October 30, 2002
06:17 PM dublin time
i haven't actually started looking for a job yet. well i've looked at the listings in the papers, and at a couple of online agencies, but was so disheartened by the complete lack of jobs that i was qualified for that i've not gotten any further than that.
there's three of us looking for jobs in this household at the moment - me, aonghus and his sister, cliodhna. i think we're feeding off each others lack of entheusiasim. cliodhna's the only one who's even sent out any applications. we mostly just wake late and slouch around the house, breaking for food, 'age of empires' and 'murder she wrote'.
i'm sick of it already, but not quite sick enough to start actual jobhunting. and seeing as it's nearly the weekend, maybe it's best if i wait until monday?
[link]October 29, 2002
01:12 AM dublin time
so 'twas the birthday yesterday [well, really the day before seeing as it's now past midnight]. now i'm nearly as old as sharon.
aonghus surprised me with a classy brunch at the fierce posh clarence hotel [that's owned by a couple of the guys from u2]. so i got to get dressed up, which is always something i love to do - usually with the feeblest of excuses. this was a good one though. excuse that is.
then we rounded up all our available friends - most of whom i hadn't yet seen since getting back - and we had a lengthily relaxed night-on-the-beer chez nous.
good brunch. good friends. good tesco biere d'or. good birthday.
[link]October 22, 2002
01:52 PM dublin time
i remember noticing that friends who arrived home after their year away [usually in australia] became socially reclusive to varying degrees. one friend in particular hid out in her house for six months before we saw her. now while i'm not suddenly going to become a hermit, i think i am getting a taste for what she might have been feeling.
even though [or perhaps because] it feels like we've barely been away, arriving back to it all after an extended period is quite overwhelming. there is such a sense of urgency to see everyone and phone everyone and arrange welcome home meetings, that after the first handful of 'hurray i'm back' celebrations, one has had enough of the whole process and just wants to retire into a hole for a bit.
i'm sure the sensible thing to do is to just take it all easy and not dive off the deep end of meeting everyone you've ever known, but that's exactly what i wanted to do when i got home, which made me get sick of it all, which prompted the reverse reaction which was not to want to see anyone.
so now i'm wanting to be a little hermitic [does that mean hermit-like?] and stay in all the time. it seems to be rubbing off on blogging aswell - i don't feel like saying stuff here just now. hopefully an enforced weekend on the piss will snap me out of it all.
[link]October 20, 2002
01:46 PM dublin time
this is appalling - i found a heater for the computer room, but still haven't sorted myself out to blog properly.
i'm still in waterford, doing the family and friends thing - working on my beer sadly depleted capacity for beer. off to dublin tomorrow, to see friends there and to take advantage of aonghus' parents generous hospitality - we'd better spread ourselves around a bit so no one gets sick of us, at least not before aonghus gets a job and i can sponge off him.
my own intentions re. employment are becoming sluggish. i need time to think about what sort of work i want before i start throwing myself into the dangerously shallow job market. and i'll happily work away on various internet projects [both mine and other peoples] in the meantime.
but first i have to try to track down an oversized white towelling hooded habitat dressing gown that's disappeared.
[link]October 16, 2002
03:58 PM dublin time
enough shirking of the blog - i've been back nearly three days now.
it's very strange to be home. strange because it feels like i was gone for about two weeks not sixteen months.
mostly i'm skulking around the house avoiding thinking about things like getting a job and trying not to venture outside - it's too too cold.
i should probably sort out scanning some photos, though it seems a bit too much like hard work, and the room the computer is in is absolutely freezing - i'm wearing a wooly hat as we speak. i'll have to rummage out a heater to avoid frostbite. blog length may increase when i find one.
[link]October 11, 2002
07:47 AM dublin time
the meditators are back - cool, clear and calm with placid experesions and a strange glow emenating from our heads! that'd be the enlightenment. well, maybe not. though i am now fluent in pali [ancient indian language that the buddha spoke] - just try me... dhamma, dukkha, kamma, nibbana...
funnily enough the things i was expecting to be tough about the whole ten days; keeping continuous silence, eating only breakfast and lunch, sleeping on a very thin straw mat [the kind you use on the beach] on top of a concrete base and getting up at 4am were fine - easy even in the tranquilly restrictive monastic atmosphere.
then there were some things that were practically enjoyable [in a restrained sort of way]; yoga in the mornings as the sun was rising, a trip to the hot springs after breakfast and learning some of the pali chants ["buddham saranam gachami..."].
what got me was the meditation.
the meditation technique they were teaching was one called anapanasti or 'mindfulness with breathing'. the idea is to sit on a cushion on the floor in a [preferably] crosslegged position, clear your mind of everything and focus on breathing in and out, staying continuously focused on your long breaths.
it's harder than it sounds.
the breathing bit was ok - i could do that - it was clearing my mind i found hard. and the sitting crosslegged too at first. but i slowly managed to sort that out and by day five with the aid of the excellent yoga and an extra cushion to prop up my right knee, i could sit comfortably for more than three minutes at a time.
so i settled down to concentrate on the breathing thing. but it just wouldn't happen. i'd get as far as about one and a half long breaths and my mind would be off.
i tried for days. and just got annoyed. i think my record was four long breaths - about thirty seconds of mindfulness before my mind would be off thinking about what was for lunch or wondering what that noise was or just flitting about aimlessly. and we were meant to be concentrating for about twenty or thirty minutes at a time. it became difficult just to sit through the half hour sessions. it was slow enough while i was trying to concentrate, but when i stopped and took a break from it, the time just trickled by.
so about half way through day eight, i just gave up altogether, and started to develop a new and more interesting sitting technique - 'mindlessness with breathing'. i'm serious. it worked too - the time started to go by much faster. the method i devised was to sit crosslegged and concentrate on letting your mind wander. i recalled films i'd seen, books i'd read, things i'd done in australia, thought about things i was going to do when i got home - coz yes, in a matter of about eighty hours [if my timezonal computations are correct] i should be tucked up in my own little bed in my own little room in my own little house in my own little country for the first time in sixteen months. and after ten days of sleeping on a concrete slab, i'm really looking forward to it.
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