Sights around Dublin this summer

Seeing as summer is now well and truly over and that I am about to go missing for a few weeks here are a few of my favourite images of Dublin from this summer. Enjoy!


Statue of a Docklands worker.


A skewed image of the Campanile in Trinity.


Oscar on a rock.


Merrion Square


Dermot Morgan's Chair.




Phil Lynott on Harry St.


Viking Ship


Sean O'Casey Pedestrian Bridge.

Dum dum dah....

And so my final day of work has arrived. From tomorrow until October 12th I will be fully immersed in tort, property and equity in that order! I'm strangely excited by the prospect at the moment! I thought that I would be climbing the walls with nerves and fear, but now it comes down to it I just want to get stuck in. Being in work is the last place I want to be right now!

On the preparation side I have all but two topics on the tort course covered. Which means I have the whole thing pretty much under wraps. The big challenge over the next few days is to remember it all! It's a daunting prospect made even more so by the fact that the papers are horrific. The lovely examiner likes to throw at least 3 different aspects of tort into each question and sometimes adds a little twist to keep it interesting! I'm dreading it, but I've passed 5 and criminal was very similar to tort in layout and I got through it in one go so I just need to get on with it and cram that law into my brain!

I have the whole property course covered now as well. The course is pretty long but the papers are fair so as long as I learn what I need to and the examiner isn't kidnapped by some evil aliens and made to set out a worse than usual paper I have half a chance going into it! Plus on the learning side of it I have only recently learned huge chunks of the most important aspects of the course for the degree exams so I have a head start on it this time round! Same goes for equity!

So that's where I stand. It would be incredible if I passed them this time round and if I don't get them all at least one would take some pressure off. I'm not prepared to consider worst case scenarios... because I just can't!

So wish me luck I'm up on Monday, Friday and the following Wednesday and then I am taking a well earned few days off to rest, relax and rehabilitate! See ya later!

And so we wait with baited breath...again

The not so shocking breaking news story on the Nine O'Clock News last night deserves a mention on today's blog. We are once again waiting to hear if the IRA have disarmed and decommissioned. What will John de Chastelain have to say this afternoon and will it be enough to appease the Unionists?

There's no point getting excited until we see what happens....


They're smiling now it seems....

"The ball found 'God' and 'God' found heaven"

That was my favourite quote of this weekend and was issued yesterday as Peter Canavan scored a fantastic point from play in the All Ireland Football final held in Croke Park.


Peter Canavan is the one being squashed.

It was one of the better All-Irelands in recent years and you would have to admit that Tyrone were worthy winners. They had to play ten games to reach the final and the sense of hunger and ambition in the team was palpable. It was also a fitting tribute to their late team mate Cormac McAnallen, it was terribly moving to see manager Mickey Harte reduced to tears on live television directly after the game and I'm sure not even the thwarted Kerry fans would begrudge the win to Tyrone.

Full of the Joys

I woke up happy this morning! It's a beautiful crisp autumn morning here in Dublin, and while there can be no doubt that summer is on the wane I still can't help enjoying this time of the year. I love the colours in the trees, the crispness in the air and the gradual need to wear comfy wooly jumpers!

I managed to cram in loads of work last night, finished my antibiotics, and had a great nights sleep and it has all added to my good humour today!

But I think it was the small indication of the kindness of people that I witnessed on my walk to work this morning that really cheered me up. It was a small incident really. A woman, not old not young, stumbled and fell on a very busy footpath outside one of the cities dart stations. At least 5 people jumped to her rescue. Picked her up from the path, dusted her down, one woman even gave her a little hug, and I could tell rather than being embarrassed she was put at ease by the kindness shown to her by random strangers. It lifted my spirits too I was glad to see that despite what you hear about modern society becoming more cold and uncaring that there are still people out there who defy those statements.

Just after the London bombings in July of this year there was a horrifying incident on a bus in the same city, where a young man was stabbed by a person he had asked to stop throwing chips at others riding on the bus, including the victim's girlfriend. According to an eye witness article I read in the Guardian (I think) no-one came to the man's pleas for help, he had to make his way from the top deck of the bus to the lower level himself calling for help, meanwhile his killer just left the scene with no intervention. The writer of the piece came to his aid, tried to make him comfortable and called an ambulance, everyone else either left or watched her. One person even refused to give her, her jacket for the dying man's head, as she was afraid blood would get on it. I found the article chilled me to the bone and depressed me. I can understand people's fear in these situations but I would like to think that if I were (God forbid) involved in something like this that I would have the courage to do the right thing.

The small incident gave me an indication that all is not lost. There are still good people left in the world.

A beginning to an end

I received the results for the DIT exams that I took in early September this week. I am very pleased and proud to announce that I now officially have a Degree (Ordinary) Legal Studies (Upper higher merit)! Doesn't that sound fancy!?

I am relieved beyond measure to have at least one thing finished. Now regardless of what happens I can at least train to be a Legal Executive and earn decent money at it too! Still want to be a Solicitor though and am not tempted despite the sickness, tiredness and all round yuckiness to give up on the Blackhall Place Exams! In fact these results have given me a badly needed boost and should help me get to the end with a bit more of a spring in my step!

In the aftermath of a hurricane

I came acrossthis post on my surfing voyage today that caught my attention. I read it and felt really appalled at the behaviour of the volunteer and his search for "warm fuzzies" from the loss of others. But it was the comments that really confused me. Are these people shocked at the attitude of the volunteer or of the refugees or are they excusing the behaviour of the volunteer due to the attitude of the people needing aid? What do you think?

The Trouble with Kate

I just can't resist adding my 2 cents to the debate concerning Kate Moss "The SuperModel" which is all over the media at the moment.

Why the hell does anyone care if she takes cocaine or not? Why is anyone at all surprised that she does drugs? Does she not go out with the gobdaw Pete Doherty, a singer by profession apparantly but I have yet to see any evidence of that talent, who seems to be officially known as a drug user and all round bad boy?



Are the British Media really serious when they talk about Moss being a role model? Surely a woman who was made famous for epitomising "Heroine Chic" is not by any stretch of the imagination an appropriate role model for any young woman.

What is she only a clothes horse? A well paid, over indulged, probably very boring one at that. I don't think Supermodels are reknowned for their intelligence, wit or charm, and if they are then I appologise and the industry needs to get a better marketing strategy!

I know I'm only adding to the stupidity of this story by commenting on it here but the whole thing has appalled me. I'm all for silly gossip pieces in Hello magazine, or Now or whichever publication you chose to indulge in, but those stories have a place there and it has really ticked me off to turn on every single news channel and talk show and see this story as the headline. I hope it dies off soon and I don't have to hear anymore about it!

Abandoned and Broken

There has been a distinct lack of blogging of a substantial nature recently due to my broken ear. I've been lying in my own filth at home scratching and moaning about the pain in my head since Friday evening, and although I am back at work today, that is due to the fact that everyone else has buggered off out of the country and left little old me to fend for myself. It is now 9.45 a.m. and I've been shouted at twice on the phone already. Neither of the said shouting episodes were due to my incompetence I must add, but it seems that it is going to be one of those days!

The upside of the broken ear saga is that I slept a lot over the last 3 days. I sat on the sofa a lot as well. And I did absoloutely no reading or writing.

As a result my plans for finishing the last few topics in tort that remain fell completely by the wayside and most surprisingly instead of being uptight and unhappy about the state of affairs I find myself in I don't actually give a crap! I have enough done at this stage to get me through the exams and what I have remaining to do will be done before a crisis of any nature occurs! This is me being philosiophical! It feels good.

The other upside is that I will be finished in 3 weeks time! Hopefully for good and that gives me the drive I need to just get on with it!

Friday Fun

Your Inner Child Is Angry

You're not an angry person.But when you don't get your way, watch out.Like a very manipulative kid, you will get what you want.Even if it takes a little kicking and screaming.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Ah well, it's not a surprise really

This made me laugh

Feckin Miserable

It's cold.
It's wet.
There is a rat in the air con units which means there's no heat.
I have a sore ear.
I have to go to a friend's fathers funeral tonight.
I'm miserable.

Delinquent Toddlers

I live in a very residential, one time working class, area of Dublin. Nowadays there is a good mix of people there, from young couples with no kids, to families with children coming out the windows. In my street there are quite a few elderly people, who have lived there all of their lives, from what I can gather. My next door neighbour Johnny is one of these people. He's a gentleman. He must be in his 80's, smokes like a trooper, never married and has very little family around. We look in on him from time to time and he seems to drink more of our milk than we do!

Last night I was procrastinating before studying, as you do, when I was drawn to the window by the sound of kids yelling. I love spying on them as they are generally just messing around and it amuses me when I have other things to do, so I took a peek!


Delinquent Toddler!

Outside was this little fecker, who we think is addressed as Kelvin! He must be about 3 and a half. I wouldn't normally refer to children as feckers but this one has earned his title believe me. I feel sorry for him most of them time as he appears to be dumped in his Granny's house early every day and is sometimes collected in the evening. He wasn't able to speak properly until relatively recently and is always on the street. But you can quarantee that if there is mischief to be made he will be in the middle of it. But last night he went too far.

At the time I intercepted him he was pegging stones at Johnny's house. When I ran outside to yell at him I found Johnny on his door step looking very distressed. It then transpired that the young fella had Johnny run ragged, knocking on his door, throwing stones at his windows and following him whenever he left the house. He also told me that the young fella has a fondness for exposing himself in the street and taking a piss up against the houses.

What do you do with that? He's only 3 or so now, what in the name of God is going to happen to him as he gets older? We heard only recently in relation to the riots in the north about kids as young as 5 being involved in the riots, what's next for them? Drive by shootings at 8?

I don't know what to do about this kid. The parents don't give a damn about him. I'm worried about Johnny and his health and would hate to think of him being upset by all of this, which I have no doubt is the case. I'm not around all the time to do the shouting and giving out and I know that won't have an affect for long. It's a bit of a quandry.

Yeeuuggghhhh...

Ratty died in work recently. No one mourned his passing becuase no one realised he was a work colleague until he started to smell.

We can't use the air conditioning until he decomposes and there are no ratty taker awayer people who are willing to pull the ceiling apart to find his corpse.

It's disgusting and although the stink hasn't reached me yet I feel sick just thinking about it. The fact that he was in the building at all is a step to far in my mind.

When I was a teenager I took the bin out for my mother one winter's evening. We live in the country and had no domestic pets at that time and were having a wee problem with rodents. When I opened the lid of the wheelie bin the most gigantic rat ever lept out at me. It was about a foot long and its tail was twice that. I was lucky it didn't land on me and bite me, but it was close. I have a hatred of them since then which is not borne of squemishness, just fear.

The Quiet Life

For obvious reasons which I am not about to outline once again this weekend was a relatively quiet one. However I did let the hair down a little on Friday night when I met les bitches for
tapas and a few bevvies. Naturally I had no intentions of staying out for long, but as usual good intentions mean nothing when faced with good company and no text books so I managed to consume more beer and take longer about it then was probably wise! Still life remains short and if you can't meet you mates and get pissed every now and again then what's the point of anything?!

The rest of the weekend was a strange combination of study and cricket!! I know it surprised me as well!

Shane Warne

The boy had been watching The Ashes for the past few days and as its a relatively quiet sport and my head was thumping saturday morning I sat with him to have a cuddle and a snooze. Instead I found myself asking penetrating (forgive me, I need to make myself feel good about this somehow!) questions about the game. My Dad had explained the basics to me years ago about overs and wickets and LBW's and what have you but this weekend I had a tutorial on the finer points of the game! It's surprising how interesting it is when you're hungover! After I felt sufficiently regenerated to hit the books I kept the game on in the background to keep an eye on the score. I think that my initial fears some weeks ago about the state of my mind and mental health really has foundation in my strange behaviour recently.

On the other hand Cork's victory over Galway on Sunday was a completely different ball game (har har!)

Don't you just love hurling?

Best game in the world and even though my county are far from inspiring at the moment there is a joy in watching the All Ireland regardless. It's a pity Galway couldn't have lead Cork at any stage as that would have made for a more exciting game, but as it stood Cork were masterful and were deserving winners on the day.

Friday Cheer

I had to turn on the light this morning to see what I was doing as I got ready for work and it hit home that summer is over. It's pissing rain here in Dublin today but it's friday so I don't really care!
I found this 80's music test on the world wide wonder web and as I have nothing better to say I thought I would share it with everyone and see if you can do better than me. I would almost guarantee that you will as I am crap at these things! So enjoy!



P.S. The image isn't appearing when I look at the page but you can still click through to the fun stuff!

I have to share...

I was just cruising around Irish Blogs and finally clicked on Twenty Major. I've been meaning to check it out for ages and didn't for whatever reason. I nearly choked trying not to laugh too obviously at his account of Dolphins and Beagles and why they are evil. It's a classic- check it out!

Defeat at Lansdowne Road

This is a shot I took of the Ireland v Italy friendly game which we also lost this summer....

Well it wasn't a good night for Irish soccer and despite the fact that I try to be upbeat about our performances in the face of all negativity I have to admit that after last night I don't think our chances for qualifying for the World Cup in Germany are particularly good.

I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with our team but I think that it is something do with the chemistry on the pitch. Individually we have some very talented and commited players. Damien Duff is a joy to watch and Robbie Keane fights hard and is a committed and talented goal scorer. In mid field Roy Keane is breath taking and he played out of his skin last night the only problem being the yellow card and consequentially he won't be available for the Cyprus game. In fact the loss of Morrison, Reid and Keane is a real blow to our chances. In my opinion the ref was definately over zealous with his cards and did us no favours. But besides all that we should have done better last night. Since the draw was made it was known that this game against France at home would be the high light of the qualifying schedule and in the end it just didn't match up to the standard of game that I know I was expecting.

I'm gutted and I'm annoyed. We need to start playing like we really want qualification and if we do that maybe we will, but I'm not holding my breath...

Snapshots of a disordered mind

Chaos


Confusion


Calm

It would appear that I have survived the last of my DIT exams and with a bit of luck I should have a legal qualification very soon. They weren't bad as exams go, it was the learning bit that drove me demented!

The above 3 pictures best describe how I felt over the last week or so. It's definately a relief as even if I don't finish with the FE's this time round I have achieved something tangible from the efforts of the last 2 years and that's a good feeling. Oh maybe I'm being a bit pre-emptive results aren't in yet but having sat 12 exams in the last 15 months (!what the fuck!) I have an instinct about these things now!

Overall it was probably a good thing to have a bit of a practice run at this stage, I have a better idea of what I need to do for October and so after tonight, which I am taking off to watch the big game (cue nail biting and nauseousness) it's back to the grindstone on Thursday! Oh joy...