Into the Night - a poem

Compulsion
Obsession
And freedom –
Entrapped in myself
And lost in others –
Forever away from the world –
Forever locked in the dark ––
Take me away into the night
And forget the world behind us –
For I am not the one you know
Nor the one I remember –
The one who couldn’t keep control
Or stay calm through it all –
Pain
Panic
Torture ––
I am not the same
And never will be –
Not now that you have come –
Not now that I am free ––

A shallow grave awaits us at the end of our journey –
We had a good run – while it lasted

Educational Procrastination

The topic of yesterday's study period changed dramatically and unexpectedly from Ecclesiology to Omegle.com. In case you don't know, Omegle.com is a chat website that utilizes web-cams. In case you haven't figured it out yet, it features a lot of people playing with themselves. You have been warned - this blog post will contain profanities!
Now, there are many things you can learn from Omegle.com. Not least of which is shame on behalf of all of humanity. But you can also get some great laughs out of it, if you learn not to be offended by the sight of a penis most of the time. Actually, not most of the time. Not if you deal with people the way we did. We are *drum roll*

The Phil Collins dedicated superness award-winning ecclesiastic team that is not endorsed by Phil Collins

And here we are!

The lad in the front shall be, for the purposes of this blog, be known as John. Beside him is Mary. Then, in the red, is yours truly (known for the day as Adam) and in the back is Aidan. Instead of studying, we wreaked havoc.

It all began with Facebook, not Omegle. John was fraped. A lot. Then Mary was fraped, too. I was not fraped, because I chose not to be. Only the four of us know what that vague assortment of words mean.

Following the twice-occurring fraping, we went over to Omegle, largely because we were curious. Now, I'll tell you this for free. When you have a girl like Mary on screen, lots of people want her to remove her clothing. When you don't, and you're trying to convince two girls to kiss...

Aidan knew what he was doing. "Will you two kiss?" he asked them. He got the expected reply, considering the fact that John sat beside him on the camera. "You kiss your friend first." Aidan was no fool, of course. Aidan knew those girls were alone, and that he wasn't. "So if I kiss my friend you two will kiss?" he asked them. "Yes," the girl confirmed, "You kiss first."

Aidan proceeded to pull Mary on screen and kiss her for the girls.Triumphantly, he cheered, "Your turn!"

This was only the beginning of our devilment. Of course, it wasn't all devilment. We met a really cool landscaper. Twice! Yes, we ran into his randomly twice! It was great! He was dead sound, and thought we were hilarious for being so excited about everything and for not studying.

Then the real stuff began. John, sick of people asking Mary to strip for them, got an idea. No word of a lie, he put on one of her bras (we were in her apartment). Then we left Mary alone on camera, her face hidden. Time after time, people began to talk to her, hands reaching down towards their crotch. She teasingly undid the buttons on her cardigan, and told them she'd be back in a minute. Bring in the topless-except-for-a-bra John, sit him down in the chair, and let the devilment continue. His face hidden and the camera not being high definition (and the light was shining in the window, so you couldn't see much), the men thought he was Mary in a bra. Then I altered the angle of the camera.

"Haha! You dirty bastard! Wanking to a lad!" John yelled. He grabbed a make-shift sign and held it up to the screen. "Wanker! Wanker!" The person disconnected.

The make-shift sign, I might add, was originally a photocopy of Dogma, by Michael Schmauss, with WANKER! written on the front of it. Dogma wanker...

Time and time again, John replaced Mary in the hot seat of online sexual tension, revealing, time and time again, that he was a man, to the perverted upchuck of the Internet. Time and time again, they called him gay. John didn't care, so long as I deleted the picture of his wearing the bra. Stories were one thing, photographic evidence was another.

Eventually, John just wanted to smoke, so when Mary was about to tease a middle-aged man in the same way as before, John got another idea. "Dad?!" he yelled. The man disconnected in obvious panic. Priceless.

There was, I'll admit, much merriment to be had in cheering, "Wanker!" at someone. But it's even better when their dad walks in...

It began with one lad, somewhere in the region of thirteen or fourteen, we reckoned. Then his older brother walked in, spotted Mary, and knew what he wanted. I think you know too - he wanted her to take off her top. Now, Mary wasn't willing to do it anyway, but when the boys stopped replying, with their camera still rolling, and a grey-haired man coming in to check on them... "Hey! It's their dad!" I yelled. The boys hid the obvious panic that they were experiencing, trying their best not to give away the fact that they were on a glorified porn site, occupied mostly by men. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, people on the Internet are that stupid, that they think they will get many girls like Mary who will actually strip down to the bra (and then-some.) Most of the time, it's actually just cock. Lots and lots of cock.

People are clueless.

Following five hours of this nonsense, with food cooked and eaten in the mean time too, John tested out a similar site: chatroulette. A better known site, John thought he'd test to see how many people it would take before he got a proper conversation. Out of eighteen people, one person stopped to talk. The rest were playing with themselves, or hoping to.

It was, as the title might suggest, an educational experience, even if we didn't actually live up to our team name by studying ecclesiology (except for Aidan.. he was weird that way!) Still, we have learned much in the ways of society, the Internet and comedy, and we had a great time doing it. So what if it meant nine hours of study for the exam today? I think I may have actually passed! (though it helped that John and I have a mutual exploitation agreement, whereby we share any work we do before exams as we're studying!)

PEMF

What happens when you ask people do they know what PEMF stands for? Well...

Slightly obscene in nature - you have been warned!

Post Election Morning Fever
Political Ennui Majorly Fed-up
Pre-Exam Mind-Flip
Post Exam Mental Fatigue
Post Erection Member Flacidity
Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy
Partial Emotive Fluctuation Twitches
Pretty Embarrassing Mental Farts
Pre-Exam Something Something
Please Emma Mack Face
Pre-Exam Mega Phobia
Penis Envy, Mother Fucker
Please Empty My Farts
Pulling Emits Massive Flow
Pre Erection MisFire
Pulling Erections Means Flirting
Powerful Erection, Mini Fecker

I can now reveal that, aside from the fact that I'm astounded at how ridiculous some of these were, the meaning of PEMF is....

Post Exam Mind Fuck.

Thank you for playing.

One Down...

College exams will be the death of me.

I have one down, and eleven more to go. Today was the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Later in the exam season, I have the Pentateuch; Foundations of Christian Ethics; Justice and Peace; Eccelsiology; Sacramental Theology; Liturgy; two education exams; Modern Irish Drama; Varieties of Fiction; and Victorian and Modernist Poetry. I know. That's a lot of religion to cover.

I am looking into ways to not waking up at six in the morning. I'm trying the first one tonight - closing the curtains over. Right now, I only have a blind down over the window. Lets face it, that only works when the light isn't shining directly on it. So at sun rise, it's useless...

Okay, I've just realised, the sun rises on the other side of the house. But still, total darkness should help. My room gets unnaturally bright in the morning. I will fix this, I swear! I need my rest.

I've been thinking, and people will think I'm just copying two of the lads in college when I do this, of getting t-shirts printed up. Namely, religious t-shirts. One with Jesus on it saying "This parable pwns n00bs" and the other with God before Adam and Eve and a caption saying And the Lord said, "Go forth and bump uglies!" The problem is that Liam and Aidan printed t-shirts yesterday... this will be a summer thing, I think. That way, not many people will remember their t-shirts, and I can come back wearing clothing no-one will have ever seen before. At least mine will have pictures on them...

I might also make a conscience one, where the image is on the bottom of the t-shirt, showing a little man inside the stomach, with a caption: Conscience: That thing in your stomach that yells at you even when you're not hungry. I am a nut-case, I know.

Opinions on the t-shirt ideas? I may need an artist for them, though. I'll see how my draing fares before I attempt to find someone with the same sense of humour as me...

My Aching Head

Over the past few days, a headache has been coming. It's not fun, to say the least. It attacks in waves, and doesn't stop for quite a while. Even now as I write I get the headache pounding away, screaming mental torture. I imagine it's a result of a few things: lack of sleep, stress because of exams, and the unquietening thoughts in my head, whispering away in their own time.

Seriously, I've been waking up earlier and earlier every morning; on Wednesday, I woke up at a quarter to seven. That was planned. I knew what I was doing. I was tired, yes; I had a headache later, yes. That headache was probably as a result of studying. I made the mistake of staying up until half eleven... Thursday, I woke at half six in the morning. Against my will. My alarm was set for fifteen minutes later. It's not fun to wake suddenly like that. I headed to work that day too. That was tiring, but worth it - the shop is now open! I have a job again! And later that day, we went out for dinner. Pretty much as soon as I got a chance, I went to bed; a quarter to eleven. A headache was coming on, I was very much tired... and I woke up at a quarter past six the next morning. I've been walking to college of late, and wouldn't you know it that the day I get up earliest, I start getting a story going through my head. For half an hour, I had thoughts rushing back and forth, the plot developing in my mind, the mythology of this whole other universe being unfolded painfully as I walked on.

I was alone that day, in college. More or less, anyway. One person there, but not someone who I study with all the time. See, I've realised that certain people have an affect on me when I'm trying to study. When I was in the library on Tuesday, I could read quietly with Monica beside me. Since then, I've been in a lecture room with Liam and Anthony, and I could study perfectly well with them there, with the added bonus of silence (the library gets loud...) and the chance to have a chat every now and then. Friday, though, neither of them were there. So it was difficult to study, my headache was getting worse, and I was getting more and more tired.

I walked to town. I got rained on, which gave me a sad. I bought an umbrella, then it stopped raining. I went into Eason, bought the new Darren Shan book, and got in line for the signing. My headache didn't go away, but soon the excitement of seeing my hero again got me a bit more relaxed. I had a chat with me, which made me happier, then I walked back to college. I should also point out that at some stage during the week, I hurt my ankle, so walking is painful sometimes. I tried to study some more, but my headache was getting worse. I headed home on the bus. It rained again. This time I had my magic umbrella (one of the ones with the button that opens it!) from Penneys for €6, so I didn't get too wet. But I was tired.

Later that day, or rather in the night, I went to see Iron Man 2 with some friends. It was amazing, it distracted me from my headache and my exhaustion... until I got home. Stupidly I stayed up until half one watching a movie Conor had had on before I got home. I planned to wake up at eight the next morning (today)....

Five to six, I woke up, groaned, blacked out/fell asleep for twenty minutes, then laid awake. I had to walk to work. My headache stuck with me the entire way through the day. I still have it now, pounding away. I can barely keep my eyes open. But I'm afraid to go to sleep too early, in case I don't stay asleep too long, and then I'd be awake in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep.

Something is definitely wrong. It might be linked to the exam stress. Heck, it has to be. These exams, no matter how many times I've been told not to worry about them, are getting to me. Add in the fact that my head won't shut up, like on Friday morning, and you've got yourself my headache. I might have a high temperature, but I don't know... I find it impossible to judge for myself. I need to just take it easy. I need to get some proper rest tonight, too. I have stuff to do before my exam on Tuesday afternoon (thank God it's in the afternoon!), and I'm in work on Monday. I want a chance to rest, a bit.

Anyone with any recommendations, please speak up. Need a way to get to sleep without resorting to thinking about something, or taking any drugs... just a natural remedy that I can use tonight!

Peace, Love and Potter,
Paul.

Days off spent in College

...or, how I like to find new and interesting ways to procrastinate!

So I decided that I'd walk into college today, like I did yesterday, and walk home as well. Can I just say now, downhill walking is deceptive when you have to take the same route home! Nice and relaxing one way, torture the other way! It added five minutes to my journey having to trek uphill! That's not fair. I was hungry. On the brightside, I had had a breakfast and a lunch... which is more than I can say for Liam, who had to leave shortly after five to drive back to Meath. All of a sudden, Liam is broke and can't afford to even buy himself a cup of coffee (so I bought one for him...when someone says "I can't even afford a coffee" and you're spending the day in the same room as them studying, then you can't really ignore them if you can afford to buy them said coffee.)

So, ten kilometres... that's not fun. That's the total distance I walked today, excluding the travelling about the college. So I suppose it's not a total for the day, but more a total for the trips to and from college. (It just reminds me of Tommy Tiernan, saying he had to walk fifteen miles to school. Uphill. Both ways!)

On a lighter note... except for the weight in my bag... I had my laptop with me. I felt very happy to be able to save myself some printing money by just looking at documents on my laptop instead. Power Save is a hero. And then I had the IT guy from France set up the Internet for use in the college (which actually caused me problems when I got home...). So I was able to go on Facebook and Twitter in college, without having to go to the computer rooms!

I did do some study, of course. I'm a good little nerd. I got through the Galilean Ministry of Jesus (don't worry, I won't bore you with the details) and I got my notes on the Decalogue written up (the Decalogue, for those who don't know, is just the fancy term for The Ten Commandments).

But then there was more procrastination. Anthony and I traded YouTube knowledge; I showed him John WIlliams is the Man (look it up!), and the entirety of Meet Sam, the Movie, while he showed me things like a Carlow nutcase and a song about Jesus that was very hilarious but made no sense.

And as a closing term word... Paddy Reilly really ought to return to Ballyjamesduff sometime soon...

Study Time

I have my first exam in a week. I have started study... eventually. I started by reading two of the three texts I ought to cover for my Varieties of Fiction module; books one and ten of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the delightful novella by Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. I've read something of Melville's before, Billy Budd, and I have to say, he didn't fail to impress a second time. In fact, I loved Bartleby even more than I did Billy Budd. It was a funnier story, with a much more powerful voice behind the story. The narrator was fantastic!

I've also prepared a question for my exam on the Pentateuch (that's the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Number, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.) One of the topics we were told to cover was the creation stories in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. For those who don't know, that's the stories about the creation of the universe and the Garden of Eden. They are, in fact, two seperate and contradicting stories. Just to show off (well, actually, this also serves as helpful revision...) I'm going to write what I can about the books from memory.

Chapter 1 of Genesis was written by the author known typically by scholars as the Priestly writer, while Chapter 2 was written by the Jahwist writer. There are twelve differences between the two stories, going into detail on the content. For a start, Gen 1 begins with the creation of "heaven and the earth" while Gen 2 begins with "earth and the heavens" being made. The two have subtle differences; heaven is more important in Gen 1, along with the idea of creation, while Gen 2 focuses on the importance of the earth before the heavens, and things being made, such as Man from the earth.

On the subject of Man, there are a number of differences regarding his creation; Gen 1 refers to Man being made in the "image and likeness" of God, while Gen 2 tells of how Man was man from the dust of the earth, with the breath of God being blown into his nostrils. Gen 1 also dictates that Man and Woman were created at the same time, whereas Gen 2 has Woman made last of all God's creatures, from Man (interesting note: Hebrew for Man is ishsh, while Woman is ishshah, meaning "from Man"). Gen 1 tells us that God named all of His creatures, while in Gen 2, it is Man, in this case, Adam (from the Hebrew adam, meaning Earth).

The very name of God is different in both texts; in Gen 1 He is referred to as God, whereas in Gen 2 He is called The Lord God. It is from this point of information that we determine who the author is; "lord" in the Bible is written as LORD when referring to God, which, in Hebrew terms, is displayed as YHWH - this is where we derive the term Yahweh, though the true pronunciation of the term isn't known.

The texts also differ in length; the creation story of Gen 1 ends shortly into chapter 2 (but is generally just referred ot as the creation story in Gen 1), whereas the story in Gen 2 continues into chapter 3, where we meet the Serpent. (side note: at this point, I am now struggling to remember the smaller points - I know there's a larger one, but I want to avoid it for the time being).

Moving on to the creation as a whole, the stories differ on a number of points; Genesis 1 takes place over seven days - 6 days of creation, 1 of rest (the Sabbath) - while Genesis 2 takes place in one day. Over the longer period of time, God's Master Plan is kept, while in Gen 2 the process is more about trial and error. Similaraly, everything in Gen 1 is, at the very least, "good", while something is not right in Gen 2: 'Then the LORD God said, "Is is not good that man should be alone"' - Genesis 2:18.

As a final note (as I've forgotten the 12th point.... I'll check that when I'm done showing off), the order of creation in the stories is different. Genesis 1 portrays creation in this way: Heaven and the earth, and light, on the first day; the dome, Sky, around the earth on the second day (also containing water); dry land and vegetation on the third day; heavenly bodies, such as the sun, the moon and the stars, on the fourth day, though they are not directly named as they are technically, at the time of the story's writing, pagan deities, and therefore not to be mentioned within a then-Jewish text; on the fifth day the fish and all the creatures of the sea; and the creatures of the land on the sixth day, including Man, at the very end of this creation. Genesis 2, on the other hand, tells the story in this order: first earth and the heavens; then Man; Eden and vegetation; water, in the form of rivers; then the creatures of the land and all the birds in the air; and finally, out of Man, he created Woman. It is quite noticeable, the differences between the stories, when the information is presented; much more importance was placed on the world than Man in the first story, whereas the world seemed to have been made for Man in the second story.

As to the forgotten information... the stories present God in two different ways. Genesis 1 tells us of a God being a transcendant being, and therefore without a form for us to worship (as is intended for both Christian and Jewish faiths - there shall be no false idols before the Lord; in other words, no statues). Genesis 2, on the other hand, tells us of an anthropromorphic God, with the shape and form of a human, and the image most used in art.

I hope this hasn't been a boring blog for you all; it's a little unusal, I know, for me to write about religion here, but I think that the topic is the comparison of two stories, regardless of them being from a religious text, is enough to save me from turning completely over to the Christian side; I still very much believe in God, but I'm not a bible-pusher by any means. Each to his own, so long as it is in respect of other people (and everything else too!).

Opinions on the blog post are very much appreciated, but I don't intend on this becoming a religious debate; remember that the Old Testament is largely a metaphorical text to help explain some of the deeper mysteries of the universe, and in the context of the time at which it was written it was an extremely useful text. It wasn't, however, accepted a science; no one truly accepted that the creation stories were absolute truth, but they accepted the hugely important religious messages behind the texts regardless.

days
order of creation
created as intented/trial and error (Master Plan)
Everything good/something not good