The smell of fear

It's crunch time in college at the moment. Every time I blink I have some grinning lecturer delightedly announcing the onset of another project. Grinning they stand napoleon like pointing at the projector screen at the words PROJECT: DUE DATE: DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! etc. On top of it all we have a thesis to hand in at the end of March. It's tough and the work load is heavy but hey it's doable and if your organized the pressure level are low. Yet the smell of fear, literally, emanating from some sections of my class is over powering. On top of that they(not all) have become the biggest bunch of moaning, whinging gee bags I have ever come across. I even heard one poor distraught soul ask why the hell we were doing a thesis!! I mean a thesis! in a masters! Who has ever heard such crazy madness. Plus our class rep, soon to be sold in to slavery, has decided in his wisdom(he is 23) that he is in fact a member of faculty and rather than being nothing more than a large and may I add rotund carrier pigeon. He has started promoting his own agenda to our course head. He volunteered. I mean what the hell were we thinking. The minute he volunteered for the position we should have tied him up, put duct tap on his mouth and made him run through a mine field and started gambling on the out come. Maybe its my age but I am astounded at the level of politics that has started to bubble to the surface in the class. I do find it entertaining to be honest but its starting to get to a Lord of the flies level and we all know what happened to poor piggy. I for one will stand aside and watch the unfolding drama and when poor piggys time comes I shall offer some sage advice to him. "Never rub another mans rhubarb"

Fair play to Glen Hansard

I've been saying it for years. The Frames are one of the best bands ever to come out of Ireland and have never really been given their due. So when I checked the news this morning and discovered that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova had won the oscar for best song I was truly delighted. Not just because Glen has been recognized for his talent but because it showed me that there is hope for all the small independent and talented people out there in this age of pop idol and wannabe fame junkies. There was a strange sense of pride to. To see a small Irish artist on that stage in front of all the super famous and stupidly wealthy Hollywood elite receiving the oscar really brought it home to me how talented a country we are. I tend to mouth on about my country and its bemoaning attitude to successful people and I would like to think that this might help in shutting some of them up. Fair play Glen and Marketa!!

I hate hangovers

I'm hungover. There is a gremlin with a toothpick behind my right eye ball and I seem to be having problems remembering why I was debating vegetarianism with a fifty year old New Zealand business man. I also have thesis work to do and notes to review. I hate being hungover. I really do. I love being in the pub. I love the sociability of it. The meandering conversation. The satisfaction of patiently watching my Guinness settle. The warm glow of being with great friends and making new ones. The poetry of it all. But I would trade it all right now to blowtorch the gremlin and put an end to the horror. I know people who don't seem to suffer hangovers. I hate them. They have clearly made a pact with devil and are happy to renounce the light in favor of a life free of the slings and arrows of hangovers. In fact since were dealing with the prince of darkness here one can be sure than the hangover is being moved to some where else. That would be me. You see part of my theory is this. I'm given their hangovers. Thats why mine are always so bad. I suffer for the world. I'm like Jesus in that way. So as I walked bleary eyed and with a some what cantankerous aura about me across the university campus I found myself standing in the gym organizing a fitness test and regime. I could tell the fitness chap behind the counter with his superior health and ludicrous hair knew what condition my condition was in. He sat there reveling in his healthy glow and superior knowledge of the cardiovascular system while asking me what day would suit and had I ever had one done before. The cost of being fit may be to high...

A great place to celebrate your 30th

I was in Paris once before. New Years 2008 just only a short while ago. Being my first time I of course had a vision of beauty and unfriendliness all rolled into one. The first was most certainly true, the second most certainly not. I was visiting my girlfriend who is French so of course I was getting a better introduction than most. But over and over again people were friendly open and when I met people with even the tiniest few words in English (way more than my French) they made an effort. All went against what I'd heard about Parisians. So when I went back two weeks ago to celebrate my 30th it was with great enthusiasm! Meeting my girlfriend and a few other friends, one from Australia, she had just arrived that weekend, we ambled around Paris eating cheese and drinking wine and making a balls of trying to communicate in our limited French. Maybe its my advancing years but I've never been happier to wander around and not end up drinking out my shoes and arguing with some one about something I probably don't know to much about. Saying that I did end up suffering the mild slings and arrows of a hangover on the Sunday, I turned 30 not 75, but it was all worth it when that we ended up having dinner, drinking Champagne while looking out a the Arc Du Triumph. Vive La France!!!!!!!! Il be heading back in March to spend ten days writing my thesis. I assume of course cheese, bread and wine help with the old lyrical and analytical writing.

Ah the joys of being a mature student

I just turned thirty and I'm a student, again. I was a crap student when I first went to college and I was about as academic as a fence post. Not that I didn't have the brains ,I just wasn't bothered. I would have aced pontificating in the pub studies though, and yet here I am almost six months into a masters and almost ten years later since my first and lets be honest disastrous foray into academia. And let me tell you. I am frickin knackered! All fun and games I thought. Be a student, drink some beer, party some, talk about Chomsky and Beckett like I actually have a clue. Instead I spend almost all day every day, when I'm not in my morning lectures, sitting at my laptop either doing one of the 759 projects I have to do or researching my thesis. Seriously I better get the greatest job ever when I finish in September or some sort of cash prize. Id be happy with a few hours sleep though!