two days of madness . . . .

I will start with the insanity of perfect timing that was yesterday and move on to the embarssiment of overindulgmnet that was the day before . . .

a few days ago while in the bathroom of the hotel by my work I found 40euro, when bug asked what I was doing with the money I said taking ze out to dinner. as the time approached I was getting supper gitty . . . this would be my first time going out for dinner in Dublin, things are so expensive here, one can not make a habbit of going out for food. I decided to go to this sushi resturant that has a converor belt . . .how cool is that. You sit there and the food goes throughout the restuarant on this belt, its kinda liek waiting for lugage at the airport. Especially when you are veggie and there are so few veggie options, if one passes you by, you run after it and scream, grab that one its mine!!! the bill works is the different colour plates are different amount, when you are done someone comes over and fills in the chart of how many plates you had each colour. The best part was they didn't count two of our plates, which happen both to be the 5 euro plates . . . oh yeah! Teh second best part was I was jsut complaining about the lack of availability of finding green tea in this city. It seems you can only get it at the health food store, which over priced everything. As I was paying for dinner I noticed they had green tea on display and it was a few euros cheaper then the health food stores, cha chink!!

We were heading to this caberet show that was part of the frige festivle on the north side . . . on our way there we passed the temple bar market area which on saturdays has a great market and on weekends seems to have all these random concerts, last firday bug and I walked through there and there was this free anti-smoking concert, which many screaming 12 year old girls and a lead singer with his knit hat, aucustic guitar screaming we're going to rock, then singing ballats. Anyways yesterday there was this private party for the unveiling of the new BMW. We snuck around the back to get a view . . . it was the modern verson of the wicker man I swear to you. They had these people dancing with these huge heads on, aparently suppose of be people like Bono and Sinead O'Conner adn a guy in a tennis suit with a racket. They wer dancing around this car that was cover in a sheet, smoke billowed around the sheet as the car was unveiled. The worshiping of this car by the big headed freaks was about all we could take . . .we ran out of there laughing our asses off . . .

to add to this perfect timing we had, on our way to the show we both looked up to see a random spout of fireworks that died off as quickly as it had apeared

we made our way to the caberet show that was being held in this great circus like tent, with velvet everything, a mixture beign the circus and Moulin Rouge . . . the women performing was this sex kitten type, with lots of fake jewelery, bountiful cleavage, adn breakfast at Tiffiny hair and makeup. She was doing a lounge singer performance with a sax, piano and bass to accompany her. Her second song was material girl, her piercing eyes during that song we so scary that we were convinced that she was possessed and might killsomeone at any moment. Through out the night through her change of clothes and behaviour, we were convinced that she was a vampire, coke head, had a throughing knife in tha back of her dress or at least was a serial killer. On the break a turned to bug and said

"I wonder if anyone else hear knows she is a serial killer, they all seem to comfortable . . ."

this girl beside bug turned and said what did you say?

I was laughing to hard to relpy but bug said yah you heard her right . . . we then shared out theories of the pocessed sex kitten and the girl joined in with us . . .it was great . . . .at one point in the second half, niether of us could take her anymore and we had to run out. Moments earlier bug had said she woudl be cool if she was actually queer and just did this for the cash, we imaged her dyke lover waiting for her in the dressing room . . . anyways the next song she started with the line . . ."I frequent all the gay places" WE started to laugh so hard, and so did the girl and her friend (who was gay) both of us said that we had never seen her out, and we woudl have remembered!!! that was the breaking point for us . . .we had to leave . . . as we walked away we came up with words for her song that would have made them more interesting . . . for example she sang a "dirty" version of my favorite things, so instead of kittens and yarn she said chocolate mouse and champaign . . . we were so hoping that she would say her vibrator or being fucked hard all night . . . but she had one line that made it all worth while, in the "dirty" version of my favorite things she sang "so when I break a nail or am feeling premenstral I just think about my favrite sins" classic

I don't think anything else could have happened to make that night any better . . .


so the day before well it all started innosently enough, or not, my roommate had been a progessive democratic with kids from his program, the people there were pissing him off, so on his way out he stole a bottle of wine (go john!) the two of us split the bottle, then orla him and I headed to this party in our rez which was dry!! There were 8 people there sitting around the tv . . .our pressence of energy and personality was too much for them . . .one of the guys who lived there stood up and said I'm wasted I have to got to bed now, one on the other guy (who invited us to the party in the first place) who lived there was talkign about a postgrad party in the city and got up to go to it with a few blonds and didn't invite us . . .we were left in his apartment with these three guys who had nothing to say and didn't understand our humour at all . . . so we left and went back to our place with our half finished cans. After coming up iwth planes hwo to piss in there windows we decided to head to the party in town anyways. We caught the last bus into town filled with druken students and made our way to the party.

WE had another pint when we got there and laughed at how the guy who ditched us looked mildly uncomfortable with our presence. we started dancing of course and one thing lead to another and we were on the stage . . . I suppose we were not suppose to be there cuz this guy in a suit grabbed my arm and pulled me down. They didn't touch john though . . . I didn't knwo who they guy was and tried to get out of his grip but he just pulled harder, he twisted my arm behind my back and said that I was kicked out of the club. I can only assume that he thought I was too drunk to be there, or maybe just having to much fun at this lame party. I was no happy about him hurting my arm and being dragged out of the club and must have been swearing at him, cuz my roommates were telling him that I was new in town and didn't speak english . . . he replied that I spoke enought english to tell him to fuck off :)

In one sence I feel I'm way to old to be kick out of a club, yet in another sence I got kicked out of an irish club for being too drunk!!!! wow!! thats something that doesn't happen everyday in this drinking culture.

Of course I had to work the next day ugggg . . .

the most inferioriting moment

I went into the Disability services today to get books on tape. I also want to talk to them about being a part time student. Immigration has been giving part time students a hard time and forcing them to switch to full time. I wanted to see if having a learning disability could help my case- show that I have a legitimate reason to be par-time. But I never go to that . . .

I was getting my residence information updated when they guy asked me for my email address, I wanted to give him the UCD one, but couldn’t be too sure if I had it right, its something like a03bf83d@studnet.ucd.ie (not the easiest thing to remember) so I have him the riotspace one-a mistake- he asked what a riotspace was . . . I just wanted my books on tape – not a discussion, so I said its my personal handle. He promptly went on to tell the most inferiority “joke”

There are these group of feminists sitting in a room (my back is up already), this guy walks in and says “hello ladies you are all looking lovely today” He starts talking to them and refers to one of them as “babe” and another as a “chick”. They tell him to stop and he is all “what’s going on? What did I do wrong?” They said that his language is inappropriate . . . he said “fine ladies let me so one exercise with you, if you don’t like it I’ll leave.”

They agreed

He asked them to shout for five mins every work they didn’t want him to use. As they shouted he wrote all of them down on the chalkboard. He filled the while board with over 90 words.

He turned to them and said “so if I use any of these words: Bitch, Slut, Whore etc. you will get upset- and you call yourselves liberated.”

I wanted to hit him, I stood staring at him silently for a moment, then stumbled over my words saying but . . .. nevermind. FUCK I just wanted to get my books on tape and I was getting this sexist bullshit from the guy who was suppose to help me. I suppose they don’t connect training on disability with the other forms of oppression at Disability services.

as I walked home today I was reviewing in my head self defence procedures. This seems to be my norm as I walk home allone in areas that no one else is in. I wonder what other people think about on their lonely walks home, I wish I could be thinking of almost anything else but it always comes down to self defence. It got me to thinking about my residence. We have these card keys, like hotels. In the past part of my walking home regiment included carrying my keys in my hand, ready to key someone in the eye is I needed to, plus avoided me searching through my bag for my keys . . . well with this key system, first of all you those your weapon, and secondly it forces you to open your wallet to get the card. Standing there with out a weapon, with my wallet open, I felt in such a vunerable position. There are lights, and actually every apartment looks out onto my entrace. If I look up I can see everyone chilln in there living rooms. But I am so use to getting my keys out early, that I still get my card out early and at that point I am walking allong a path with very little lights and no one around. So I suppose my own lesson here is wait to get my key until I'm by my door and be prepared to use my thumbs to jab someone in the eye!!!

What a day today was, I went down to the immigration office to register, they gave me the number 376 and said there was 200 in front of me. I waited 40 mins and only 40 people had been called so I figured I coudl make it to the anti-deportation demo. I found humour in the fact I left the immigration office to go to the anti-deportation demo :) Anyways there I was handing out signs and chatting with people. (ahhh steph I forgot to ask if there was anything ESSU could do, I will try to find out ) there is a bit of contraversy over the signs. Some of them say Amnesty for All. But this lecture from Trinity in Racial studies made a good point that using the word amnesty we are calling these people criminals and they are not criminals at all, what we really what is human rights for all. Anyways, the demo had all right numbers, but there was a very clear race issue happening.

All the families there were white. They were Romanian, Russian, Hungarian etc. but there were no Nigerian families. This new policy does effect all of the people there, but it seems that is being directed at the nigerian families. I was talking to this one guy from GR who is from Nigeria, he had done allot of outreach work to get the nigerian community involved in this issue, but they look at him like he is crazy. This policy is directly effecting them, but I think the idea of being visible on the streets is not what the community is interested in. He found that they were more likely to go to church on sundays and talk about it there, but not make a scene on the streets. I find this very interesting and wonder what exactly it is that is preventing these people from taking part.

I left the protest early to get back to the immigration office, I tried to pass the barigades but the cops wouldn't let me through, they were letting other pedistrians through but not me. I told them that I was leaving the protest for a meeting and asked why I was not allowded through, the cops said because he didn't know what I was aobut to do or where I was going. Ahhh I've been here three weeks and the cops recognize me and have pegged me as a radical. ahhhh So I went the long way around muttering under my breath.

When I got back to the office my number still hadn't been called, but there were only 10 numbers in front of me this time. I got called up but didn't have all the paper work with me. I had to get a form that no one told me about and bring it back to them grrr . . . but more upsetting then that is tonight in one of my classes this girl called me over and asked if immigration had given me any trouble about part time. I told her I hadn't got that far yet . . . but she was threatened with deportation if she didn't switch to full time, so she did today. AHHH that is not somthing I can do . . . I hope that the same thing doesn't happen to me. But if it does I'm pulling the learning disability card and saying that I have to do it part time . . . cross your fingers for me . . .

At the protest today I met the presidnet and deputy presidnet of UCD's student counsil. We chated aobut the work they do and the work that I'm doing. the president told me about a postion available on the council called the LGB councilor. It is an elected position by the councilors in the union. But first you have to be part of the union as a class rep or something. The position sounds really interesting and it gives you some political power in the LGB community. I told him about my idea for the gender queers . . . he told me how I can start an offical society, but also if I had the positon on council I could have more say about bring trans and queer issues on board. I grabbed a form for class rep, got the signatures I needed from my classmates and handed it in all in time for the evening deadline. It is not for sure that I will get it, but it seems from talking to my classmates that no one else has been nominated so I might just slide in.

As for the position of council, I will have to do a campaign and get voted in. But I talked to a few people from the LGB society and none of them are going for it. So it might not be to hard. Aswell, I seem to have been meeting all the right people and so far have support from the LGB society and the activists on campus.

If I do get this postion I am going to concentrate my work with the union, they seem really lefty and also have clout to make a difference. I have been talking to so many people and seem partially connected to tomany groups and organizations. This is mainly because I havn't found a group that I can whole heartedly say I support and be proud to be a member. It was great this past few weeks meeting all the activists from all the groups and I will keep all the connections for networking perposes. But the union might just be the thing for me.

I almost forgot inbetween all of that activity, I went to my first rock climbing practise, oh my muscles are sore. I feel like I'm in good shape, I have been running and swimming and biking and eating well. But let me tell you - climbing is a whole nother ball game. My forarms were so soar I had a hard time holding on to my pen in class. It can only get easier I say. I am going to go for a few weeks and if I'm really digging it I will by a pair of shoes. Today I had to wear my runners.

ok thats it for now . . .

ultimatly disappointing

I woke up from a nap today, a nap that started due to reading history of Irish legal system, I found myself drawing on my leg instead of reading, nodding off instead of reading and staring in space instead of reading. I excused this behaviour due to the fact that I am sick, and that I read all my economics of develpoment reading at the park earlier in the day. Well I fell asleep no one was here, but I wook up to three of my roomates, cooking, eating and chatting in our living space. It was a bit much for me, still in a daze the kind you get when you sleep in the day, and unable to really talk. After the cammotion died down I convinced my roommate that we should rent a movie. Both of us had been sick all weekend, her at home and me here and we deserved a break from that state of inactivity. Three of us headed on this adventure to find a video store. Surprisingly enough this was hard to do. I had seen one on the way into the city but we were convinced there must be a closer one, we drove around the campus in all directions, and finally found this little strip area called Blackrock, where two of my roommates take there classes.

We walked in and the search began. It is always hard to pick a movie with three people, and we don't even know each other that well. But we say Chicago and knew that is what we needed to see. Orla said that she has been trying to see it forever, but her boyfriend was not interested. Anne said she had seen it but would love to see it again. And I have a history with this movie.

First of all two new years ago, I was in NewYork with my mom. We went on one of those red white adn blue packages, where they tried to increase tourism in NY after the attacks. Part of the deal was broadway tickets, I really wanted to see Chicago but my mom had already seen it and wanted to see something new. Then we said we would watch the movie together, but somehow that didn't work and my mom say it with her friends instead. Then earlier this year it was playing at the Paradise right by my house, my cousin and I had planned to see it. That day we went to the museam and were going to go home to our seperate places, eat chill and meet back up. She never showed up, I called and she didn't answer, I went by her house and she came to the door in her pajamas with sleep in her eyes. She was pregant-what can you do . . . then I was suppose to see it with my other cousin at the kingway by my moms house, I can't remember exactly why it fell through but it did. So here I was finally being able to see the movie I had tried so hard to see for so long.

We bring it back and as fate would have it we couldn't get the VCR to work. It was a classic pic, three girls doing there masters but can't figure out the VCR. We texted john, cuz it was his VCR and asked him how it worked. Oh course it was new, he had never used it before and there wan't an instruction manual. We did find out that his video channel is 00. Ok so I try not to be all canadian centred, but the idea that channel three is always the video channel just makes sense. I mean there is nothing special about 3, it just that here the channel is different for each tv, and we went around all the channels and I didn't even think about 0 being an option. But that didn't fix it, now we coudl see the movie, but it was not clear at all, it felt liek watching chicago meets the excorist. The tracking buttons didn't seem to do anything. And it wan't just a little fuzy, we couldn't see anything at all, except for the random head would become clear and you were looking at a bodless richard gere.

Plan b- Orla and I decided that we would ask our neighbours if we coudl borrow their vcr. We knocked on the first one, the guy didn't have one, and he really creeped us out. He didn't know what chicago was and he was edging towards coming into our apartment, which we were not keen on. I wouldn't go back in to his apartment, so we said by and went into ours. When we thought the coast was clear, we headed back out and tried a few more apartments. It seems that we are the only ones who even have a vcr. well there was one other girl, who said something about her vcr being from the north and how it wouldn't work on our tv . . .

we ended up playing cards all night which is cool with me since, I love palying cards, and so very few peopel my age dig them. But I really think that chicago and I were just not ment to be . . .

its funny the things that you miss, I realize today as I walked into my apartment, one of the things that I miss the most is checking for messages. It was always the first thing that I did when I got home, I would pick up the phone and listen for that beep beep beep with having a mobile you don't get that type of thing to look forward to. you have the immidiate reward of getting the calls when they come in. But it is not the same. I feel with my mobile that I'm always wondering if someone will phone me. But beyond that I loved listening to messages, I loved rambly friends chatting away to a machine, those who live with me, know how I talk to the machine and answer all the questions when I'm listening, its a little rediculous but that type of connection always gave me something to look forward to. with a mobile you get text messages which are always short and filled with things like "where r u" you have only so many characters you can use per message, plus the way to have to hit each number 3 times to get the letter you need, there is never any rambling.

So today when I came back from the park, I knew that no one had left me a message cuz I had my phone with me. I walked in to the living room walked around unsure what I should do. The first thing I had always done since I was a little kid is not gone . . .I walked straight to my room and checked my email. It is the next best thing, you get the surprise messages, you get the rambly notes. You just don't get the voices.

I should be happy since I am losing my voice (I understand your pain steph) that my communication with people is through text messages and emails. By I just want to hear peoples voices.