out of the city and trying to clean up and the 'evacuees' (not refugees, only foreign types are refugees, American are evacuees') are still moving around the country. Appearantly it is the biggest organised movement of people since the Civil War. There are a few up around us and staying with our next-door neighbours. It odd, all their worldly posessions bar the case or two they have and their two cats are gone and the places where they worked are also gone. They are saying that a lot of them wont be going back and settling in their new States.

Word!!! Believe!!! Believe in the Word!!

Today was a good day. I went into work and the new schedule is up and WOOT i got the two days off so now i am going to New Paltz. I was smiling like a Cheshire cat for the afternoon. That was a weight off my mind. Of course today was the first day that i was working with Bi-Polar Betty after she announced her wuitting and i think we have just given up on any veneer of civility, we were jsut snarling at each other all day. She will be gone by Wednesday.

In other news, a new fella came to work with us today. Its a pity that he is an incredibly camp 17 yr old. He is all eager and asking questions and generally annoying me. Still its good that we got someone, i probably would not have got the days off if he had not come around.

I went over to play World of Warcraft again tonight. It was a good laugh but the most fun was just hanging with yerone, her boyfriend, their crazy dog and their house-mates. They are all my age and we just sat around talking and drinking, something i have not done since i came her. All in all, a good day.

A Conundrum and no mistake

Oh waily waily waily, i dont know why i am still up writing this, perhaps it is my undying loyalty to all my faithful supscribers. I am so tires it is not funny, i went to bed yesterday at eleven but could not for the life of me sleep. I do not understand it, i had not eaten or drank anything for two hours befoer bed and i had not had my protein shake at all that day. At 4 o clock i decided to take some of them anti-histamine tablets as they knock you out. I dont want to take them as sleeping tablets as i would be screwed if i started not being ablt to sleep with out them. So i go to sleep some time after 4 and then get up an hour and a half later at 6 to get ready for work. To say i was a zombie at work today would be a major understatement. We had no cereal so i had no brakfast and so for the first few hours i was chronically fatigued and had nothing in my stomach but the remains of sleeping tablets, which were doing their job all too well. I came home at 3 and just collapsed in bed for three hours. i deliberately woke myself at six cuz i did not want ot be screwed tonight.

Anyway, apart from that bit of mosfortune, there was also a bit of scandel in work today. My good frien Bi-Polar Betty is quitting and leaving next week. While i had known that she had gone for and interview for a beautians she had saind that she would probably not take it. Long-story short she is leaving and also leaving us high and dry. There are some good points and some bad points about her going. 1) She is going, 2) i may now be trained to make drinks meaning something for my CV and a 75 cent payrise, unfortunately the bad points are that we are now even more chronically understaffed than ever and my chances of getting to New Paltz are fading fast unless in the next two weeks they can hire someone of Manager material. It has yet to be resolved.

Thinking of titles is such a drag

Alright just a small post. I have changed the setting on leaving comments like Liam. It pretty obvious, you just type in the letters that appear in the box before your post can go ahead. That will stop all the stupid fools from leaving advertisment shit on my comment board. Its in the 'Comments' part of 'Settings' if other people with blogs want to turn it on.

I now have 24 days left over in the States, that just over three weeks so i am really feeling like i am winding things up over here. While i had a great time over here it will be far easier to leave here than New Paltz, saying goodbye to everybody there was very very hard. The only person that i care about over here and will not see again is Lacy but the strange thing about that is that i am not too worried about it. Not to be too crude about it but we are basically just friends who sleep together. Bar Suzanne, she is the person who i have spent the most time with over here and while it has been fun it was never serious. When i think back to how much i dreaded saying goodbye to Amanda, (whom i never had relations with, regardless of what does damn paparazzi say!!!) there is nothing that really compares over here. I will of course see Suzanne again as she comes to Ireland for a month every year and Patrick sometimes comes over. As much as i complain about her, Bi-Polar Betsie is another person i would spend time with, i have gone to the cinema and the bar with her on her own and enjoyed myself.

It is looking more likely that i will be able to go to New Paltz, Lacy suggested that i get my request in quick and it should be alright. If it were any other job i would probably quit now and go travelling for the three weeks but since i know Suzanne it is more personal, after all i am going to be seeing her again in January when she comes over. So on my days off this week i hope to go for my kayaking lessons, the week after i am going to Boston to see Laina and the week after that i will hopefully be in New Paltz and then on the friday after that i will be flying home. The time will fly i am sure.

Looking at vegtables causes cancer

Ai-yi-yi, here is me looking chuffed, why? The weather has been brilliant the last few days after the rain blew itself out. I went to the beach yesterday and just lazed around with Lacy and read books. The place is really nice, its a forest that runs right down to the coast so you have the sea, the beach, thick forest. I got a wee bit burnt but nothing like what happened me a month or two ago. Fun was had an i started a few good books. I am thinking of going down to New Paltz in a week or two and it will be around 8 hours travelling each way so i am trying to find a stock of books to keep me going. I worked it out and if i get the 9:15 bus from Rockland i should be in New Paltz by 8:30 that night and that included an hour stop in New York and Boston. I am looking into it and got some good news today when one of the girls in work said it is usually not much of a problem to get days off after labour day which is monday.

So anyway i went to see Transporter2 yesterday with Cliff, my man-date. The film was alright, it was almost a parody of the genre at some stages and was sometimes so cheesy that you had to laugh but twas enjoyable. I was talking to Cliff afterwards and it turns out he is a screen-writer for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, unfortunately i dont watch it much so i did not know much about it but it seems pretty cool. He knows that guy who played Keller in Oz which Steve might understand. We got talking about borad-games afterwards cuz he is a complete afficiado and he gave me a few suggestions about some games that we might get for Christmas. Unfortunately our nerdy conversation was broken up by the women who had gone off and gotten very drunk on their own. We went back to bi-polar Bettys place and just hung around there. I got on really well with her last night actuall, i showed her how to do Irish dancing and we bonded over our shared appreciation of the Carpenters. All in all very confusing.

So since i was not starting work til half 2 today i went kayaking with this woman who comes into the store a lot and is fascinated with Ireland and all things Celtic. Still i got to ramble on about home while we went paddling out the coast to her families Island. It was scorching hot out and the water was just beautiful, it made me really glad to be here. At the minute i am just back from work and i am exausted. I was closing in the store today and while i enjoy it, it means that i sometimes finish quite late. Still i managed to get another invitation to go play World of Warcraft again so that is cool. Apologies for the brevity and mundanity of the post but perhaps i shall have more to say tomorrow. It is kind of hard to make everyday things sound exciting.

I am very discret, but i'll haunt your dreams

You know what makes me homesick? My dreams. I have just after woken up and my last three dreams have included one of myself, my sister and my brothers all going for a trip to the Empire State building, of being in Fanore with the Honan, an meeting up with Joe in New Paltz. Of course the first involved flying cars, the second of Conal running away from home and the third with New Paltz actually being in Fanore and the dorms have been replaced with caravans but you get the picture. So now i want to get to New York for a while then go home to see ye guys.

WOMEN, a defence tool of known value

Hmmmm, I went the The 40-Year Old Virgin last night. I dont know if it is out back home but if it is i recommend it. The lead man is the guy who played Brick in Anchorman and he is very good, his character is a good bit different. It was a weird movie, i say a lot of girls would like it as well, that is if you feel like being stereotypical and saying that girls do not like fart jokes but do like romantic comedy. It is the perfect date film i think, something for everybody. It got a bit slow and touchy-feely near the end but the finale was fucking class and made it all worthwhile.

Bar that i do not have much news. I am going on a man-date on friday. Kaia has set me up to entertain her boyfiend who is up from the Bronx on Friday while herself and Lacy get stoned and read all the Fall catalogue magazines, they have piles of them ready. I think we we will go see Transporter 2 cuz it looks class and otherwise i would end up going on my own. He seems alright, he's a screen-writer and a big action movie buff so we will have something to talk about. He is 15 yeas older than me though.

I only have a month left here and i am quite looking forward to going home. Its not that i am not enjoying myself here but I have done nearly everything i can do here and i would like a change of scene. I am in the same kind of mood as i was near the end of New Paltz where i am feeling very nostalgic about Ireland and listening to Sinead o'Connar, Mary Black and other 'Celtic Mysticism' shit i dont have any time for back home. I am thinking of asking can ii finish work on the 21st which would give me a week free. I would really like to go down to New Paltz even for two or three nights. I am definately going down to Boston to visit Laina, i shall have to get on about getting accomodation, oh woe woe why did her blog have to die. Perhaps i shall hear from her through the ether...or shit.

Holy Mackerel Batman, i didn't know it could do that!!!

Alright the title has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. Which is not really much of a post at all really. I was just reading in the newspaper about Hurrican Katherine (i dont really need to read about it, I just look out the window, we are getting the shit-end of it). But anyway appearantly it is going to hit New Orleans. At first i did not pay attention but then i realized that they is a mandatory evacuation of the city. Every single one of the cities 400,000 thousands citizens have to leave and the place will be completely abandoned except by 10,00 people, mostly tourists that are all staying in a superbowl stadium. It like something out of a movie. Appearantly this is the worst storm to hit the area in 100 years and since most of New Orleans is old and 10foot under sea level they are expecting a lot of it to be completely destroyed. Will be interesting to see what happens.

I think i soiled myself

WIZZZZ!!! BANG!!!! WOOOOSH!!!! While it happened two days ago i am all still
buzzin from teh Union County Fair. Thats right folks, i spent my Friday evening at a good olf-fashioned american fair. There was a ferris-wheel, game-stalls, fortune-tellers, lots of bad food venders, a horse-pull, a pig-scramble (i kid you not, they grease a pig and you have to catch it) and then a bleedin hugh fireworks display. I went with Lacy, BiPolar Betty and her new beau. You have to remember that she is bi-polar betty not just bitchy betty so she was in a good mood and twas fun to be around her. It was kind of surreal to be honest, it was the most cliche american thing i have ever seen and when i went into huge barn to watch giant horses pull tons of weight i felt like i was in some a Country & Western video.

So the night before the fair i was over in Lacy's and we watched Brazil by Terry Gilliam, the ex-Monthy Python guy. Twas a good night, the film was good and we went through a bottle or two of wine. I needed it after the week i had though and it felt good to actually relax. We went off to the fair the next day then at around five and went looking at the alpaca'a and llama'a and prize-roosters and pigs. Great fun, lots of stalls selling shiny rocks and stuff as well. So we were really only there for the fire-works but there was a surprising amount of cool nausea causing rides as well which was jolly good fun. Our boss turned up later so i guess that is one more person at work who knows about myself and Lacy, i dont mind as i am going home but she has to stay there and while noone would be nasty about it they can be pretty barbed.

Anyhow, last night then we went over to Betty's place and watched Dodgeball. I went through another bottle of wine there and then we played cribbage, crazy i tell you. Still i was talking to Betty's beau a bit and he is sound. I dont get a chance to talk to much men around here bar Patrick and dreamy Mark. I spent the entire evening at home tonight which is a wee bit a novelty these days. I read threough Jen and James's properly so thanks again and i got your package Joan, thanks a million. I wore the t-shirt around all day and i appreciate the newspaper, i was feeling very out of the loop. Work is going grand at the minute, i am trying to keep a lower profile so i wont get burnt as much. While she may have been sound over the weekend i am not relying on Betty's good mood to last so i am strictly professional in work, no jokes, anecdotes or random conversation. It is an effort for me to be consciously 'cool' with someone i.e formal, but i have had enough of her tantrums to be honest. I have only a month left over here and i do be wanting to do stuff. I am going kayaking with this random woman i was talking to in work today, she is really interested in Ireland and when i told her that i had kayaking lessons she offered to take me out herself on Thursday so that should be fun. I am also looking forward to getting down to Boston to meet up with Laina for a day of culture.

I also just wanted to say hello to my ghost-readers, the ones that read my blog regularly but dont post, you know who you are.