Blog posts

I have a feeling that I’m not going to enjoy tuesdays for the next while. Sure, there’s not the 9am start which highlights Mondays, but the sheer intensity of it will surely get to me. Lecture after lecture after lecture. All through the day. Think very carefully before signing up for a physics course, kids. But hey, this one’s out of the way and there are only nine more to go. And there’s always rich’s skateboarding blog to kill a bit of time (good luck mate. thanks for the link gary). ...

It’s term time once again. The first two days of each week don’t look to be much fun, with days so full I might as well have a real job, but the other three days of the week should allow for a little more flexibility even though I still have to be on campus every day. Despite the surfeit of time in queues, it’s been good to see people, catch up on past activities and begin laying plans for future ones. I have no intentions of a career in politics. ...

That last entry probably didn’t make a huge amount of sense. It was really just an excuse to link to the article. Reading it, it seemed like the US administration was on the brink of admitting their true desire for war. But the language became more obscure towards the end. A busy day of freshers fayre activity has been my distraction today. Meetings abound at the moment. More writing may occur eventually.

This seemed to make the whole thing a little clearer. They don’t care about weapons inspections. But then the end of the article approached and the double-speak returned. Long live obfuscation?

I’m still quite taken with the speed of my transit from Belfast to Reading. I calculate that it took 3.5 hours door-to-door and that I could have shaved a good half hour to 45 minutes from that if I’d started the day with a ticket in my hands. I’d known for some time that I could do that in theory, but the practice was so easy. That’s barely more time than it takes me to reach my parents'. ...

Once again I was woken with a text. For some reason, someone thought that I’d appreciate an invitation to join them at the pub this evening if it was sent at 6.45am. Anyone who has similar ideas, please note: that is not the best way to tempt me to visit a pub. This’ll be last entry from this Belfast trip as I fly back to Heathrow in a few hours’ time. It’s been a very chilled out time and it’ll be interesting to see how my body reacts to a sudden return to a rather faster paced life. To truly get an understanding of how most of our time has been spent, you’d have to wade through quite a few books, records, and such wonderful things. But then you could just follow this link (thanks to gary) ...

Awoken by a message on my mobile from Seattle, I’ve just been browsing the web a little more and enjoying the small pleasures of instant messaging. Thinking about these strange connections we’ve built for ourselves. Last night Channel 4 ran some more short films as part of their “which side are you on?” exploration of the rumours of war in the middle east. Thought provoking stuff. The first film–by an american living in london asking us brits to help the usa avoid war–reminded me of how grateful I am to have so many american friends who help me see past foreign and economic policies I can’t abide. To see that there is hope beyond the hegemony and that there are voices of love within. I think without that knowledge, things would be a whole lot harder. ...

Aimee Mann’s latest record is playing in the background as I type this. It’s the first CD I’ve heard since buying that new Beck record. I guess I’m still on first impressions of Sea Change but they’re good impressions. It’s been a while since I found a melancholic album to love, but if that were how I filed my CDs, this would take a prominent place. As it is, I doubt it will be filed for a while. ...

I guess I fall pretty squarely into the category of those who have, for the past year at least, become known as anti-american. And that’s why I turned fairly quickly to Arundhati Roy’s article in yesterday’s guardian. It’s a recurring theme for so many that our society’s desire for labels sets up dichotomies which rob us of the freedom to express nuanced beliefs. I wish I knew how to reclaim that. {I wish I could think how to structure that penultimate sentence} ...

So it’s been some days since this was last updated. Days of receiving much hospitality in Dublin and Belfast. Days of reading, talking, playing cards, writing (in other places) and changing plans for flying home. Many thanks are due, particularly to bananie and Susan for Belfast hospitality (and to the rest, but I don’t know that you have websites…) Time for reading is a great asset. I now hope to be the first person at the University of Reading to quote Ben Okri in an essay on quantum theory. And what’s more, I think the quote will help the essay as well as my notoriety in the department in which I study. ...