Poem

Even though German can be a very harsh sounding language, this poem is far, far better when expressed through the language it was written for, as is the case with most poems.

Buddha in der Glorie

Mitte aller Mitten, Kern der Kerne,
Mandel, die sich einschließt und versüßt, -
dieses Alles bis an alle Sterne
ist dein Fruchtfleisch: Sei gegrüßt.
Sieh, du fühlst, wie nichts mehr an dir hängt;
im Unendlichen ist deine Schale,
und dort steht der starke Saft und drängt.
Und von außen hilft ihm ein Gestrahle,
denn ganz oben werden deine Sonnen
voll und glühend umgedreht.
Doch in dir ist schon begonnen,
was die Sonnen übersteht.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Sommer 1908 (vor dem 15.7.), Paris

Fate!

I just found this randomly and I am taking it as a sign that I must move to Seattle :) YUS!

FDB, Observations and Incidents

FDB stands for "Fuck Dublin Bus". This new acronym really sums up my evening. I missed my bus by 1 minute because it was early. Then I walked over to another bus stop about 5 minutes away because there wasn't another bus for a half an hour at my first bus stop. A bus didn't turn up at my other bus stop either so I ended up going back to the first stop and getting the bus there. Feck sake.

Happily however this did lead to some observations and one (in retrospect) amusing incident.

Observation 1)
Women in heels trying to run while carrying an infinite amount of shopping bags is just plain comical.

Observation 2)
When I am waiting for a bus, if one comes from the other direction I still look at it expectantly, as if I think it should turn around and be my bus.

Incident of amusement:
I said that I left the 2nd bus stop because no buses came. That is only partially true. The main reason I felt the irresistible urge to vacate my spot as quickly as I did was because the dude standing beside me kept farting. I know this because he leant forward every time. That's right. Leant forward.

More random ramblings

This time I was inspired by the profound effect that the rain was having on me that day. I haven't been so thoroughly soaked by rain water in a very long time.

"Sorry seems to be the hardest word..." whispers the voice in my ear. Why, on a cold, wet night in the middle of November do these words seem to never have rang truer or louder? Why, on a night like this, do words such as the ones I am hearing appear to hold more weight? Is it that the rain is slowly but methodically seeping through my cheap and dreary coat, chilling my very being to the core, and so having a greater impact on my already melancholy mental and emotional state? Or simply because rain heightens ones ability to be brought into a state of quasi-depression (especially when one is Irish, and by default a pessimist). Who knows? No one. That's who.

Are you serious?

So there was a protest in Dublin recently against the raising, possibly doubling, of the registration fee for colleges and against the 10% cut in the maintenance grant. As if the subject of this protest wasn't enough to get students angry, the gardaí used excessive force on peaceful protesters.

See here for videos

It has been announced that there will be an inquiry into the matter by the garda ombudsman. NOT NEEDED! If you look at the footage, it is plain and simple that, for the most part anyway, the gardaí acted without provocation.

I am now scared of people who are supposed to be protecting me, my family and my friends.

Random Stories (or parts thereof): Take 1

Sitting on the train, looking out of the window to the dim lights of the next city across the bay, I remember the couple that passed my way earlier in the day. They were holding hands, and they were in their 70s. Remarkable really, when you think about it. Imagine being with someone for so many years and still wanting to hold their hand. Imagine loving someone for so many years. The lights are closer now. The train pulls into the station. People get off, people get on. The train pulls away. On to the next city.

Autumn

The myriad colours of the trees, the crisp crunch of the fallen leaves, the smell of burning wood.

Walking home is now a thing of joy to me.

This is why I love Autumn.

Dreams...

I had a dream last night that I got a job in a place called Pussy Galore....it was a bar/restaurant, and I was events manager/computer chick

Overheard in Trinity College Dublin

While on my way to class the other day, I passed the library complex named the BLU, where 2 middle aged were standing outside talking.

One guy says to the other, in what sounded like an angry voice "Sure, I'll go in and just fuckin'....I'll go for a sleep or somethin'..."

I HEART college and Dublin....

Class Rep Training....

I was elected as Class Rep by a majority vote. At the time my class consisted of myself and a girl who is currently in France, and therefore, cannot vote in the elections. Ergo, I nominated and voted for myself and I won by a landslide. Now there is another person in my class but it was too late! Mwahahaha.

In my college they take all of the Class Reps on a "training" weekend to a hotel near-by at the start of the academic year. This "training" consists of a series of talks given by the people in the Student's Union, hilarious games of 'Stand Up'** and a very good talk by a negotiator from up North.

The whole idea behind this "training" is that you get to mingle and bond with other Class Reps. However what really happens is that everyone gets very drunk in their hotel rooms and then get the shift with as many people as possible before the sun comes up again. Wonderful.

I got stuck in a room (an executive suite by the way) with 4 girls I don't know, and have no wish to know either. I will sum them up in a sentence. I arrived in the room and encountered them all in towels, plastering on make-up, doing their hair and talking about boys. Bleh. I promptly dumped my stuff on an available bed and left. I knew then that I had been allocated a room to be reckoned with.

I was right. My room was turned into the party room. We had a jacuzzi and one of the biggest rooms in the hotel. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep.

On the bright side, when I snook out of the room in the morning, carefully stepping over the tangled limbs of people passed out on the beds and floor, I came across a sight I will never forget. Someone had made a pyramid of lampshades outside the door of the room. Not big lamp shades, little ones. No bigger than a fist. I was about to take a picture when I spotted the manager of the hotel coming up the corridor. When he spotted
the lampshades, he muttered "The little bast**d" under his breath.

That really was the highlight of the weekend.

**SIDE NOTE: 'Stand Up' is a game that you play with many people. Everyone stands up and then the person who is on (*tear* for youth) says something like "Stay standing if you scored someone in the room" and then the people who remain standing are interrogated. The more people who play, the better the game is.

Irksome Plebeians

Some people have wholly uninteresting lives yet I am subjected to an onslaught of stupidity, banality and mediocrity every time I deign to place my exceptionally well-formed rump into the assgrooves so forcefully embedded into the seats on various methods of public transport.

Eff sake.

VENT

Yes, it is 4.15am. Yes, I was out. Yes, I was drinking. Yes, I am angry. And no, this cannot wait til morning.


We were on the night bus home with the randomer that a friend picked up at the bus stop, and it just so happened that we were sitting next to two lesbians that I know. No idea how the conversation even got started or how the subject was brought up, but we started talking about being gay etc. etc. So the dude starts asking questions like "are you all out to your parents?" blah blah blah, which was all fun and interesting. We got to enlighten this young man on lesbian ways.


Then disaster struck, and this is why I'm venting. He asked our opinions on whether or not someone is born gay; a valid question some might say. Pretty much all of us agreed that you're born with your sexual orientation in-built and that outside influences don't effect that, or at least they don't in 99.9% of cases. This is where the randomer disagreed and from here out he shall be referred to as an assbag because of his opinionated and ignorant ways. He told us that being gay is all because of your environment. I strongly disagree and his has to be the most largest (yes, that big) pile of bull sh1t I've ever heard someone preach on the topic of homosexuality or otherwise. And in this day and age too, where gays and lesbians are all over the media and in televisions and movies you would expect that people would be a little better educated. I mean WTF man???

THEN, just before I had to get off the bus, he started saying that people choose to be gay. Why, in the name of all that is sexy, would people choose something that brings so much hardship, pain and suffering? Something that you have to defend, and will have to defend nearly every day of your life. Something that some people still see as odd and perverted and wrong. Why would someone choose to live like that if they could choose otherwise? Its in your nature and is an intricate part of you that should never be shunned and deemed wrong or evil.


Some people are just so ignorant. It still makes me sick and angry.

Pictures & Croissant Fails

It seems to me that most people post pictures on their blogs. I must say that this never really occurred to me, but seeing that the idea is now firmly lodged in my brain, I shall post one picture now. Its a favourite picture of mine, that I took while I was in a small town called Saarguemines, just over the French boarder. Where I lived in Germany (Saarbrücken), there existed a tram that went straight into Saarguemines. So, when we got the munchies (mostly for croissants), we would hop on the tram and be in France in about 30mins.

Once when we got the croissant munchies and made our way into the Land of Pastries and Baguettes, we ended up getting lost and wandering back over the boarder into Germany. This peculiar and disturbing turn of events landed us smack-bang in some old womans back garden. We apologised to her, explaining how we came to be there and walked around the humongous housing estate where she lived until we found our way back into France. In the end, we never did get our criossants, since all this adventure had moved time forwards so as all the boulangeries and pâtisseries were closed. Croissant fail.


I do, however have a blog that I don't use all that much, but it does have a separate page for pictures. So if anyone is interested please see here: my other (underused) blog

Gaydar

Sometimes mine is fairly on target, and other times not. I don't get it. I wish it was either working all the time or not working ever, because then I can never trust it.

For instance, I recently found out that someone I (for no real apparent reason) really liked was, in fact, a lesbian too. This annoys me and makes me think that everyone should have "straight" or "gay" or whatever tattooed on their forehead.

On the other hand, there are other people that poke my hontas (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) who I wonder about and then find out that they have a boyfriend. GAH!

EEEEFFFFFFFFFFFF sake.

Ugh.

There are many reasons for the title of this post. 1) College starts back tomorrow and I still have many problems to sort through to acquire a student card and a proper schedule 2) I decided to go out drinking last night and still feel like crap. 3) I still have to get everything ready for college in the morning, including finding paper and pens...

In saying all this though, I must point out that I am, in fact, quite happy :)

I managed to somehow pass my exams and therefore am allowed back into college. HAPPY. Even though I am indeed paying for my adventures into the land of free booze last night, I had a great night with great company HAPPY. Maddie is back. HAPPY XD

Moving Out!! :)

Today I decided, along with a potential new house-mate, that we are moving out together in January, or some time around then. This news has me very excited and full of purpose. Happyface.

However, this means, of course, that I will have to work many hours to get much needed money to fund said moving out. Sadface.

While househunting, we (myself and potential new house-mate) found a surprising number of decent, reasonably priced abodes in which I could see myself living. Surprisedface.

Death by Butterfly and Other Thoughts

As I type there is a butterfly asleep on my ceiling. I fear for my life right now. I have to sleep soon and this means that Henry (as I have recently dubbed him) will most certainly take advantage of the situation and leap into super-stealth-killer-butterfly action. The idea of something crawling all over me while I'm in bed (however in certain situations, I will accept this) repulses me into insomnia. Thus, I will have to either overcome my fear or sleep in another room. We will see how much I can handle.

In other news, after watching a few interviews, I have come to the conclusion that Jennifer Beals is more like Tina than Laurel Holloman, and Laurel Holloman is more like Bette than Jennifer Beals. How bizarre. But interesting, and ultimately makes watching them play their respective characters more titillating.

JS (",)

Am as happy as a pig who finally flies, after many years of ridicule from his fellow pigs and many minutes of practice :)

Thank you muchly to the examiner. I am eternally grateful x

Louise's Sleep vs The World

So, another rant, this time about sleep. It seems as though the world was conspiring against my sanity last night as sleep just would not come. First I could not get comfortable as my bed sheet kept coming off the mattress and wrapping around my leg. Then my duvet cover is slightly too big, and decided it would be hilarious to place all the duvet nicely down to one end and to one side so I was left with much cover, but no duvet. Then my blanket decided to disappear down the end of my bed. Then my flannel sheet that I had wrapped around me insisted on getting twisted and kept bunching all up in my face, multiple times.

After I had overcome all these obstacles and finally gotten to sleep some hours after I had originally intended, my brother had forgotten his key and rang me at 5:30am to open the door for him. After scoffing on the leftover cheesy nachos, we headed to bed, where I fell asleep again at about 6am or 6:15am.

THEN my father, with whom I had established before I went to bed that I would indeed be around to answer the door when the DHL man arrived with a package, storms in at around 9am (myself not needing to waken until 10am) and saying at full volume, "Louise, the DHL guy will be here within the hour, so don't forget to answer the door", and promptly exits, leaving me half awake, half asleep, but mostly jolted and stunned.

Needless to say I dozed on and off for the next 20 mins before the DHL guy arrived...

Tattoo

Right, am thinking about getting a tattoo to cover the big, ugly scar on the inside of my right ankle. I'm full sure my parents won't approve, but they don't have to live with it.

So, Void, I am employing your help for the bouncing of ideas for said tattoo. I saw a nice one a while ago, that was a tribal design with flowers incorporated into it.
This is it :)

However, the more I think about it, I feel that getting a tribal tattoo would nearly be a lie, seeing as I have no immediate connections to anything that the tribal tattoos are all about. Therefore, I propose taking the pretty flowers and melding them in some way with some sort of Celtic band, seeing as I'm Irish. Like one of these
Pretty band, but replace ring with rose
Melt rose into there somehow

The other idea is to just get a tribal rose like one of these
blue and red one
simple black one
and just get it covering the scar and not have it in a band around my ankle.

The only problem I may encounter however, dear Void, is whether or not the tattoo will take on the scarred skin. I was researching this, and apparently it may not take, but people have said that the older the scar is, the more likely it is to take. And I'm going on 3 years at this point, so hopefully that should be old enough. I will have to go and talk to the tattooist about it though. If I can't get the tattoo over the part that I want, I will be willing to move it up the leg slightly, but not too much.

Anyway, Void, if you do happen to have any feedback or comments, they would be tremendously appreciated. However, since we have never met, I have to assume you have some form of appendage and can type. Or that you have some magical, mystical cyber-power type thing, that can post a comment directly using only your mind. Well, I guess I'll have to wait and find out...

Last to know as usual...

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! It appears that they are making an L Word movie XDXD this excites me greatly. They say that they are gonna focus on the "Who killed Jenny?" storyline, but I think every L Word fan will agree with me when I say, all I want to see is how Bette and Tina (Tibette) are doing and if they are getting married *hope hope hope*

Ouchies...

Why whenever one falls, does one end up hurting more than the place that unfortuantely gets slammed to the ground? For instance, last night some gobsheen spilled their drink on the last step of a 2-step stairs (does it still classify as a stairs then?? *shrug*) and I was on my way to buy my 1st drink (in 4 hours ;]) when Lady Gravity decided to pull me towards her, on the count of my foot finding no grip on the moistened stair. My bruise is starting to form but I noticed earlier that I also have a bruise on my forearm and possibly my shoulder, as it hurts like no one's business whenever I dain to move it.

All I can do is blame the idiotic reflexes that we, as a species (and most probably genus) developed. Clearly they do not work! Since I just ended up hurting more places than was necessary. I still fell, ergo reflexes serve no purpose other than to inflict more pain. So there.

Liar...

So it appears that I lied to you, Void. I am in fact back for more. I know, I know, its hard to contain the excitement and anticipation...what will I say, dear Void? That is the penultimate and suffocatingly obvious question that I really do not know how to begin to address. I could talk about my recent stress involving exams and miscommunication. But no, that is boring to everyone else who is not me. I could perhaps take a stab at voicing my opinions on the world of politics. But again no, because I would bore myself to death and have to gauge my own eyes out with a pencil sharpener and a very, very blunt turnip. No one wants that, do they?

No, no, today I shall peruse, ponder and pontificate on the topic of combovers. About 4 months ago, I was traveling home on the bus from work, when I spotted it. The most splendid, smooth and surreal combover I have ever turned my face towards. The guy had no hair on his so-shiny-you-can-see-yourself head, save two small patches (about 4 inches across and 2 down) just above his ears. Perhaps though, he just got into a fight with the lawn mower and lost. We shall never know. Not to be hindered by his lack of hair, this gentleman had in fact grown these miniscule patches of whispy hair, combed them and plastered them to his head in such a gravity-defying way, that he looked underwater. Madness. The bottom halves of the two hair gardens were combed around the base of his head and up to just below the top of the ear, the rest was in true combover style, which I'm sure, Void, you can imagine.

I wish I had taken a picture.