Photography

A few of my photographs have been selected to take part in a nationwide University-Student photography exhibition. They are:

“Dublin Road”

“Grafton Street”

“Dublin Bus”

Life Drawing

Today, I convinced myself to go to a life drawing class. I’d been wanting to go for ages, and finally decided not to hold back on this ambition of mine – after having seen the film Billy Liar, in which the main character was depressingly like me, in the way that he was fooling himself into believing that he was on the road to success, but in reality was backing out of responsibility and commitment when it really mattered.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about how it went. It’s something I’d always wanted to do, so I was glad that I “experienced” it, but I was disappointed because the class was pretty lame. The room was absolutely packed – chairs side-by-side around a makeshift stage. No room to move. Just a wooden board on my lap to draw against – couldn’t lift it up or turn it around without poking someone in the back. Materials available were shitty. The teacher – what a dick. Some French asshole with the lamest sense of (sarcastic, repetitive) humour i’ve ever encountered. And aside from his slimy, cocky manner, I could barely understand a word he said. No one could, i’m sure. And i’m usually pretty good at gleaning the message from peoples’ pidgin English. The only saving grace was the model – she was, at least, professional and … very attractive! What?

I probably did the best that I could, in these shitty conditions, but I’m still not particularly pleased with the resultant drawings. I left the bundle of paper under the seat of the train on my way home. I don’t think I’ll go back.

good word

You know that your local cinema is really classy when it feels it necessary to have a sign that tells you not to eat your ticket. Here’s a photograph I took with my phone of said sign at “The Screen” in Dublin:

What a guy!

Another exciting installment.

Wild Strawberries.

On Monday we watched Wild Strawberries in Film Studies and today the lecturer devoted the class to an open discussion. It gradually became quite an intellectual and interesting discussion, and I decided to add something. Right at the punchline (I was literally at the point of saying “because….”), my mind completely deserted me. There was a pregnant silence in the auditorium for about ten seconds (not an exaggeration), as I tried to remember what I was talking about. Thankfully, I recovered from my dumbness and said what I wanted to say, before the lecturer had to move on and put it down to stupidity. So, could have been worse.

The film was great, by the way. This is my favourite scene from it:

Berlijn.

I’m going to Berlin on the first of February. I am completely ill-prepared – mentally and practically. But excited. This is not really a good time to ditch my studies, but i’ll only miss two days – the trip is four days. It should be a blast. And I should get some cool photographs.

Printing on Brown Envelopes.

I love the texture and colour of brown envelopes – and not for any psychological connections with money, I’m sure. I wanted to print my timetable on this paper (since I left my old one on the train and need to print a new one), but the paper needs to be A4 size or my printer rejects it. So I glued an unfolded (rather, ripped open) envelope to a sheet of a4 and it turned out great:

Das sind azitate Blätter, die ich vor meinem Bildschirm gestellt habe. Heute habe ich eine Referat über der Universität Heidelberg gehalten (als Teil meiner Deutsche Sprache Unterricht).

Können Sie die Leute identifizieren?

Now, Ulysses by James Joyce is enough of a challenge in English, but today I was treated to a live performance of the last “chapter”, in Dutch, by a group of Flemish performers from the Studio Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp.

I was really very impressed. They acted excellently and the way it was performed was rather creative.

I had read the part they played in English beforehand, which helped me to understand the Dutch when I heard it. Sort of like having imaginary subtitles.

This is what my week looks like.

So, I accidentally drop-kicked my trifle against the wall.

Well, some of it anyway. I was trying to break its fall, but just broke it.

RIP TRIFLE 2007-2007

I don’t know why, but I made a trifle last night at 1am.

It’s pretty good actually but I have no desire to eat it.