Rantin' makes me feel good

I like to think that I know you, dear reader - or more specifically, how warmly you will receive the various posts that find their way onto this blog. I have a feeling that half-hearted posts that blindly shoot in the general direction of religious conviction will be endured, albeit begrudgingly. I'm also fairly certain that posts entirely personal in nature will be tolerated, should I lather them up in a sufficient coating of self-deprecation. Overly-bloated, self-indulgent rants that require far-too much scrolling are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but more often than not are skimmed over in order to glean the enlightenment surely squirrelled away in one of its innumerable dark crevasses.

I'm sure that you read the less-than-stellar posts on this blog, because you're searching for one like this: one in which the extent of my wrath manifests itself on some poor unsuspecting 'tard who decided to opine about something in a manner that isn't quite open for discussion. I assure you that this is coming, but first, I must contextualise on where this came from:

During my last academic semester at the University of Limerick, the UL Journalism Society was founded, with a view to creating the piss-poorly named magazine, Ink. After forcing myself to attend two meetings, I was quite convinced that the people involved were utterly devoid of any merits that would make for a good magazine, both in terms of generating interesting content, or actually getting the buggering thing into production. I was also quite troubled by the fact that the magazine was devised as an alternative to the paper already produced by the Students' Union, but the contributors were all the same!

Sure enough, it failed to launch, thanks to a moronically impractical adherence to the committee-structure on which all Societies of the University of Limerick must conform. A lack of interest in the project kept me (and others, more than likely) from getting more involved, as my untameable elitism refused to let me toil for a magazine I knew would be filled by vapid writers. I had a few ideas for articles, but this is the only one I was halfway satisfied with.

This op-ed piece is a severely dated response to a letter from the Christian Union in the campus newspaper, (which was in itself a response to an earlier letter taking them to task for some objectionable advertising). (Link to PDF)




My take on this, five months later:

Last semester, Ink contributor Donal O’Driscoll published a letter in An Focal ridiculing the Christian Union’s promotional poster that threatened infidels with the eternal torture that awaited them after death. In an attempt to clear up the “serious misunderstandings”, Saumel Watterson of the CU responded with a letter that consisted of a few biblical references and a shrugged explanation that consisted of little more than “just doing what the big man says - it’s not up to me!”.

This happened in early November. It’s old news – ancient, even. So why bring it up now? Utter, crippling disappointment at the lack of responses it received. How is it that in a university, a place for the nurturing of intellect, some fruitcake can write in with inanities such as “we deserve to be thrown into that lake of fire”, and not suffer any reprimand from the student body? I opted out at the time, as I had already appeared in the letters page twice that semester taking others to task for lesser crimes, but with mere weeks remaining of my academic career at UL, I cannot leave in good conscience without restoring equilibrium.

As a way of defending the muck that the Christian Union peddles, Sammy asks “if your friend was in such danger and didn't even realise it, you would not frivolously say to them, "Hey-diddily-hey, neighbour!" You would desperately try to warn them”. It’s possible that I’m being too hard on wee Sammo here, as he was more than likely hoping that a string of incoherent non-sequiturs would transubstantiate into solid rhetoric, but his god forsook him. I will commend his emo-tacular endorsement of the Bible for moral support when he splutters “I am a coward (though God is training me to be brave)”, even if it makes sane people like me want to scream things like “get his guy 20ccs of premarital sex, stat!”

The CU obviously have a somewhat flattering view of themselves, given their poignant pontification on matters of truth, such as how “it often offends us, but we need to hear it”. This causes me considerable mirth as a person who embraces the facts, unlike moronic Bible-thumpers such as Samuel Watterson. I find the very fact that we attend the same university insulting, as he is either incapable of critical thought, or willing to ignore any shred of intellect that cries foul during his nightly sessions of talking to an imaginary friend whilst on his knees. Has he ever opened the book of “truth” that he claims to lead his life by? There are so many examples of outright contradictions between reality and the Bible, and within the holy book itself, that even the slightest indulgence would only serve to distract me away from ridiculing the dearth of intellect that one man has no shame in admitting to.

Again - maybe I’m being a little harsh here. After all, the Bible does attest to be the exclusive source of truth on supernatural matters. But doesn’t the Book of Mormon do that also? Come to think of it, the Koran makes the same claims. Which raises an interesting point; if Samuel Watterson were involved with the Muslim Union, would we be accosted with posters reading “strike terror into the hearts of yours and Allah’s enemies” as we strolled towards the cafeteria? Would the notice boards around campus implore us to “smite at the necks and cause a bloodbath of the unbelievers”?

Somebody needs to explain to the members of the Christian Union that just because something is old, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good source of moral guidance (you needn’t look further than the latest conversation with your racist grandmother for proof of this). Believing that bad people will burn in hell is backed up by as much proof as believing that martyrs get 72 virgins in heaven. The frankly batshit insane notion that a round piece of bread turns into the flesh of Christ is every bit as likely as the batshit insane notion that unhappiness is a result of some tosser called Xenu nuking the earth 75 billion years ago.

If you think I’m being intolerant towards religion right now, you’re absolutely right – what’s wrong with intolerance towards irrational beliefs? Chances are you have a sufficient grasp of rationality that you avail of to dismiss nutters who predict the end of the world based on a message in their alphabet-os, or the homeless guy who claims to be Jesus Christ. Try directing that same rationality towards your cherished beliefs and then see how outraged you feel you’re entitled to be. Just because we’ve grown immune to Christian hate speech against non-Christians, it doesn’t mean it should be tolerated in any shape or form.

I’m aware that Christianity was vital in civilising western society, and the core of the modern, sanitized Christian philosophy is certainly something of merit, but the constant focus on death and empty threats of perpetual suffering are the pernicious aspects of religion that I could never endorse, let alone use as the basis to promote a social gathering. In the future, rather than waste finite resources of paper, ink, and students’ time, I suggest that Samuel Watterson and anybody who espouses his views save themselves the hassle of writing ill-conceived letters, and instead tattoo “I have no intellectual integrity” across their foreheads.

"Bodily Effluvia"

I’ve had a slight illness these past few days that has flared up into a veritable plague, sapping my energy levels and causing my nose to leak a considerable amount of goop. In preparing for the last exam of my undergraduate existence, I spent two unproductive hours at the packed library today, quietly leaking bodily effluvia into a bundle of tissues in as subtle a fashion I could manage. The concern for my fellow-students wasn’t shared by the smoochy couple in the seats next to me, who only took a half hour or so to repulse me away from my favoured spot on the first floor. It’s frustratingly distracting trying to study when there’s a guy next to you who constantly disappears from your peripheral vision to the sound of lip-smacking. I wish cancer upon his libido.

In other news, my weakened state has caused me to fall off the wagon with regard to my Coke embargo, as I’ve quaffed about a pint or so of the stuff in the past few hours as I vainly attempt to get my energy levels up to a useful level. So far I’ve had little success, but the sudden influx of sugar is making my teeth hurt, which is bound to perk me up somewhat!

As much as I loathe the recent practice of my overly nostalgic friends who have framed every social interaction for the past three months as “one of the last times we do” something, only to recalibrate the sentiment for the next “last time” mere days later, I have to admit that I am quite thrilled with the thought that this could be the last time I sit an exam at the University of Limerick. Of course, after this milestone of epic proportions, I’ll be recalibrating for Friday, when I’ll be handing in my last project at the University of Limerick!

It’s the bits that come after that point which scare the living shit out of me.

Kindred Spirit

Friends, I'd like to introduce you to Fin... Or more specifically, Fin's Blog.

For months now, I've been reading Fin's blog, all the while feeling a little guilty about not giving him the linkage he so thoroughly deserves, since the subjects we deal with are largely incompatible.

That said, I've always been a believer in the adage (that I think I coined myself), 'hate brings people together', and it is for this reason I realise Fin's blog and mine aren't so different after all.

Here's an excerpt from his site, posted just yesterday:

How does someone even misspell "Evening?"

If you've been keeping up with this very blog over the past few days, this entry should be eerily familiar. It gives me a sense of solace that I'm not the only one who is lamenting the University's lenience towards those who wish to sodomise the English language. Of course, Fin has a different style of discussing calamitous oversights in signmaking that is slightly more to the point than my own!

On a separate note, Fin's blog often represents what this blog could easily have been; an unabashed tribute to nerd/gamer/computer-geek culture, as well as the multitudes of various other interests of mine that I fear are too esoteric to share on my personal blog.

Fin's blog can be found here, and if you'd like to thank me for suppressing my-inner nerd in the way Finlay hasn't, you can do so here.

The University of Limerick "Our Frugality is your Frustration!"

One thing that has become abundantly clear from all my dealings with my beloved University is this: they go out of their way to hire the stupidest people on the earth to handle any task that doesn't involve academia. If you want a laugh, go through all the wrongs I have endured at the University of Limerick (there are some unadulterated joys in there, also) by clicking the 'University of Limerick' label at the bottom of this post. 

But let's not dwell in the past eh? The reason you're reading this is because I have a new reason for ridiculing the University, trivial as it may be. I present to you, a dire warning designed to fend off the boldest of parkers, located in a picturesque laneway not far from the main hub of campus activity.

I know, I know. I'm really dealing with minutiae at this stage, but I'm holding the University to standards! Basic English language standards! Let's look at the tally: in the past few months alone there's been a leak in the library; the timetables weren't available at the start of the last semester; I 'failed' out of college because they lost track of where I was; the exam results weren't available intermittently for a few days after their advertised release... Oh well, maybe I'm just bitter because they sent me to Belgium for a five-month shit scrubbing marathon!

Maybe all of this is a good thing. Perhaps the money the administrative staff save in letting their drooling dyslexic daughters make signs (among other duties) frees up cash that can be used to woo the greatest educators in the world to our humble university...

Or perhaps not.

'Delicate Decibel Balance'

In 2006, the Library in the University of Limerick was dealing with a constant menace that threatened the very existence of students cramming the night before an exam. This menace was mobile telecommunication devices.

Before I left for my year of study in Pittsburgh, there were signs up at the entrance to the library saying things like "NO MOBILE PHONES!", "TURN OFF YOUR MOBILE PHONE!", "SILENCE AT ALL TIMES!" and other such statements that showed the establishment meant business. There were no pleases and thank yous on these signs, oh no. Anyone who dared to upset the delicate decibel balance knew the risks, but they dared anyway.

...Mostly because the only retribution you suffered was some minimum-wage earner looking at you disapprovingly as you gossiped away defiantly. The crack security-personnel were equipped with frowns, and goddamnit, they weren't afraid to use them.

Obviously, frowns alone does not a quiet library make. I'm not sure what happened over the year or so I was abroad, but when I came back, the new regime had made changes.

Drastic changes.

I can only imagine how badly things escalated that prompted such a radical overhaul of the system (maybe a security guard popped a blood vessel during a particularly intense frown-down), as the current arrangement targets the individual chatterbox with laser-guided-missile-like-efficiency.


'Phone-friendly areas' have since been established, where students 'can have quiet conversations', but only within the confines of this magical zone... That's it. That is the solution to the problem. Somebody probably even got a raise for it.

Perversely, these new rules tolerate texting, so long as the phone is set to silent. The constant clacking of keys that sound like termites tap dancing their way into your skull is no longer considered a noise offence, so enjoy those brief moments of respite as that girl with ten thumbs awaits a response from whatever jackass she's sending vowel-deprived messages to.

Other than the stairwell to the side of the building - phone-phriendly areas are located conveniently on every floor. In fact - here's a zoomed out view of the above picture.


Yep. The University is actively promoting the use of phones in the bathroom. I cannot list enough reasons why I think this is a bad idea. Even if you forgo the objections one would have from a hygienic point of view - what plonker is actually going to use the bathroom as a phone booth? Do you really need to take the call? If somebody is ringing to offer you a job, do you really want to risk them overhearing the distinct sound of a flushing toilet? Are you willing to explain to your mother why there's a man with a panic-stricken tone asking you to throw him some toilet-paper?

Consider urinal etiquette for a second - these bathrooms aren't exactly spacious. If you're the pacing kind, you're risking all manner of splashback, as well as some overly-zealous, underly self-assured guy kicking your ass for getting that bit too close to comfort during his shakeoff time.

Realising that such a system is now in place at the library has convinced me never to call one of my friends during his study time if I know he's a multi-tasker...

Teetotaller's Tiff - The Last Word?

The results are in!



A landslide victory for the pro-Fanta-Fuelled-Fury camp, it seems. Given that I exist only to do the bidding of my readers, I submitted the letter late last week to the editor, and it was published yesterday.

Now that the hype is over and the letter is in print, I feel as though I may have hyped this up a tad too much! That notwithstanding, I submit the following for your reading pleasure:

Sir,

Yet again I find myself writing to issue an apology to your publication. This time, however, I am throwing my hands up and saying sorry for my own actions. It was wrong of me to treat your newspaper like a college paper, rather than a kindergarten newsletter. It was wrong of me to consider your letters page a forum for critical thinkers expressing an alternate viewpoint. While I’m at it, hell – it was even wrong for me to assume that anyone who makes it to college can understand a Junior-Cert honours level of English.

This came to my attention through Cillian Burke’s warblings (which almost resemble a letter if you squint a little). Somebody needs to explain a few things to this guy. For one; when he was told ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’, nobody wanted him to reduce the standard of writing in An Focal, reuse the same ‘need one’ phrase ad nauseam until he tripped over it, and recycle not only one of my jokes, but also my opinions, for those who missed them the first time around.

As much as I’d love to point out the various instances where it seems he wrote his letter in French and translated it through Google, I’ll instead hammer home the fact that Mr Burke and I are pushing the same agenda. Not drinking is absolutely not a ‘quirk’, as insinuated by Catríona McGrattan in September 4th’s An Focal.

My letter was an attempt to entirely discredit Ms McGrattan’s writings, and illustrate through an ironic sense of humour that not all teetotallers share her viewpoint. I appreciated her effort to show the ‘alternate choice’, but no amount of pseudo-Tommy Tiernan endorsements will make a person think that non-drinkers are cool, especially when buried under so many holier-than-thou statements.

Mr Burke, thank you for making the teetotaller tiff a threesome, you’ve shown me the error of my ways. I do request, however, that before you storm off to wherever it is you go to belt out a vitriolic response in which you buttress my statements, you endeavour to ask your mommy a few more times ‘what does this word mean?’ Furthermore, there’s no need to get on a high horse about matters of erectile dysfunction – a fussy penis is not a cause for shame.

While I have your time, dear editor, I humbly request that you begin an investigation into how the Stables can justify charging €1 for 30ml of Mi Wadi and tapwater; your rather vocal teetotalling readers would be very much obliged.

Yours,

Seán O’Sullivan

There's a whole lot of restraint going on here, and I might have been a little too diplomatic towards the end. I am quite proud of that ‘translated in google’ line – I’m patenting it. You want to use it? $1.25 a pop.

Was this entry worth the two mouse-clicks it took you to vote it into existence? You tell me.

Teetotaller's Tiff – This Time, it’s Personal

I never know how to start off these ‘sequel posts’, but anyhow... Remember last week, when I told you about how I was contributing naughty words (among other things) to the school paper? It seems some young ragamuffin has seen fit to engage me in a battle of wits!

Without much more of this ado business, I’d like to welcome Mr Cillian Burke into the fray! Let’s see what insights he can lend us, while I talk over him through my mastery of the square bracket!

Sir,

I wish to refer to Mr Sean O Sullivan’s letter in the last edition of An Focal. I will not as per Mr O ‘Sullivan start off on a mindless attack on his letter published ‘apologising’ for the Ms Catríona McGrattan’s ‘Fanta Fuelled’ article on the 18th of September.

I will merely express my belief that Fanta Fuelled was Ms McGrattan’s effort to let any member of UL’s student body know that a choice exists on a night out. But to describe an article outlining a free choice available to all as being ‘ill-conceived evangelicism’ is completely over the top.

Why need one get on any high horse in relation to the drinking topic? [‘The drinking topic’ – sounds very taboo]There is nothing wrong with a drink on a night out. [Right you are] One may even over celebrate on occasion. Are we now living on a campus environment where it is wrong to express that one does or does not wish to drink? [Only if it’s condescending towards those on the other side] Need one feel self congratulated that a pint of Rock-Shandy costs €4.80 or that a pint of Guinness costs €3.90 I think not. ["Durr. Writing letters is hard... I know! I’ll throw in a random fact!"]

Why congratulate somebody for making a free choice?.. [My point exactly, jackass] Need it be an issue? [Did he even read my letter?] If it is...is there not a more pressing question to be asked… [Oh good, here comes a pressing question!] Mr O Sullivan obviously does not like being a non drinker so perhaps he should try a social beverage with his friends and loosen up. Maybe the fear of ‘waking up with a hangover after an embarrassing night of alcohol-induced-erectile-dysfunction’ as Mr O’Sullivan describes it is more his issue. [Where was that pressing question he promised?]

In the meantime need I feel special, quirky, ashamed, insulted or any other emotion offered by Mr O’Sullivan as a non drinker I think not!! [Two exclamation marks = classy. Someone explain to this fucktard that I lamented the labelling of not drinking as a ‘quirk’ before I insult his mother in a public forum.]

On my behalf no apology was or is required for Ms McGrattans article. [Read that last one again. It makes 0% sense!] Need one stand out from the crowd as a non drinker? Not in my experience.

Yours [retardedly],
Cillian Burke

Did you see that? He left out the accent [fada] on the ‘a’ in my name and didn’t put the apostrophe between ‘O’ and ‘Sullivan’ a couple of times. Bastard. Meanwhile Catríona’s fada is left intact… Strange indeed.

Nitpicky details aside – this jackass has essentially rewritten my letter, but tried to make it sound as though he is contradicting me the whole time! He even recycles my hilarious (if I say so myself) joke about erectile-dysfunction!

I was quite excited when I heard that there had been a reply, but imagine my crushing disappointment when I read this drivel. The scope of his thinly veiled imitation was so flattering that I felt no need to respond to him, and gave it no further thought. But then a curious thing happened...

This is quite hard to explain, but bear with me. I was taking a shower one morning in a groggy stupor, and all of a sudden the response that I should send to the paper popped into my head in its entirety. Before you could say “Sully, please finish cleaning your nether-regions” I found myself sitting in my underpants in front of my computer, channelling this message.

I have to say, the response that came forth is quite apt, but for now it sits on my harddrive. Is it right to impose the same issue upon the letters page for the fourth consecutive edition? My last correspondence was more of a public-service announcement. This is just me making some asshole my bitch (I like to think of the letters page as prison showers, and Burke just dropped the soap).

Y’know what? You tell me.

The poll to the right of the page is now live, and will be until the end of the week.

No registration is necessary, so no excuses! Get to it!

Update: Poll Closed - landslide victory for the "go git 'im, Champ" camp!

Teetotaller's Tiff

The guy I talked about in last week’s post succeeded in explaining his abstinence from alcohol whilst not not condescending to those who choose to avail of the solution to (and cause of) all of life’s problems. Here is an article from one such little lady who doesn’t have such lofty aims, as published in my University's newspaper.

Fanta Fuelled
Catríona McGrattan
Unlike most students, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been drunk in my three years in college…NONE!

I haven’t had a drink at all in those three years and no before you ask it’s not because I’m playing a match tomorrow, or on anti-biotics or driving; I just don’t want to!
I made the decision on coming into college back in September 2004 (when we had three pubs, I mean clubs, on campus) not to drink during my college years. I’ve managed to stick to it, but to be honest I have never really found it difficult, although that could be because I’ve been accused on several occasions of being the inspiration for Tommy Tiernan’s ‘Fanta fuelled F*ckers sketch.

The usual reaction from people when they find out I don’t drink is “Fair play to you!” I don’t think of it like that, it’s my decision not to drink as much as it is anyone’s decision to drink. College life is so diverse, in your next four, five, six years in college you will get to meet some truly unique people, each with their own quirky habits, best get used to it!

With a doubt I have had some amazing nights out in the Stables, at balls and in the Lodge (contrary to popular belief you don not have to be drunk to get in!) all of which without a drop of drink in me.

Alcohol isn’t for me. Some people like it a little, some people a lot, some more than they probably should but each to their own. I will never take issue with some else’s drinking habits so long as they don’t do so with mine.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that yes you can have a brilliant time with drink, but you can have an equally good time without it! So don’t be afraid to order a blackcurrant and vodka, hold the vodka anytime soon.

Apologies to those unfamiliar with the shitty nightclub or the comedian this girl mentions, but rest assured, knowledge of these matters make her inanity all the more infurating. Anyway, being the 'Sully' type of guy that I am, I felt I had to react in some way that would strike this woman's faux-pas from the record, for fear the integrity of a component of my personal philosphy be tarnished forever! I decided a letter to the editor would make my concerns heard;

Dear Sir,

I wish to issue a formal apology on behalf of the teetotalling community for the article 'Fanta Fuelled' that appeared in An Focal on September 4th.

I am ashamed to be a teetotaller in modern Ireland. This is largely to do with people of Ms. McGrattan's ilk colouring us as a self-righteous group of smug gits who offer up diplomatic phrases like 'drink isn't for me', whist in the same breath pushing their own philosophy upon peers.

Adding insult to injury is the uncertainty McGrattan casts over the veracity of her own statements, stating “with a doubt I have had some amazing nights out in the Stables”. Ironically, one might wonder if she was under the influence whilst at the keyboard were it not for the subject matter, given the number of disjointed sentences she stumbles through whilst eschewing any traditional grammatical structures (let alone paying heed to whether her words are typed in their entirety).

Her ill-conceived evangelicism would have been much more effective had she mentioned any points of merit, such as the money one saves on a night out only buying a drink when thirsty. She also missed out on the valid aspect of not impairing one's ability to drive home after a piss up. And how did she fail to report the boon of not waking up with a hangover after an embarrassing night of alcohol-induced-erectile-dysfunction?

Shame on Ms. McGrattan for attempting to pass off her decision not to indulge in the odd pint as a 'quirk'. Such inane statements are not only a poor reflection on the author's desperation to stand out from the crowd, but also misrepresent the far from vocal few of us who decide to spend our lifetimes without mood altering drugs.

I wish to stress that not all those who abstain from alcohol are bursting with the same sense of self-congratulation and condescension that Catríona McGrattan imposes upon her readers. I offer my deepest sympathies to those who suffered through the stale-sense of unjustified enthusiasm she ejaculated onto page fourteen. In doing so, I am hoping to wipe the slate clean. Upon finding out that the tall, dark and handsome man (or woman) you have been chatting up for the past forty-five minutes is of the dry disposition, don't respond with “Fair play” or “You plonker”. A simple “Meh” will suffice.

Your designated driver for life,
Seán O'Sullivan

To be fair to this woman, she probably wasn't thinking much about what she was writing at the time, and the stupid errors could well be poor editing, but that's not the point. My argument is firstly that anyone willing to submit a piece of writing for public consumption should be willing to defend their intellectual integrity (which I have been willing to do over the past year of blogging), and the student paper needs to publish articles of actual merit.

So what do you think? Bad form? Did I get too personal? Will people read as far as the word 'teetotalling' and just give up? Is my Fanta Fuelled Fury itself worthy of print? Am I allowed to blatantly rip off entire articles from the school paper? You tell me!

Precipitation? Preposterous!

I'm sitting at a computer in the library of my University, and I can feel little flecks of water hitting my head, hands and computer every few seconds. People wearing hoodies are putting their hoods to good use.

Yep, it's raining indoors.

Welcome to the University of Limerick.

Bad University! Bad!

Christ.

I am a student at the University of Limerick. A school that sends its students to scrub shit from toilets. A school that forgets that it sent students on exchange programmes to other universities, then informs them that they have failed for not showing up to exams they were never signed up to take .

Of course, after this happened to me, then assured me that the 'clerical error' was a temporary glitch and it won't be a burden anymore.

Whoever told me that was full of shit.



If you couldn't be bothered clicking, I'll spell it out; my student account was deleted from the system. Grrrrrr.

After sending a far-more-polite-than-it-should-have-been e-mail, I decided to finally print out my timetable, given that I start tomorrow morning at 9am. This is what greeted me on the website;



For the love of fuck! Can these people do anything right? It seems that the server responsible for hosting the timetables is as reliable as UL's administrative staff.

This makes for a double dilemma;

When are where the hell are my classes tomorrow?
Am I even entitled to be there?

Typical

Oh dear, oh dear.

Seems UL’s status as an equal-opportunities employer welcomes would-be employees with open arms, regardless of their gender, creed, ethnicity, or zoology.

I got a letter from one of UL’s many administrative chimps today, informing me politely that I had failed out of college, because my ‘cumulative performance to date does not meet the minimum academic standards.’

“Hang on a tick”, I thought to myself, what’s going on here? I read on:

The Academic Council Grading Committee has decided that you cannot proceed to the next year of your programme until you have brought your academic performance to the required standard… They recommend that you Repeat Year 3 New Media and English.

“Bollocks,” I was thinking - “guess my grades from the US didn’t get a good exchange rate.”

The letter advised that under ‘extenuating circumstances’ I ‘may appeal to the Student Status Committee for a review of [my] case […] on Wednesday July 11th.'

I decided a look at the accompanying ‘Student Residual Transcript’ was in order, and that’s when I saw it. And remembered. This is UL. The University of Limerick. The reason other colleges and universities refer to their administrative blunders as ’pulling a UL’. Those damn dirty apes made no reference to the second semester I spent studying abroad and instead had me enrolled in four classes I was at least 4000 miles away from at all times.

For the time being, I am a college-flunkie, by default. Much like I was once an enemy of the United States, by default. At this rate, I’m expecting to be declared legally dead by the time I’m thirty and come home from work someday to find the bank auctioning off my house.

Assuming of course, that I ever own a house, seeing as I’m now a college-dropout.

Belgium Week Fornight: The Conclusion

Wondering why I'm still writing about Belgium? Well, this is a way for me to illustrate that much like my co-op experience, what was advertised is not what you're going to get...

Okay, I admit, it was because I had academic obligations that were slightly more pressing than the climax of Belgium Week.

During the week, a friend informed me that some hapless UL students have recently arrived in Leuven for work at the Institute, and I honestly feel like I have their blood on my hands. Call me naive, or even egocentric, but when I was sent home because of my bad back, one of the last things I said to Dermot was that I was beginning a campaign to end the future suffering of our peers who would be duped like we had been, because I honestly thought I could make a difference if they found out how absolutely horrid it was!

Dermot, wishing he was the dead terrorist on the front of this magazine

I stormed into my placement officer's office the day after I arrived home, bearing in mind that I'd have to stay some bit level-headed while still telling her of the atrocities. I began by telling her about the potentially illegal housing. It was like talking to a machine - with a complete poker face she tells me she'll pass it onto her superior. "I'll inform Jerry".
I told her about the insanely long working hours.
"I'll inform Jerry."
I told her that there was no educational value to be found whatsoever from the experience, and the time off is insufficient to see Europe.
"I'll inform Jerry."
Any number of things I said to her were met with this pre-programmed response. It was futile.

Exasperated, I was began to spit vitriol, and begun using the same adjectives I've been plastering here, "back-breaking", "depressing", "demeaning", "degrading", "infuriating", "pointless".
She kept her professional composure, and offered no reactions, or even a compassionate ear. My list of solid arguments ended, but I didn't, and I continued to talk, now only with blind fury:
"I mean... Christ! The people who work there and enjoy it are goddamned idiots who get by by drinking every moment they're not at work, and even sometimes when they are!"

I wanted to tell her about my first morning there, when a colleague came down from her room to the sitting room, sat on the couch, and started smoking a joint. For breakfast. Not a word of "Would you mind?" or "Is it okay if...?". Not wanting to avail of the second-hand dope-smoke, I had to go into my room and kill time on my laptop... This motif continued for the following four and a half months, as I didn't want to be a part of anything that was going on in that house.

I wanted to tell her all of this, but she cut me off, in a very curt, professional manner.
"Now Seán, I'm willing to let you express your concerns about the co-op, but don't bitch about the people you had to work with! Show some sense of professionalism."
I was so used to being talked down on and taking it on the chin, I'm not even sure if I replied. The topic of the Institute essentially ended on that note; me being reprimanded.



This is, of course, part of the reason my co-op report is as inhibited as it is (if you've read the below posts you'll know that my word choice is ironic). However, I have yet to hand it in, so nobody can avail of the many explicit warnings within. The final weeks of my co-op were spent working somewhere with actual educational merit, and I must construct a separate report that explains what I got up to there. This report will be the complete opposite of it's companion piece, and I'm hoping the juxtaposition between the two will show that I'm more than some lazy, begrudging bitter bastard, and someone who is willing to express an honest opinion.

To those students from the University of Limerick, or any other College anywhere in the world, who have been sentenced to misery by menial-labour, I have only one thing to say, and that is "Get out while you still can." For the love of Christ, don't hope that it'll get better and stick it out, no matter how much they promise you that more staff are on the way, or there's a quiet period coming up. Don't stay out of pride, or stubbornness, or fear that you've 'failed' by leaving and looking for something better, the Co-Op office should have given you a job that relates to your future career, and you shouldn't be there! It's not going to look very good on a CV/résumé that you spent 6 months scrubbing shit off of toilets, even if they were exotic "mainland Europe" toilets. Granted, since my time, there was a change in the upper-management, so maybe things are a little more reasonable, but that shouldn't be the point. You're in college, I assume you're there to ensure your future doesn't involve such derision, so why start now?

I'd like to end on the note that going to Leuven, despite the good that came with it, is still the closest I will ever come to making a decision that I will regret for the rest of my life.

"the good that came with it" (Note I'm wearing Dermo's shirt)

Belgium Week: The Debacle Continues

As mentioned more than once before, one of my few hobbies is editing videos that distil certain events into the highlights that were caught on tape. On occasion, a random idea will pop into my head, like a song that would complement a certain theme, and I’ll make a mental note of it, and get working on it as soon as possible. On the plane on the way over to Belgium, I thought of something nice; I was going to get the best photos and clips that I took, and edit them to the very sentimental song 'Wish you were here' by Incubus, as a sort of video-postcard for my friends and family. I had great ideas for this video, and had a loose framework of the kind of clips I wanted where, what transitions I was going to use, and a new technique I was going to employ to really push the sappy, sentimental angle.


This was going to be one of the first images you'd be confronted with

After a week in Leuven, I knew that this video would never see the light of day, because “I wish you were here” was a fate I’d never wish on any of my friends. I scrapped the idea, and after a month or two I thought I’d try again to get myself editing a video again, just for the sake of it. This one was going to use ‘The Adventure’ by Angels and Airwaves, and we got the first forty seconds into it without much effort, using the footage we took on our first trip to Brussels. Once we had squeezed every last shot out that we could, we were stumped as to what else we could put in - because we had few pictures or video footage of things that we’d want to remember, or even consider part of an ’adventure’. Rather than taking our minds off the miserable time we were having, our project only served to highlight the amount of things we wanted to forget about! I tried to complete it on my own, taking a different approach, but it fell asunder once more.

My demeanour in Belgium was a little different than usual. It was a joke that I was working there, and eventually living became one too. Every night, Dermot and I would lay in the bunk-beds, gossiping about the inane antics of our stupider colleagues and laughing at their expense, and asking all kinds of questions.

Every morning, like clockwork, before saying “good morning”, Dermot would announce how many days we had left, down to the half. More than a talking clock counting down to freedom, he was the guy who kept me sane during the entire debacle. We discussed other matters too; such as the first thing we’d do once our time was served, filling each other in on our real lives back home that we were eager to resume, and making countless morbid jokes about the sweet embrace of death, which tempted us with its instant release from our humiliation and degradation. Before you go re-reading that last one and panic, relax - it was 100% in jest, and more often than not, elaborately describing our comically grisly demises made for much mirth in the dark hours in the staff house.


Another of the photos from our first night... Pre-spirit breaking, of course!

Bear in mind that I’m only speaking on my behalf, but these are my better memories of the time I spent with Dermot in Belgium. Dermot was an oasis of intellectual stimulation in a barren desert of ignorance, and as a result was quickly catapulted into the ranks of my better friends and trusted confidant!

Anyways, I’m going to leave it at that for now; tomorrow should see the final entry or entries of Belgium Week, so be sure to check that out, and remember, comments are hugely appreciated!


Figgs gets special props for not being a plonker - cheers Figgs!

Belgium Week: More Co-Op Reportage

"Hey Dermo! I'll give ya a tenner if you skewer my heart with that corkscrew!"

This is the second instalment about my Co-Op Report, and this entry should see the scathing remarks intensifying. Rather than post in the entire thing (there’s some boring technical stuff that I won’t bore you with), here are the choice quotes from the Summary page, starting with the opening line.

The time I spent at the Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe was a waste of my time. Reading this report may very well be a waste of yours. […] The Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe scams its employees with the €110 a week 'trainee wage', which remains at that level regardless of the hours put in. It scams potential workers by telling them they'll be working 9 hour days, when 12-16 are more of a reality. It scams the Universities by misinforming them about the work and living arrangements their students will be a part of (we had to lie to the police about where we resided – what kind of an ethical organisation asks that of their workers?). […] Why should an English student have to make beds and scrub toilets? New Media and self-degradation have what in common? If I were doing European Studies, I could maybe understand why I was there, but since I wasn't, I considered it a failure of the coop office that such an option was being offered to students like myself. That's not to say UL should sever all ties with the Louvain Institute – if they ever offer a Janitor Studies course, it might justify the two organisations getting back in touch.

Shortly after my spirit broke, my back followed. Despite being diagnosed with Discus Bulging of the lower spine, and presenting my Doctor's note to my employer, I was still forced to engage in tasks of physical labour. I attempted to reason with the management to no avail. No amount of pleading would sway their decision, as they simply didn’t care about my welfare. When I brought the issue to the CoOp office and made my health-concerns known back home however, the institute dropped me like a sack of bricks. If I could glean nothing else from the CoOp, at least it has given me some peace of mind about the spinal defect that I have to live with for the rest of my life, as it spared me a month and a half of misery at the Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe.

This picture was taken on the first night. It was six months before I ever saw Dermot Murphy smile again...

So that’s the Summary... So I’m ready to paste in more stuff from the Learning Opportunities page, and I honestly can’t believe some of the stuff I wrote here! Without further ado;

The learning opportunities were minimal at the Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe, in terms of what can be applied to my course of study, or even life. It did, however, present me with numerous opportunities to indulge in drunken, drug-fuelled revelry and fornication. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the Learning Opportunities afforded to me by my Co-Op Experience, many of which I knew of already, some are activities that those who were content at the Institute got up to, so they're here just to take up space.

● Smuggling illegal drugs such as marijuana and hashish into Belgium is easily facilitated by a quick train to Amsterdam and a rucksack
● Cleaning caked-on human excrement off a toilet seat is best accomplished by squirting cleaning product directly onto the faeces, then leaving it to dissolve away the faecal matter until the smell rises, after which a damp sponge may be employed in a vigorous scrubbing manner.
● Without mental stimulation at work, a human being is capable of going into a trance-like state, wherein they carry out their work in a robotic fashion, all the while thinking of the other place where they wish they were
● During the aforementioned state of extreme boredom, certain items of cutlery take on unique personalities based on their distinctive markings
● Changing a beer keg is not difficult. Having to lug it half a mile around a hilly, cobblestoned town to where it has to be hooked up is the hard part
● Lower back pain can be exacerbated by the motions employed when clearing and setting tables
● There are people utterly devoid of ambition in this world who put up with incredible amounts of misery so long as they are granted occasional access to alcohol and/or drugs
● Ignorant people can, and do rise to positions where they can abuse young people
● A person can spend a solid 138 days of regretting a poor decision they made, until such time as they are freed from their misery
● The medical system in Belgium is highly efficient
● Living in a mouldy, damp house is a good way to develop an intestinal infection
● 'Flushing out' an infected intestine is a messy process
● Not all Co-op is worthwhile
● Fairly laid-back, easygoing people are capable of being remoulded into misanthropic, embittered shells of their former selves

Quite the denunciation, yes? But don't get me wrong, I’m not looking for sympathy, being the sort of person I am, I can see the positive side to having something to write about on a blog! The point of these entries is to emphasise the absurdity of the situation that I was sent to that desolate place with an educational value of nil as part of a four year degree course!

Belgium Week: The Co-op Report

"Seán, please kill me"

Part of the co-op experience is writing a report where you describe the organisation, and what you learned from your time spent there. This presented me with a challenge, as I learned pretty much nothing over those five months or so, yet I was required to meet my word quota. Of course, I decided my report would serve to entertain myself while highlighting the atrocity that was the University of Limerick being willing to send a New Media and English student to stoop over toilets for half a year (although that’s not quite how they pitched it to me before I left).

For your reading pleasure, I will now copy and paste in excerpts from my actual co-op report, which has not yet been submitted to UL, but will be once it’s finished. I am 100% behind what I am saying here, and they have been in no way altered for this blog entry.

Work Skills Page
UL’s co-op site asks that students discuss skills they have improved or gained under a number of suggested categories, of which many were incompatible with my experiences (does using a mop count as ‘ICT Skills’?). Don’t worry, dear reader, for I made do with what I could!

They asked for evidence of ‘Basic Work Skills';
●Reporting to work as scheduled and on time.
●Dressing appropriately for work.
●Having an awareness of how formal personal interactions in the employing organisation are.

So here is how I fulfilled these requirements:

Basic Work Skill
Working at the Institute, the only 'skill' that could be learned is that of basic work. The work is uninteresting, difficult, unrewarding, excessive, demeaning, and entirely unsuited to an English student. What follows is the obligatory spiel about how I learned to conduct myself at work;
● I showed up on time for work. This task is achieved by setting an alarm clock to wake up oneself at a time that will allow them to report to work before they are scheduled to begin. It is important to show up for work on time, as otherwise fellow workers and managers will get upset, and that would be bad.
● I dressed appropriately for work. This involved putting on a pair of black pants – operated by putting the left and right legs into their respective areas of the garment, pulling up the zipper, and fastening the button. I wore a belt with these pants – it wraps around the pants through the designated hoops, and stays together by means of passing a bar through the appropriate notch. Belts are important because they prevent gravity from removing one's pants – which could lead to the exposure of one's underpants or even genitals during work. I wore a white shirt to cover my arms and torso. The shirt works in a very similar manner to the pants, only instead of surrounding your legs, arms are what holds the garment in place. The buttons are then fastened, and the shirt is tucked into the aforementioned pants. This tucking is the hardest part of the job, as one must uniformly have the same amount of shirt hanging over the brim of the pants.
● Formal personal interactions were never explicitly outlined to me, but being an intelligent type, I assumed that swearing, sexual advancements and screaming were all examples of inappropriate behaviour in front of guests.

Cultural/International Awareness
● I learned the basic pleasantries in Flemish – I would've liked to learn more, but the free lessons that we had been promised by the Institute turned out to be hot air, and attending lessons at the University in town would cost me more money than I was willing to pay.
● I learned a lot about the Belgian culture while not at work, such as their bars are only legally required to close for one hour a day to clean, and certain denizens seem to have an affinity for headbutting strangers in nightclubs

UL Sez Communication Skills involve;
●Listening to others in an effective and attentive manner.
●Participating effectively in meetings and/or group settings.
●Developing the ability to read and understand written materials.
●Communicating ideas and concepts clearly both verbally and in writing.
●Recognising the importance of non-verbal communication.

I think I illustrate my proficiency in communication with these easily digested, bulleted points;

Communication Skills
● I learned that when the boss says she doesn't “give a shit” - it means that you've lost your argument and it's time to give in.
● Non-verbal communication is used in many interactions. When you can feel your boss's evil glare burning a hole in your forehead, you know that she doesn't care about what it is you're saying.
● I learned that unless you get something written down and signed, it means nothing. Furthermore, the early warning system of that person who promised you something avoiding eye contact / any contact with you lets you know when you are about to get screwed over for the umpteenth time.
● The most motivational weapon in a trainee-manager's arsenal is the word 'fuck'. Examples of this include “If you don't get this done by two o'clock – you're fucked”, and “I don't care if your shift was supposed to end four hours ago – just fucking do it”.

This report has not yet been submitted to the UL co-op office, and it seems I must also get someone from the institute to sign it, which should lead to some interesting correspondence. Tomorrow, I will be posting a few more bits and pieces from my report that continue this diatribe.

But what do you think? Does come across as a tad bitter? Do you think it's funny? Will UL appreciate my unflinching honesty in my attempts to stretch what little educational merits were to be found in the Louvain Institute for Ireland in Europe?

You guys know where the comments section is by now, yes?

Some Differences

As promised the other day, I thought I'd write up what I observed in terms of noteworthy differences between RMU and UL's way of educating the Sully. I will stress the point that I'm comparing one University with another, and these are not expected to reflect on either country as a whole!

So I suppose I'll start with the most important bit; the classes themselves. At RMU, the students are responsible for selecting and registering for their own classes, many of which are dictated by their major; their other selections are what they're most interested in. New Media and English in UL (my course of study) is quite rigid, and one is lucky to choose between two electives (opting for the lesser of two evils in many cases). This semester, the courses I picked were Study of Rhetoric, General Psychology, Audio & Radio Production, and Writing for the Media. Picking the courses myself helped a great deal in keeping me interested in what I was doing, and it also reflects my strong interest in writing and general media production – in a sense, what I was studying here is what I hoped New Media and English would be.

The timetables are organised in such a way that you have 50 minute classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and Tuesday and Thursday classes weigh in at 75 minutes each. There are also 150 minute night classes once a week, of which I took one. This timetable system is nice – instead of having to commit a five day timetable to memory, you need only worry about two days. Not a deal-maker, sure, but it's appreciated! Furthermore, there were no tutorials, but rather the University offered a free Tutoring service to any students that needed it.

The classes I had were much smaller affair than what I'm used to at UL. I'm pretty sure that there wasn't a class that had more than 25 students in a traditional class-room style setting, which made for a more intimate learning environment than UL's large lecture halls. Every teacher knew my name. In fact, most teachers knew everybody's name, which again, is nice. I got on better with all four of my lecturer's than I have any lecturer at UL. This can be partly attributed to the fact that I'm the novelty foreign exchange student who has a wildly different take on certain matters, but is moreso because of the interest the lecturers seem to take in their students. In Rhetoric class in particular, there was a class discussion almost every day, and while many weren't quite as incendiary as I'd have liked, from the perspective of a foreigner, it was a great way to see some of the crazy things that people think and say here. The lecturers are generally more accessible, which is good and bad – good because approaching them outside of class times is a casual affair, and speaking up in class is never an issue, it's also bad because of the amount of arse that some people waste the lecturer's time with during class.

One thing I didn't like at first was that there was a lot of homework given. I don't mind homework, but when it's as inconsequential as some of what I was asked to do this semester, I begin to consider it busywork. Granted, there were no crippling amounts of work asked by any one lecturer, but my sloppy time management saw everything piling up at once, so once every week I'd stay up late working on clearing the backlog. This 'a-little-and-often' approach is actually a nice idea, as having to write one to three short essays a week is much nicer than what often happens back home, with (at times) unrealistic amounts of readings being prescribed as homework, with one major essay/project due in a semester; all of which seem to collide.

The assessment here is fair. Like I said; 'a-little-and-often' is the name of the game. The hefty essays I've had to write in UL often amount to 40-50% of my grade, with the rest sitting on a single exam. Two opportunities to show what you're capable of is a piss-poor system, in my opinion. Continual assessment involves less stress for all involved, and also assists the learning process, in my opinion.
I've never received the kind of positive appraisal I get here. My Writing for Media lecturer told me I should be a writer, my Radio-Production lecturer wanted me to submit an editorial piece to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and my Rhetoric lecturer praised every essay on the occasions we spoke after class, with simple statements like “I really like how you...” really compelling keep doing better.

I think I'll talk about the 'social' aspects of college life and other matters such as housing arrangements for another day, because I don't like these posts to get too hefty, but it'll be here soon, and roughly 15% less mind-numbingly boring!