A Blog Darkly
Football season starts
And I've been staying up (or getting up) to watch the games live. Probably futile.
United already look unlikely to win anything. The team just doesn't have the discipline that it used to, or that Arsenal have now. They lack the ability to kill off games that they should win easily -
Blackburn
being a perfect example. Still, at least the lads are playing with the style of United teams of old - the aimless long ball up the middle for RVN has been replaced by a more sophisticated passing game - even if too often we're still hitting long balls from midfield in the general direction of Ronaldo.
Several players look to have come on well since last season - the boy wonder himself, as well as Kleberson and Eric D-D. We could have the foundations of a very good team here. And when
Rooney signs we will have probably the best strike force in England - possibly in the world. (Notwithstanding Henry, Bergkamp and Reyes at Arsenal, or Owen, Ronaldo and Raul at Real Madrid).
Let's hope for some classy football, a decent European run, and we can work on getting our trophy back next season.
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Walking it like you talk it
I found out last week that a friend of mine is in the West Bank, with an international peace group, basically observing what's going on and working for Palestinian rights. I'm in awe of his bravery - he's choosing to put himself in one of the more dangerous parts of the world, in order to stand up for what he believes in.
His emails have been very interesting:
Yesterday I had the honour of speaking to Fadwa
Barghouthi, the wife of Marwan Barghouthi. I met her
at the solidarity tent in Sawiya. The tent is set up
to show solidarity with the prison hunger strikers.
Until I read this, I'd never heard of Barghouthi. Googling doesn't help much, there are many pro-Palestinian websites that mention him, but few from the other side (I was interested to see
why he had been jailed - my friend writes that it was because he was a member of
Fateh and an elected Palestinian leader, other sources link him with
Al-Aqsa or
Hamas.). I don't pretend to know the truth - although it's interesting how little coverage the Palestinian hunger strike is gaining world-wide - Google News has only nine hits for Marwan Barghouthi.
I'll finish with another quote from my friend:
In Marda we haven't had sound bombs for the last three
nights. The army came and took a 16 year old boy from
the streets a couple of days ago. They tied his wrists
tightly, and put a bag over his head. He was forced to
sit with his head between his legs in the back of the
jeep. They took him to the settlement (Ariel) for
interrogation. This boy was only held for about an
hour. Long enough to give him welts on his wrists.
That's a quiet day in Marda. I've discovered something
worse than sound bombs anyway- try telling a teenage
girl that there's nothing you can do for her brother
who has been detained without charge for five days.
All I can do at this point is pray for peace, and hope that he gets out of there safely. And point out that those
who are claiming that the
Foreshore and Seabed Bill will "lead to civil war in New Zealand and turn us into another Israel and Palestine" are making ignorant and offensive comments that insult the victims of that tragedy, both Israeli and Palestinian.
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Just like old times
As everyone comes back to Wellington...
After meeting up with James for the first time last week, I get a text from him on Saturday telling me that Kim and Paul are in town. I'm tired, but drag my weary body down to JJ Murphy's for a few drinks and dinner. Through our honesty, we probably get one of the barmen in trouble (he brought us two drinks and never came back for the money, we went and paid at the bar - the manager was not terribly impressed that the drinks had never been rung on the till).
But anyway: Paul and Kim, now back here for good. That came out of the blue - for me at least. I hadn't spoken to either of them in a while, and I hadn't realised how fed up they were getting with life in KL. So, good to see them. Life's going to become more interesting again, I feel. People are starting to come back to Wellington, not leave it.
Sunday we had a family dinner as my mother/step-father were in town for a pacifist conference. Which seemed to go OK (although it apparently became rather heated at one point - Roger was very keen for an outbreak of violence, purely for the absurdist impact). Dinner was good - Rhonda came along and met my family (seemed somewhat early in the relationship for that, but they won't be in town for quite a while, so it was probably appropriate). I managed to come down with a bad asthma attack though, which wasn't much fun (I don't have any meds at the moment. Stupidly).
Friday (note clever time-shifting chronology in this post) Rhonda cooked me dinner (Thai green fish curry - very nice) and we lazed around her house for most of Saturday. Happy times.
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She's a librarian: figures, huh?
Last night was my fourth date with Rhonda, and it ended like the second and third ones, with one of us staying at the other's house. This is making me happy.
She's smart and funny and all the good things like that, we share very similar values and ways of living our lives (we walk everywhere, neither of us drives but it doesn't bother us). We like alcohol and food (women who like food are so great - there's nothing worse than being around someone who moans about how they can't eat this or that because of a diet - and because she exercises she's still in good shape).
We can talk for ages about the serious or the trivial. She digs film and really obscure music (it is truly weird being around someone who knows more about music than me, and who has a bigger music collection - and hers is mainly vinyl *swoons*)....she's in the David/Kelvin/Vanita/Jane league of music obsession and knowing about obscure stuff that I haven't even heard of (she interrupted our first kiss because she wanted it to have a soundtrack -
Godspeed! You Black Emperor. This is the kind of woman I've been looking for....and this is after we went to
F9/11 as a second date! (OK, weird choice. Mea culpa).
Oh and she's a librarian and we manage to have interesting conversations about library stuff which is kinda neat. (Ever had post-coital conversations about the
Dewey Decimal Classification or issues around why a catalogue should only contain a single master entry for a work, and then relational entries for each copy of the work that your library holds? I have. Now. It was actually interesting).
OK, so I'm weird.
David, is this enough reading for tonight?
I'm looking forward to the hits I get when someone does a
link: search on some of the links I posted here ;-)
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Interviews
Had a job interview yesterday morning. I'm not going to mention where as I don't want the (obviously remote) possibility of this blog being linked to anywhere I might happen to work (even though anyone who reads this probably knows where it is, anyway - and if not feel free to email me).
I thought it went reasonably well, though I'm not wildly optimistic (it was probably at the limits of my skills and experience, so I'd wager there's someone out there with more experience). But I thought I did very well on the work sample test, which will hopefully make up for my slight show of nerves in the interview.
Either way, a good experience.
By all accounts, this is a good time to be job hunting in Wellington. Unemployment in the country as a whole is at
some kind of record low, and with
everything that's
happening in Wellywood at the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic about my future.
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Pub quiz night, meet unstoppable force
Tuesday was another night at the Black Harp in Featherston St for their pub quiz night. We only had a scratch team, as Tony didn't put the usual notice up on
NZ Dating but we still managed to win. The usual diversity of ages and interests proved TOO MUCH for our opponents, who succumbed by a single point after we went 10 for 10 on the second of the Rounds of Dooooooom.
The two women who had been alternately stalking me and then changing their minds (see previous posts for the last month or so) both turned up briefly, but I only managed to speak to one, and then only to say Hi. That chance has well and truly gone (but more of that in my next post).
The real highlight, though, was my man James coming down. Not only did we get a chance to catch up, which was awesome in itself, but he enjoyed hanging out with the others, AND was probably responsible for us winning (the guy nailed a whole lot of questions on his own). And he tells me Paul and Kim are coming back in a week (which I knew) but to live permanently (which I didn't). Interesting. Wellington is starting to seem like the place to be again.
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Washed away
Storms in Wellington.
Really,
really,
big storms.
By our standards, anyway. I feel churlish complaining compared to what's been happening in
Florida and
China.
But it's been unpleasant enough. Weather updates are comparing it to the Wahine storm.
My flat escaped unscathed, other than a rubbish bin blown over and lots of branches blown off trees. I spent the night wondering if my bedroom windows were going to blow out, though. And the walk to work was miserable - I had gale force winds and rain blowing in my face the whole way. Only just starting to warm up now.
Central Wellington is half-deserted, and the city is cut off by pretty much everything - air, rail and road. Fun times. I don't want to leave the building. It's col out there....
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A zen koan
Why is it, that after ending a relationship with someone that I loved, and who loved me back, I feel a lot happier than I did when I was in the relationship?
Or, for that matter, happier than I have done in a long long time? Possibly
ever?
Sometimes, the greatest curse is getting what you want. Maybe losing what you want can be the greatest blessing, as well. But I don't understand it.
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The quick update
Main priority for the last few weeks has been study, caused by underestimating the time it would take me to finish a literature review (not helped by getting the due date wrong, either). For several days I was at w0rk till close to midnight, writing and researching. Not fun. It's going to be strange when I finally graduate, I'll have all this free time and no idea what to do with it.
I did find time to catch the rugby last Friday (Welli beat Canterbury, seems to becoming a habit for the first game of the NPC) in a good open game. Headed up to the Bristol with Dad after that, had a few drinks, he left, played pinball waiting for Drake and Casey to turn up. They made it in around 11.30 with Piers, Wai and Billie in tow, and we played some pool till Billie did her drama queen thing and I left for Bodega to check out Vital Sounds.
By Saturday things were cool and (after sleeping till 1pm) I headed up to the Hutt for a hardcore game of Trivial Pursuit with some NZD people, including Billie. She seemed to have few memories of the night before, and it was a good evening overall.
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It's possible
That all women are not crazy, and it's just the ones I know....
Very strange few days, relationship wise....what with Sarah deciding that she didn't want anything to do with me, as soon as I indicated that I was actually available....followed by Billie who spent the first half of Friday making eyes at me, got drunk and started accusing me of saying and doing things that I hadn't, had a shouting match with Case, and then (when I went to leave the pub in disgust) came with me.
Oh, the drama.
Meantime the one sane and normal woman I've been involved with (so far) this year goes out and gets herself a boyfriend. Say goodbye to any hope of random Sunday booty calls. Shame.
On the bright side: been chatting to another lass online. Finally met her last Thursday. She's a librarian with awesome taste in music and books (she writes, as well). And we get each others sense of humour. It's a good start. We shall see where things go from here.
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Alrighty! I'm still here!
The mysterious bruise has disappeared from my hand. I've completed another few hours of my literature search, and I stand at least a fighting chance of putting something together by the deadline (next Friday). One small problem is that I'm continually finding theoretical or review papers, but very few practical ones. And it's made worse because the number of researchers working in this area is relatively small, and most of them are colleagues of my supervisor. Hmmm....how to critically evaluate such work?
We came second in the Black Harp quiz night - the other
NZ Dating team beat us by one point. And it came down to the last question. Which I had the correct answer for, but the others over-ruled me. Oh well. Good fun night, anyway. And now I have a phone! Bought off Yvonne's daughter so she can switch to a more recent model. I join the late 20th century!
No meditation this week, so lots of study last night, some emailing and more slow progress on Civ3 (how is it that I can have a brand-new PC and the game still runs slow? OK, I'm playing a scenario which is way bigger than a normal game, but even so - it's not like it's a brand new game, after all).
Chatting to a couple of decent-seeming women at the moment. Both have similar interests and seem intelligent and friendly. OK, scratch "seem" seeing as one has a Masters (librarianship!) and the other was well into her PhD before having to withdraw. Planning to meet up at some point soon. It's all good.
Except for the fact that my ex still owes me around $700, and seems to be making no effort to repay it. Not much I can do about that. (I could quite easily take some incredibly evil revenge (never send digital nude pics of yourself to someone unless you really trust that person) , but that would (rightly) trash my reputation with people that matter, and still leave me out of pocket). And basically, I am trustworthy enough that I wouldn't want to do anything remotely like that.
Got a date tonight with Sarah assuming she doesn't stand me up. Probability of that, high. (She can be a bit of a flaker, unfortunately - not just for me but for everyone).
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Oh my God!!!
I have a dark, sinister and mysterious bruise forming on my right hand. I have no idea where this came from, but I fear the worst.
This may be my last post. Thank you for reading. Tell Laura I love her.
Alternatively two hours of reading articles on the application of customer service models to academic libraries may just have turned my brain to mush. It could happen. I could be hallucinating right now.
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Dancing to the music, all night long
Well, OK. Not quite
all night long. I was home by 5. This is Friday we're talking about here. After catching the Ramones movie
End of the Century at Paramount, I headed on up to
Atomic at Indigo. The movie was great, lots of live footage, interviews with all the major players (all band members, including all three drummers and CJ, as well as Seymour Stein, Debbie Harry, and more). Sad to watch Dee Dee storming out of the band reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, knowing that he'd be dead in a few months. I went with Keiran and Johnny, who seemed to enjoy it, which is good - I'm always half nervous of inviting people to things in case they don't like them.
Keiran joined me at Indigo, stuck around for an hour or so while we chatted and enjoyed the music. First time I'd been to
Atomic and I was quite impressed (I still think Indigo needs a new sound system though, as Keiran said, it sounded like the speakers weren't really up to the job and were overloading). We walked in in the middle of a set of oldschool punk/new wave tunes ('Ever Fallen in Love', 'Gotta Getaway', 'Peaches', I can't remember the rest) which mutated into 80s pop via 'Kids in America' - a nice segue. Keiran left, I danced away the night, they played some Ramones which made me very happy, and some dodgy 80s hair metal that had everyone shouting along to 'Living on A Prayer' and 'Paradise City'.
So back home to bed, slept through much of the day but got up in time to catch
The Battle of Algiers again at the
Paramount. A fantastic film. Here's what emailed to a friend:
... a good, well-filmed account of Algerian resistance to the French - very interesting watching it with thoughts of the Iraq war - the evil done by both sides, and at the same time the realisation that what they were doing might be wrong (resistence members hesitating before placing bombs in cafes filled with French civilians; the French troops giving out food or helping young Algerian children, but also torturing prisoners). It was a powerful film, I'm glad I've seen it.
(OK, so I'll never be a film critic).
Way too tired to make it out that night, so missed Echo's party, and stayed home Sunday as well. Ah well, laziness is sometimes OK.
(And I did have a late boozy night on Thursday playing pool and avoiding karaoke with Drake, Casey, Billy and Rob. So I don't feel too anti-social).
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You know things are bad
When you start pining for the days of Reagan. And when
his son's comments about GW Bush start to make a lot of sense.
The world is surreal.
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