Chapter 7

Almost immediately after I posted Chapter 6, I realised that I haven't mentioned anything about a recent obsession of mine. Rather than edit the previous post, I decided to dedicate an entire post to this worthy topic. And that is the TV show Breaking Bad. It's amazing. It's about this high school chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with lung cancer and realising that he hasn't enough money to cover medical costs, put his kids through college and generally leaving enough money behind for his family, decides to go and cook crystal meth with his former student, Jesse. Walter White is his name and he's played by Bryan Cranston who you'd know from playing the dad, Hal, in Malcolm in the Middle. From watching Breaking Bad, I've realised what a great actor he is.

This show, as far as I know, isn't shown on TV in the UK or Ireland which is a shame. I watched the first three seasons online, one episode after another and found myself longing for the next season to be released. The fourth season began in July of this year and having to wait a whole week for each subsequent episode was agony, but well worth it in the end. For now, I'll have to forget all about the show in order to speed up the time between now and the fifth and final season.

I don't know how much I should say about Breaking Bad as to not give away spoilers but I suppose I should say that I think it's the best TV show out there right now and you should watch it. Bear in mind I haven't seen The Wire and The Sopranos and other shows that people consider the best ones. This is just my humble opinion.

This guy is also brilliant in terms of his character and acting in the show.

His name is Gus.

If you do end up checking Breaking Bad, you will end up hating, then loving, the hating Gus again and again. It's fantastic. The fourth season was probably the best season for the character.

I know that this is turning out to be a short post, and I'm probably not doing the awesomeness of this show justice at all, but as I've said, I really don't want to give away any spoilers. Also, on the the topic of spoilers, if you do end up watching this show, stay away from the Breaking Bad subreddit. It's a spoiler minefield.

There are a few musical gems throughout the series if you're into that sort of thing. I credit this show with helping me discover Fever Ray (along with Moyne's reccomendation, I suppose) who's brilliant. Despite my love for Fever Ray, I shall end this post with DLZ by TV On The Radio which from it's apt and excellent use in Breaking Bad, I will always associate it with this show.

Chapter 6

Well, here we are. Another post over a week late from when I promised. And to be honest, I'm only writing this as I had the urge to type (probably because I've just finished re-watching The Social Network and Zuckerberg was typing a lot, as you'd imagine). I've yet to decide what to actually put in this post.

For inspiration, I read over Chapter 5. Aer Lingus take an age to get back to you. I had my group assessment back in September and I won't hear back from them until November. Bit of a wait but what can ya do? Since then, I've been given tons more hours in the pub. I used to do my eight hours a week every Saturday. Now, I'm on 30+ hours a week. It's good in that I've a lot more money (now I probably have enough to emigrate with if I have to) but basically, I'm sick of the sight of the place. The smell of carvery dinners is coming out of my skin and after every shift, my white shirt is covered in gravy. Another plus, I suppose, is that I'm now completely off claiming for any social welfare. Not just another number on the Live Register any more.

I've started cross stitching again. I just had this urge. I did it as part of Home Ec in school and loved it. I've nearly finished one which has kind of been in that nearly finished state for at least two weeks. I may post a picture of it when I have finished but I don't want this to turn into a cross stitching blog. I don't really know what kind of blog this is though. Perhaps a public diary, of sorts, an outlet.

I've also been watching a good few films since I last posted. Ryan Gosling is a babe. I definitely recommend Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love (the title of which put me off thinking it was just another rom com but it's actually a whole bunch cleverer). I watched all of the David Fincher films that I hadn't seen. Seven was one of them which many people were surprised I hadn't seen. I'm just about to start watching Blue Valentine (another Gosling film).

I've been reading too. I got a Kindle for my birthday from the boy. I love it. Here's a picture, purely because I've realised I haven't posted a picture yet and I want to.

I love it. It's name is Hannah's Kindle.

I'm in the middle of reading Sherlock Holmes. The only bad thing about this is that I can't help but picture Holmes and Watson as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

Graduation is coming up which should be good craic. I'm looking forward to dressing in robes like Harry Potter and going out for a meal so that somebody will serve me and not the other way around as has happened oh so many times in the past couple of months. Also, seeing everybody for the first time in ages will be amazing.

For Halloween, I think I'll be dressing up as Poison Ivy. I'll dye my hair back to the bright red and not this dark red/browny colour I had to put in for the Aer Lingus group assessment. Here's a nice cartoony picture of her:

Anyway, I'll try to write more often. Even if it's just a short entry blabbing on about the latest chapter in Sherlock Holmes. It would make me feel less guilty.

This song = last Friday night.

A Little Sidenote

Oh blog, don't worry. I haven't forgotten about you. I don't really have a valid excuse why you haven't been updated in over a month. I can't even say I was that busy. Anyway, I've set aside Friday morning as posting day. Perhaps I should make every Friday morning posting day?

Chapter 5

It's coming to the end of August and still no hint of a job. That being said, the most exciting thing I've applied for recently is to become an Aer Lingus pilot cadet. After applying and failing to get the Masters or the Army Cadets, I'm not going to get my hopes up as much as I did but I'll still try my hardest. Back when I was fifteen or sixteen, I really wanted to be a pilot. I had about five hours in lessons and then stopped when the Leaving Cert stress hit. I figured I'd go and do a course in college that would help me to get a job at the end (HA!), earn a bit of money and then begin on the road to becoming a pilot. Even back in 2004/5/whatever it was, Aer Lingus, Ryanair and all of the others had stopped training up pilots themselves as Cadets. Luckily, and with eerie timing, Aer Lingus have re-opened their Cadet Training Program in order to stop their industrial disputes with their pilots over their rostering issues. So, I filled out their application form, admittedly a little rushed, and tonight I'll be taking part in their online assessments. Last Saturday's Times reported that Aer Lingus had received 1200 applications, and this was before applications had even closed on the Sunday. Wish me luck.

On Tuesday, the bro and I went to Belfast to the 30 Seconds to Mars gig. It was awesome. And, yes, Jared Leto is as hot in real life. It seems he does not age, he looks the same as he was fifteen years ago. This picture describes how unnaturally pretty he is.

You Me at Six were the support and were really good live. During the gig, I said to Alan that I never checked the closing time of the car park where my (well, my mum's) lovely little red Micra was parked. Ah, sure, worst case scenario would be that we'd sleep in the car and drive back to Dublin when the car park opens. But no. It's half eleven when we walk up to the car park and find the car trapped. It seemed so lonely being the only car in the place. The bad thing was, we couldn't access it. There was a huge fence and gates all around the car park. So I ring the mammy telling her not to panic but we were stranded. She tells us to find a hostel. Grand. So we go the pub and had dinner of a pint of Carlsberg and a packet of Tayto. She rings again seeing if we've found a hostel yet. We were like, it's grand, we'll get one, we're just relaxing with pints, chatting to the barman to see if he knew of any hostels nearby, it's grand. It wasn't. Hostels and hotels we all booked up and we didn't get a hostel until 2 in the morning after walking around the whole city, twice. I'd text mum at 1 to say that we found one so that she'd go to bed and stop bugging us. Belfast seems to shut down as soon as it hits the wee hours of the morning, like literally ghost town dead. We stayed in the Linen House Hostel. It smelled. By 8 o'clock, we were back at the car, eating Toffee Crisp Clusters that I'd left there and had been craving since the gig. The car park attendant said it was always the Dublin cars. Also, she only charged us £18 instead of the £33 I was expecting to pay.

Caoimhe had a few of us over to her house for an amazing Veggie Thai Green Curry on Wednesday night. I'd never tried tofu before and she made my introduction to it absolutely yummy. Thanks Caoi!

Chapter 4

It's been a good two weeks since my last post. I spent most of this time in Donegal and Monaghan. The bro and I went up to Donegal for three nights with the Mammy, a little family holiday if you like. I never realised how big the county is. It's also pretty gorgeous with the lovely beaches and mountains and pretty stuff like that. We popped over to Derry one evening. Now, there's a city I'd like to explore when it's not raining. That's the thing about taking holiday breaks in Ireland: you're pretty much guaranteed it's going to rain at least once, no matter the time of year.

This is what Malin Head looks like:

So, I drove back from Donegal on the Friday of the Bank Holiday weekend, worked on the Saturday night and then the Sunday night (which was horrible, cleaning up the kip until half three in the morning) and went to Monaghan on the Monday. I stayed until Saturday then made the hungover drive back to Dublin for work in the evening. I spent Sunday driving around Wicklow with Caoi and Moyne, watched Paul in the evening and that pretty much sums up everything between the last post and now.

I've watched the entire Battlestar Galactica series in this time too. Ciaran has always been at me to watch it "because it's the best series ever" and "it's not really sci-fi". And actually, yeah, it's pretty damn good. Also, I was kinda transfixed by this woman:

And before you ask.....yeah, I would.

The male eye-candy wasn't as good as the female eye-candy. I'd imagine this is the case as their viewership would be mostly male. Oh well. *sigh*

I spent the weekend just gone trying to forget Lollapalooza was happening. I was so tempted to just get on a flight to Chicago. The line-up was amazing and the festival itself is fantastic, well at least it was on that one Sunday in August '09. Majorly jealous of anyone who got to go.

Chapter 3

Well, the last week has been more fun than usual with the going out and hanging about. Kinda like college without the classes and assignments. Caoi, Ciaran, Kev and I went to to Howth Pier to take photos on Monday's wet and windy evening. We played in a playground and got chips so I was happy. Ciaran and I acted as models for the shoot. One of my favourite shots is this ghostly one on the swing.

Courtesy of Caoi and her fantastic photography skills

Did you know that 94% of Wikipedia articles lead back to the article on Philosophy? What you have to do is start on any article (click on Random Article if you like), then click on the first link in that article, click on the first link in the next article and so on to Philosophy.

I watched this documentary on nuclear bombs last night. Countdown to Zero, I think it was called. It was pretty scary really. There are an estimated 23,000 nuclear bombs in the world right now but this is down from around 60,000 so there's some improvement.

On Friday, we went back to The Oak for the first time in ages. Completely forgot how good the tunes are there. Also, I love their little stage/platform thing. I was going to finish off this post with the video to Let Forever Be by The Chemical Brothers which was played in The Oak, a song I hadn't heard in years and the video is also cool but Trigger Happy TV won out. I used to love this show and last night I discovered that 4OD has the whole series up on Youtube. I know how I'm going to spend my evenings for the next few weeks. So, here's the first episode:

Okay so Blogger's not letting me do that so here's a link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RPBXJ6u2RM&feature=sh_e_top&list=SL

And instead, you're going to get that Chemical Brothers song:

Chapter 2

"Your application has been considered and unfortunately we are unable to offer you a place at this time.  Due to a high number of applications for this course, there are limited places available and it is with regret that not all applicants can be accommodated.  Thank you for the time and interest you have taken in applying to this university."

Lies. All lies. They didn't get their minimum quota of five. I was the fourth person to apply and it seems I was the last. On the plus side, I now have more money at my disposal than I thought I'd have. I need a proper job.

Another disappointment in recent times was that I didn't win the Euromillions. It's okay. I've come to terms with it.

Boredom levels reached an all time high last week so I ran off to Monaghan after work on Saturday night/Sunday morning seeing as Mum was away and left me the car. Monaghan involved kayaking, painting, playing with puppies and the cinema so it was a very welcome break.

I went to the Workman's for the first time last night after a lovely evening lounging in the sun at the Pav. They were playing songs from my early teenage years that I hadn't heard in yonks. Bills, Bills, Bills, No Scrubs, Senorita...hilarious.

Also hilarious: I found out my brother got a tattoo while he was away in Lanzarote a month ago. It's a large jigsaw puzzle piece on the side of his back. I don't know if the tattoo artist was familiar with jigsaws or not but there's something not quite right with this thing.

He wasn't even drunk.

Now, I shall leave you with another song. This was played at the Workman's last night and it is the song of the beginning of my summer when everything was exciting, possible and everyone was still in Dublin.

Chapter 1

I've been trying to get into reading again. I haven't had the chance to be a full time reader in years, so this summer is the perfect opportunity. I downloaded an ebook reader for my iTouch. Reading on such a small screen isn't as bad as you would think. Alice in Wonderland came along with the reader so I'm making my way through that. It's a simple enough read so I thought I'd start with that to ease me back into the reading. I love the way all of the classics are free because they are that old.

Reddit's r/funny is having a no pictures day. Loada me bollix.

I made the mistake of having a nap today directly after I had been reading up on the trial of Casey Anthony. She was tried for the murder of her two year old daughter and got away with it. The evidence was deemed circumstantial and the jury were not convinced of her guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Anywho, this reading then napping resulted in me having dreams about being chased by a murderer. 30 Seconds to Mars' video for Hurricane didn't help matters either, especially the uncensored version, with the being chased by a gimp with a big sledgehammer.

I got sick of my blond/orangey hair today so it's back to red, and quite a bright shade at that. At least I know that next time I want to do the blond thing again, I've to let the dark red grow out. The first bottle of blond I abused my hair with resulted with me sporting bright blond roots and an orange mess made up the rest of my hair. With two more bottles thrown into it, I determined that it looked acceptable enough to go to the Engineering Ball albeit with my hair hastily scraped together in a bun to hide the orange ends. When I got the bright idea to dye my hair blond, I forgot that my dress was orange. Yes, my orange hair matched my orange dress. Disaster.
I spent the night dodging the camera, the picture below being one of three that I appear in.

This expert camera avoidance tactic was completely negated when I decided that it was a good idea to get in front of the camera and express how awesome the Eng Ball is.

 

Proud of me, Mum?

Anyway, I'll leave you with this seeing as I mentioned it earlier. The Censored Version.

Title

So, hi. This summer has turned out to be incredibly boring, hence creating a blog. I always thought about setting up a blog but never got around to it with the horrific year that was final year and then spending the first month of summer figuring what my prospects and plans are. Turns out there are none.

I've become nocturnal. This may be another argument for emigrating to Australia as soon as the cash becomes available, as I seem to be currently waking up and going to sleep at the same time they do.

In general, this is where I'm at:

• I work 8 hours a week in a pub. I used to hate it. Now it's not so bad seeing as I don't really do anything else that's productive.
• I'm waiting to hear back from Trinity in regards to a Masters course I've applied for.
• In the event that Trinity don't welcome me back, it'll be back to the full-time, soul-crushing task of applying for jobs and more rejection.
• If the above two points don't work out, it's emigration time, which I really don't mind doing. I'd probably do it anyway even if the job market didn't suck so hard.
• I also plan on winning the Euromillions this Friday. €185,000,000. Yes, please. Obviously, at this point, I'd have to re-evaluate my plan.

 Also, THIS: