Nostalgia

Spending time back home never fails to send me on trips down memory lane.

Its been five years since I've graduated from high school. That's half a decade. That equates to slightly less than 1/4 of my entire life (21.7% to be anally exact). A lot has happened since then, and it almost seems like living in Bahrain was an entire lifetime ago. I bet this is amusing the over 30s of you out there, that a relative youngin has the nerve to go on about how old he feels.. to that I say: isn't it time to empty out that colostomy bag?

Alright, I'm sorry. That was harsh. I'm actually quite excited about growing up, becoming more mature and knowledgeable is quite gratifying. It's funny looking back at the past five years and realizing how dumb I was.. and I'll probably look back on this five years from now and realize how stupid I am at the moment, its kind of a depressingly never-ending kind of thing.

Getting back on topic: Its things like fishing through my bookcase and taking a look at all the novels I used to read back in high school. Its opening a drawer still stuffed with old IB notes that haven't been touched in five years. Its catching up with old friends, running into people you haven't seen in such a long time and realizing that most of them have jobs and some even have children (yeah, one guy in my class is actually a father now). Its visiting your high school for the first time in five years only to realize that things are not quite as you left them. Its seeing all those kids graduating (June is graduation season, of course) and reading through this year's yearbook, all that stuff about how old they feel and how they've just accomplished something tremendous and thinking.. that used to be me. Its remembering the old days with your buddies, all the things we used to get up to and all the childishness of days past. Its hanging out with my parents and realizing how different our relationship has become, how its become a horizontal one of friendship, rather than a vertical heirarchy of authority. Its seeing my siblings growing older and wiser, becoming interesting people that make me want to spend time with them, changed from the kids who's silliness I tried to avoid. Its thinking about things like domestic and foreign politics, personal finances, career decisions, future aspirations, religious beliefs.. just.. serious stuff.. things that have replaced the peaceful, innocent, oblivious contents of my childhood cranium. Its things like having to renew my driving license and getting a new 5-year UK visa because the old 5-year one expires next month. Its looking at old photos of senior year and seeing the difference. Its starting to think about what happens after I'm done studying. Its looking at myself in the mirror and spotting a few stray grey hairs (for fuck's sake, that's just unnecessary.. I'm only 22 and a half).

I think I lost my way there, I set out to write about random nostalgic moments I've experienced since I got back but ended up ranting about growing older. I guess they're inextricably linked, the older you get the more nostalgic you become.

I just read an article about this Haitian man living in Cuba who's 120 years old. Apparently he doesn't remember the first 40 years of his life. Amazing.

Balls: Curve or Straight?

Before your mind beings to wander, I'd like to state that the content of this post is quite innocuous.

I went bowling with a few friends yesterday and I discovered an interesting new fact.

Let me give you some background info: See, the thing is.. I've been bowling in Bahrain since I was 15. That's 7 years. I had a phase between 15 and 16 where I used to bowl every other day at Bushihri (old school bowling place which I believe has been unfortunately shut down recently). Obviously I'm out of shape these days since for the last 5 years I've been abroad and haven't bowled much on the occasions that I did come back. I would say I'm a decent player, averaging 135 per round on a good day.

Okay, so I've got some experience when it comes down to it, right? I even know how to calculate spare and strike scores! How come I've never heard about the curve and straight variations of the ball until yesterday?

Apparently, the curve ball is the one the professionals play with. You roll it down the lane and it looks like its going to take out 2 or 3 pins max, but then it takes a wicked curve and heads towards the middle, resulting in a strike most of the time. I've known that the method existed, but I never knew it had its own seperate ball. The balls provided for the masses placed on the racks are all straight balls, and I've been using those for the last 7 years.

No wonder all my finger-breaking attempts at generating that curve from a straight ball have proved so painfully unsuccessful.

Impromptu Paella

Long grain rice
Diced chicken breast
Seafood mix (prawns, scallops, mussels, and calamari)
Diced onions
Mixed vegetables (courgettes, traffic light peppers, baby tomatoes, red onions)
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Piri-Piri, Lime and Tequila Marinade
Salt and Pepper

No exact amounts necessary, go wild. Mine was pretty damn spicy. Ring of fire.

Wash rice and drain. Boil for 10 minutes until half cooked.
Fry onions, mix spices and throw in chicken. Fry until cooked.
Throw in seafood mix.
Throw in mixed vegetables, quickly stir fry. Mix in marinade.
Toss in rice. Mix furiously.
Allow the mix to dry up a bit (not too dry).

Make sure you make a huge amount. Do not under any circumstances try to eat the whole lot by yourself. Invite some friends over, but not too many.. you gotta make sure you have some leftover to eat the next day. If it tastes shite, invite many people you don't like and get them to bring you some booze.

Heading back home in a few days. Summer's started!

Menace II Society

Something interesting happened to me today. I realized that recent good results in my Obstetrics and Gynaecology exam have meant that I've actually earned a qualification. Yup, I couldn't believe it either. Me? With some sort of qualification other than a high school degree? Surely not..

Well, apparently its true. It forms one third of the long string of letters I get to add to the end of my name sometime next year. BAO.. Bachelor of Obstetrics. Alllriiiightttt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now officially qualified to deliver your babies. Scary thought, isn't it?

Videogame Session Dynamics

It quite interesting observing a bunch of guys sitting around playing videogames in a competitive environment. The key here is that it has to be competitive, with two or more of the players at a relatively equal level of skill. If there's no competition, the whole process ceases to be fun as attention is diverted elsewhere. There MUST be a singlemindedness towards the task at hand, a sharp focus on doing nothing but defeating and humiliating your best friends.

Many games are played, covering all major genres. There are the first person shooter games (such as Halo) which can involve anywhere from 2 to 16 players. There are the sports games that can involve 2 to 4 players (such as Fifa, Winning Eleven, Topspin tennis) and those which should be played strictly on a one-on-one basis (NBA Live, Madden, Tiger Woods). There are also fun games such as Mario Party which take on a very lighthearted and childish nature of play, but still manage to preserve that all-important competitive edge.

The whole aim of playing videogames is to prove that you are the best player beyond any doubt. Your task is to take on all comers and destroy them, making your friends pass the controller from one person to another and suffering the frustation of never being able to play two games in a row. Trash talk is a necessity, but you must also be able to back it up. If you talk trash and you suck at the game then no one will take you seriously. You will not be considered a threat to the top dogs and will be treated as nothing but cannon fodder or target practice. You will become the easy kill in Halo, the amount of times you're hunted down and killed will seperate the best players since they're too good to kill each other most of the time. You will become the lucky draw in a sports tournament such as Fifa, since playing you usually means easy passage to the next round. You will become the last person to be challenged to a game, the last person allowed to touch the controller in a shotgun scramble for a turn at the beginning of each session. No one will want to be your partner in a 4 player game. You will lose the respect of your friends when it comes to videogames and the only way you can redeem yourself is by getting better.

No, don't go practicing against the computer by yourself at home. Even the most difficult CPUs are no match for the top human players. And no, don't go researching tips and tactics on the Internet.. that's not going to help you. Improvement takes time, effort and heart. You'll have to play your games and get beaten the hell out of.. but you must also learn from every defeat. Everytime you get a chance to play one of the better players, you swallow the bitter pill of losing and make sure you give it a right go. And then, when you're matched against one of the more average players, you use what you learned and aim to beat them. Slowly but surely you will move up the ranks to being a mediocre player, capable of giving a top player a good run for his money if he happens to be having a bad day.

But that's where it stops I'm afraid. If you start off shit, you're never going to become great. Not amongst a respectable group of gamers, that is.. you can't call beating your little sister making it to the top. Becoming a constant winner at videogames is partially genetic, partially early conditioning. If you were big into sports when you were a kid but never really played any videogames then don't expect to be much good at them when you grow older (except if you're really extremely naturally gifted). Good gamers can pick up any new game and beat any other person who's never played it before. They learn how to play the game much faster and after a couple of turns are better than most players. They leave mediocre and poor players eating their dust, frustrated with the steep learning curve they must encounter to become semi-competitive.

I consider myself a damn good gamer. I think I'd be a match for any gamer 20 years old or above. If I've played the game before, chances are I'll beat you. This only applies to those who are 20 years or older, as the younger generation are a different breed. Those kids will school my ass and make me feel useless. My 13 year old cousin once beat me three times in a row while playing Winning 11.. he had the controller in one hand and was eating his dinner with the other.

Noisy Neighbours

If you've been reading through my past posts, you might've caught a mention or two of my neighbours. The current site of the Irish Financial Services Center happens to be right next to one of the historically poorest areas of Dublin. In actuality the residents of the area are being systematically relocated to government housing further away from the city center, but there are still quite a few who enjoy their ghetto's location too much to pack up and do as the Taoiseach says.

Next year will be the fourth year for me in this apartment, and as I've had a nice little run of two years in the bigger room, the time came for me to move back into the smaller room with no ensuite bathroom. Its only fair, and we did play a videogame tournament to decide the order. Can't break them rules now. Anyway, this room is at the back of the apartment and directly overlooks the Sheriff street (the name of the most dangerous street in Dublin) children's playground. Its sometimes fun to just stand on the balcony and observe the little community of neighbours that we have.. drunken fathers stumbling around, angry mothers beating kids up, teenage girls pushing prams and young men fully engaged in a life of delinquency.

My direct concern is that damn playground, however. I've been studying for my exams at home for the past few days and those kids are driving me mental. Its not the screaming kids on the jungle gym that annoy me as much as it is the strange activites some of the other kids are involved in. All day today I was plagued with the loud noise of a motorbike in various states of motion. It was either idling and sputtering every once in a while, or it was whizzing away to some unknown destination only to be back five minutes later. Now, when you're studying you don't exactly focus on these things.. but the frequency and the variability of the noise was just pissing me off. Everytime the sound got louder I found myself scampering on to the balcony to try and catch a glimpse of my tormentor. When I finally did, I saw that it was a 5 year old kid with an oversized helmet sitting on a tiny-ass motorbike toy thing. He then stopped next to the playground fence and a bunch of older kids walked over, smacked him on the head and rode off on his little bike. Thank fuck for that.

Around 8.30 the kids are called in for dinner, and I hear the same mothers calling the same children they used to call three years ago when I used to live in this room. This one lady calls out her son's name at the top of her lungs for a good half an hour. Goddamnit Paddy, go home and eat your potatos if only to shut your mother up.

Announcement

Currently co-posting on a blog called "Qadam" (translation: foot).

Check it out if you have the time or interest.

http://qadam.blogspot.com

Spooky

Today I decided to go all high tech. I went to this website called statcounter.com and I opted to add a little counter onto my blog (all part of my one year anniversary present to my dear, dear blog). Now, this counter is pretty nifty.. sure, it gives me a little number telling me how many people have accessed my blog.. but I was surprised to learn that it does other things as well.

You see, statcounter.com offer you a free "package" that you can use on as many websites as you want. Obviously there are certain limitations which do not make it viable for large commercial websites, but for my individual purposes it does just fine. The "package" contains not only the code for the counter, but a staggering array of tools. Now, you might think me a tad slow for not copping on to this facility beforehand.. but I've resigned my seat on the board of the cutting edge of technology a long time ago. Long gone are the days where I was among the more knowledgeable in terms of computers and stuff, but I guess that's part of growing older and doing other things. I'm still quite handy, though.

Anyway, enough lamenting my loss of competence and let's get back to "the package". It pretty much includes tools that allow me to track every visitor to my website, down to their country of origin. It shows me when you've entered, where you've gone, what you've been looking at and when you've left. Now if I can do this, imagine what other, much larger websites can do. I no longer see myself as a lone surfer on the information superhighway (remember that term? those were the days I used to be cutting edge.. ahh, what days). I'm actually being watched, people know what I'm up to and they know where I am. I almost feel violated.

So, dear reader.. now that I've got these tools at my disposal (and many frequent flyer miles to be redeemed), next time you leave a comment I might disagree with I might just travel across the world to come see you. Don't worry, I'll be civil. I'll even buy you dinner.. that's been laced with rat poison.

One Year Milestone

Happy birthday dear blog. You have been a wonderful vessel for my ramblings over the past year. I thank you for your patience in containing all my thoughts and words, and I promise that you shall be lonely no more.

What am I talking about? You complain that all the other blogs are getting all the attention. You say to me, "Mo, let's do politics." and yet I say "Nay, young one.. we shall stick to our purpose." I know politics draws the interested masses in, it ignites debate through comments and makes a blog popular. But let me ask you this, dear blog.. how would you feel if you were weighed down by the grim world of politics and current events? What if your content became serious, your youthful and inane outlook on life tainted by the increasingly depressing occurences of this world? You wouldn't be the carefree, silly blog that you are now. You would lose what truely makes you unique in this electronic world of independent publishing.

And so, dear blog, I promise to be even funnier, even wittier, include more pictures and diagrams and be as random as a human being could ever be. I promise to make you the best-est non-serious blog in the whole wide world. I promise to draw in more readers, make them leave more comments to show you how special you really are. This I promise you dear blog and, so help me God, I shall not rest until you are lonely no more.

El estilo de vida del estudiante

Being a college student for six years can be tough. Its sobering everytime I come back home and find out what everyone else is up to.. who's gotten married, who's gotten a job where, who's complaining about their jobs and routines (pretty much everyone). And I'm still where I am.. still studying, still hitting the books. It makes me wish that I was making money too so I wouldn't have to rely on my parents so much.

Enough negativity, let's move on to why its GREAT that I'm still a student!

Well, for starters there's the whole academic year business.. you get vacations, vacations and more vacations.. you don't have to ask your boss for one, you don't have to work X amount of months to earn a week or two off.. you just get them. Then there's the whole "your own life in your own hands" kind of thing. If I don't feel like waking up and going to class, what do I do? I stay in bed and I wake up at 1pm. If I feel like going out and getting wasted midweek, would I get in trouble for not waking up early the next morning? Hells no! You have one responsibility only and it is to pass your exams with decent grades (definition of the word "decent" may differ from person to person). Unfortunately with the rotations at the different hospitals this year there's a more personal element of teaching in that you're placed in small groups and the doctors notice when you're missing. That pretty much negates all the skills I've learned over the years in how to blend into the background and not get noticed by any lecturers. I'm very proud of the fact that none of my preclinical teachers recognize my being a student at the college, let alone know my name!

But that's besides the point. Being a student means I can have a highly impractical, idealistic view of the world and not have to worry about it being jeapordized by the demands of an employer, a mortgage or any other facet of life. Deplorable? Unfortunate? I will have to eventually stop being a student and face the harsh realities, no? Someday I'll realize that there's more to life than a bank account that magically fills up every month, that money is earned on the back of hard work, right? Surely that thought would be sufficient to wake me up from my dreamland existence?

Well, I'd rather not think about it. As a student, I have that choice.

Budapeshhht

Great city, that. Its quite interesting, I don't know how many people know this (I certainly didn't until a few weeks before getting there) but the city is split into two parts.. the Buda and the Pest, with the Danube river in between. The Pest side is made up of mostly flat plains, while the Buda is all about the rolling hills. Cheap city to live in, food and drink were quite affordable.. and you could practically dine out in extremely nice surroundings every single night of your trip.
You see many bizzare things, however. Between Prague and Budapest, I've seen many strange objects, practices and local customs:

1. Fried Cheese (aka Fat-in-a-bun). Pretty much a deep-fried, breaded slab of cheese that can be served on a plate to be eaten with a knife and fork.. or in the much more lethal form of a sandwich in which it is covered in mayonnaise and placed in a bun. Don't try eating more than one of these things.

2. Milk in a bag. This I saw in Budapest. Pretty much milk in a small, clear plastic bag with a picture of a goofy looking blonde cow on it and the word TEJ written in bold print (see below). I had a hard time just holding the bag and posing for a picture, never mind considering consuming its contents.

3. HUGE chunks of bread. By huge I mean as big as a person's head. I'm sure that under the thick crust lies more soft, delicious bread than I would know what to do with before the fungus sets in.

4. Parking on the sidewalk. Yes, everyone does it. Even old ladies in old volvos. Even if you're walking on the aforementioned sidewalk.

5. Man selling porn at traffic lights. A man, decked out completely in porn magazines wandering around between cars that were stopped at a traffic light. In broad daylight.

The strange language and the natives' dearth of english speakers means that a lot of interesting (mostly humorous) situations cropped up throughout the trip. Definitely worth a visit, though.

Back in Bahrain at the moment for a two week "break" in which I'll be studying for exams before going back to Ireland for another two weeks of studying prior to my first exam. What a rendorseg situation. The year's been tough, but at least now its almost over.



Milk in a bag.

The Elevator

I live on the very top floor of my building. Its nothing special, not like those real penthouse apartments with swimming pools and stuff. And you certainly don't need a key or a code to access my floor via the elevator. I just happen to live on the very top floor and it means I have a more prominent view of the Irish ghettos right behind my fancy apartment building (which itself is situated in the fancy Financial Services Area). How come businesses and banks are right next to government housing? Stellar planning on behalf of whoever has that job.

Anyway, back to my point. Because I'm on the top floor it means that the elevator plays a very important role in my life. Whoever thought of putting human beings in a box and suspending them in the air using a pulley and counterbalance system.. you're fucking crazy. But it worked you loon! So Otis and Co. have made my life much easier by not having to tackle stairwells everytime I decide to leave my house and establish contact with the outside world.

If you look at my previous post titled "Shady Construction" you'll get a general feel for my building. Its nice, but its not the most well built and thought out. Apparently its not the most well maintained either, since the elevator has been (as of today) busted for two weeks. We used to get elevator functional distubances on a regular basis last year, but nothing that wouldn't get fixed within one or two days.

Over the last two weeks my fitness has improved tremendously. While previously I would arrive at the apartment door in a state of hyperventilation after climbing all those stairs, these days my breathing rate increases slightly but that's about it.

I wonder if I should send out a letter of complaint for the inconvenience, or a letter of thanks for the imposition of much needed exercise?

A Glimpse into the Future?

Over easter break I flew over to England to visit a friend. It wasn't much of an easter break to be honest, it included Good Friday and Easter monday as well as the weekend. None of that crazy two weeks stuff we used to get back in the day.

Anyway, checking in at the airport to fly back I was informed that due to some poor weather that morning the airline had diverted a flight to another airport and are therefore short on the planes they have flying to Ireland. This basically meant that I'll have to fly to Shannon first, land there and wait to refuel and unload some passengers, then fly back to Dublin. Inconvenience? You bet your damn ass it was. The whole journey took two and a half hours, rather than the normal one hour's time.

If you hadn't planned to fly for two and half hours (and are lacking in entertainment, because the book you brought along had just enough pages left in it to be finished in an hour.. exemplary planning if you ask me) then you could get pretty bored. My mind wandered and I started thinking about this whole ordeal. The whole thing reminded me of a flying bus.. and that's where the future got me excited.

No more traffic, no more waiting for red lights and no more damn pedestrians. With my amazing (but highly impractical) idea of PLUS (that's a combination plane+bus), I could now fly to wherever I wanted to go! Imagine the possibilities. I'd get to hospitals in no time, not having to wake up so much earlier just to make sure I catch whatever gravity-challenged mode of transport I intend to use. It would eliminate people's fear of flying too because it'd be so common! You wouldn't have to go to the airport two hours in advance and go through security checks and check your baggage in and all that nonsense. All you'd do is pay EUR1.50 to get to wherever you're going (cost based on average distance from my home to the hospital I'm currently attending.. maybe it'd be more expensive for you.. or cheaper.. who knows?) .. and you'd get there FAST!

And since I'm talking about the future, I thought I might technologically enhance this blog by including a diagram to explain my highly complex, yet breathtakingly simple, idea. Impressive, I know.. but then again I've always had an artistic touch.



Demonstration of diabolical idea.

St. Patrick's Day

I actually spent Paddy's day (as the Irish affectionately refer to it..) in Ireland this year as I'm usually on easter vacation around this time. Didn't get one this year, which sucks. It was a crazy day, copious amounts of C2H5OH were consumed and the whole thing degenerated into a farce by 8.30pm.

But enough about that, there was an interesting point that I noticed today that I thought I'd write about in my blog. If you're at all squeamish or are uncomfortable with mentions of human anatomy, then you can stop reading right about now. You have been warned. Hope you had fun, see you again next time.

Now, I was heading to the toilets and I noticed a MASSIVE queue in front of the ladies' washroom. Girls were just hanging out in front of the toilet not just waiting for a stall, but waiting to GET INTO the damn place. The gents on the other hand was a model of efficiency. You're in and within 2 minutes you're out again. You don't wait for a stall, you head to the urinals. This made me kind of question the wisdom of the location of the female urethral orifice. Why down there where its so inconvenient? It only points in one direction and removal of clothing is required for usage! Factoring in that womens' bladders are infinitely smaller than those of their male counterparts, it just adds to the whole hassle. Not only do you have to go through the process of lining up to use the toilet, you have to do it OFTEN! A design flaw, perhaps? Maybe its payback for having the ability to give birth to new life? There must be some kind of medical explanation for it (positioning of internal organs during pregenancy or something..) but I'm just not that avid a student to try and work it out. I guess I understand now the female fascination with peeing while standing up.. it does come in quite handy.

Man on Fire

If only I got paid as much as Denzel, then I might not be complaining..
Of course, this has nothing to do with any of that, what happened last night was probably THE most randomest thing I have ever experienced.

On the way back from this club, my friends and I stopped at McDonald's for a late night snack as we normally do.. the weather was nice, kind of cold but dry and cloudless.. we stood around outside for a bit while a friend of mine finished off his cigarette.. what happened next was very strange indeed..

As I walked into the place, I stared at the menu while trying to put together my caloric bomb of a meal.. a big mac, a mcchicken sandwich, some nuggets and fries? mmm.. maybe a eurosaver double cheese with fries, a bigmac and....

"Sir, you're on fire!"..

Excuse me? I turn around to look at the security guard of asian origin only to see him rushing over and grabbing me by the arm.. I resist at first as he tries to remove me from the premises.. I look at him and go "what the fuck man?".. so he hurriedly points to the back of my leather jacket and lo and behold, I AM on fucking fire..

There was a hole the size of a baseball burning through the back of my jacket.. there was smoke everywhere, I looked like a movie stunt gone horribly awry.. I rushed to the door and took my jacket off and started stamping on it to limit the damage.. next thing I know Mr. Security Man has a huge glass of water in his hand and he's pouring it all over my jacket AFTER I had already put the fire out.. what a dickhead..

Slightly stunned I walk back into the place, get my food and proceed on the long walk back home with my comrades. Halfway there it hits me.. why the HELL was my jacket on fire? Who would do such a thing? After a labored thought process we eventually decided that a cigarette couldn't possible have set a leather jacket on fire, and that someone must have used a lighter or some matches.. BUT WHY? How would you feel if you saw someone walk into a restaurant with his clothes on fire, smoke plumes everywhere, and he was completely oblivious to the fact? I'd be quite freaked out to be honest..

Whoever did this, I'm going to find you and burn your house down you asshole.

Crazy People

Ever wonder why sometimes there's a thick plate of glass between you and whoever it is that's providing a service for you? You know, like in a bank.. or at train stations. Security is the most obvious answer, and you would be correct in assuming so.. but most of these thick plates have holes in them so you can communicate with the person on the other side instead of attempting to lip-read..

This morning, on my way to the Kilbarrack Health Center for a part of my psychiatry rotation, I had to take the train. When I got to my destination, I asked the man behind the thick plate of glass (who happened to also be selling tickets, not just hanging out..) about the whereabouts of said center. He said a few things, pointed in my general direction and said "fuck".. I got pretty freaked out by the weirdo, smiled and walked away hurriedly.. further down the road I reached a "fork" and realised, to my relief, what the man was going on about.. shame, he seemed like a nice guy.. what could've been the start of a great friendship was nipped in the bud by an unnecessary lack of holes in a thick plate of glass.

Female Beauty

Finally got around to reading "The Da Vinci Code".. a bit late, but hey.. I was busy reading other books..
*if you're planning on reading it, then the rest of this post might be a slight spoiler*

Good book, interesting premise, annoying storyline.. the ideas in the book were new to me, to be honest.. I always percieved the "Holy Grail" to be a wooden cup of Jesus, like in Indy Jones.. you know, the one where it ends in the dumb Nazis going for the craziest chalice with the most bling and end up dying and shit..

Anyway, that's besides the point.. what I wanted to go on about today was more than just the concept of the "chalice" or the "grail" as stated in the book.. all that historical relic stuff was all interesting and fitted well in the framework of the story (which I found annoyingly stop/start, as though the author intended to make the job of the screenplay writer a lot easier when importing it onto the big screen).. what struck me most was the book's insight into the symbolism and ideas of "the sacred feminine"..

Makes you stop and think, don't it? Jesus had a wife and kids? The Da Vinci painting of "the last supper" showing his wife, Mary Magdalene, sitting next to him on the table along with all the other apostles? Now, I'm a muslim myself so I'm not taking this in any religious aspect, simply commenting on what I've read and seen as a human being. Might be simplistic, might be wrong or skewed.. but I don't want a shitload of comments delving into religious or moral issues.. this is a simple blog written by a simple man who's talking about a simple idea..

Men and women complementing each other.

The belief present in males that they can control the destiny of the human race unassisted is quite unfortunate. Males tend to be physically stronger, tend to be more aggressive in nature. Taking that as a whole and looking at the current political and cultural climate in the world, you can see a dangerous route of destruction and bloodshed ahead. Political ideologies at war, and who are the politicans in the highest echelons of power? Men. Religions at war, and who are the clerics, priests and rabbis with the most influence? Men.

It seems that without the counterbalance of the female, male ego and ambition for power can run unchecked and lead the whole race to self-destruction. If females dominated the world in the exact reverse situation, the world would be going to shit for reasons I can't even begin to fathom. The whole system is fucked if power and control lay in the hands of one sex.

Unfortunately, current cultural and religious beliefs tend to predominantely state that women are an inferior sex, and must be treated as such. Even in the so-called "civilized world", women are still struggling for their full rights. Granted, they might have their basic rights given back to them as opposed to places like Saudi Arabia where they are treated like glorified animals.. but that touches on my main point: Why is it that men are GIVING women those rights? Its less a case of giving than giving BACK. How come those rights were taken away to begin with; and why and when did this happen? When did the yang decide to dispose of the yin and run the show? Doesn't it know that without its other half it no longer represents a whole circle, instead it just looks like a stupid piece of turd?

My questions are simply a matter of observation, a matter of logic.

Alright, back to work for me. Maybe next time I'll write about the state of my freezer or something more docile. All this thinking makes my head hurt.

The Commute

On an Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation at the moment (would rather not talk about it to be honest) in a town called Drogheda, north of Dublin. Drogheda is about an hour's train ride away and, as my luck would have it, the train station is a five minute walk away from my house. I commute on a daily basis, usually leaving the house at around 7am and coming back at 6pm. The rotation is two months long.



There is much that could be said about my distaste for the subject matter of the rotation and my arduous daily trek to the hospital, but the topic of this post is "the commute" and so it shall remain faithful to its heading. Commuting is an interesting concept, having to leave your home on a (week)daily basis in order to reach your location of work, the place where you make money to feed your family, cloth your children and spend on other worldly joys (such as cars, and "bling"). When I first started "commuting", I was amazed by the whole thing. It filled me with a secret sense of pleasure that I'm doing a very "grown up" thing, travelling many miles to reach "my workplace" the hospital. Of course, at the hospital I'm just another useless, corridor-obstacle medical student.. but that doesn't sway my sense of pride in my commute. I travelled far to become a useless corridor-obstacle, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let Mr. Bigshot Consultant ruin it for me.



Now, the first few weeks or so I managed to wake up and attend purely for being able to ride the train back and forth. I would pack a book and read it on the way, and then look forward to catching the train back and reading some more. I must admit, I'm a sucker for trains. For some reason, I love taking trains. I make it my sacred duty to commit to memory any underground rail map that may exist in any city that I may visit. Weird, I know, but hey.. we all have our quirks, so back off buddy.



So, being that I've rarely used the railway system in place in Ireland, I found this opportunity very exciting. And I was going to do this on a daily basis too, so its gonna kick ass! Right?



Wrong. Five weeks, three books and countless commuting hours later and I've become completely jaded. No longer do I walk to the station with a big, youthful smile plastered across my face on those cold and rainy mornings. Now I just stare blankly ahead and look like all the other commuters. Just wanting to be somewhere else, doing something different.



message from an intoxicated beauty: "Don't forget the soldiers of The Great War".

Appropriate, especially since I'm in a knowledge-thirsty WWII phase right now.