Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

I had arrived in Ireland an had spent and hour finding my way into Dublin. It was dark out and the streets were wet. Eire is generally always wet. But it made the streets pretty when the orange lamplight reflected off the brick and concrete. I followed my friend's instructions to get to her house. "Take the bus from the airport to O'Connell street and switch to the 121 and go to Ardee street." I had followed the instructions successfully and was then waiting alone on some empty back street. I waited 15 minutes. She didn't show up. Was I supposed to call her? I think so. Loaded down with my backpack, I walked up and down the street, looking down alleyways trying to find a public phone. It was beginning to look impossible, but I kept walking. I saw some small children playing outside with some toy guns and an abandoned mattress. Kids only play in the dark if the neighborhood is either a very safe one or or if they havent seen their parents in a couple of weeks. The ...

I was standing in line at the supermarket today, buying a prepackaged sandwich and a bottle of tonic water. The Indian cashier deftly swiped people's items under the bar scanner and counted out the change for the customers. "Do you have a Tesco's membership card" he would ask, in a voice that was dutiful but that had tinges of tiredness. I didn't have a card. I had one for the local supermarkets in Boston, but they actually worked to make things cheaper. The ones here just give you coupons. But somewhere between his question and me reaching for my wallet it hit me. I couldn't remember then name of the supermaket in Beverly that I always used to go to. I stood there, staring in space at the horror of the realization that I could not remember a place that I had interacted with for 3 years. The same place that was filled with memories of times that I had gone there with friends, preparing for parties or meals or just having conversations with apartment mates as w...

This past week has been one of the most academically intense ones I have had in a long time. In actuality it has been the most intense since the first week at Oxford. The first week was actually fairly easy going compared to the rest of the semester, for every week after the first had more work. My usual workload consisted of 3 research papers every 2 weeks. I do not use the term 'research paper' lightly here. These are not the typical 4 page projects that are meant to synthesize a book or a couple of articles. These are the kind of papers that you spend all all week in the library, from opening time to closing time, trying your best to read through the 800 pages of obscure scholarly journals, historical backgrounds, commentaries and of course the primary texts per paper. A lot of it is extremely slow and thick reading, the kind that I will read a couple of pages of and suddenly realize that I have no idea what the author is talking about (curse you Terry Eagleton!!). Of course...

I just got an email about how animal rights activists are protesting in Oxford and how we should avoid the area where they will be protesting because it is common for the protests to end up in violent clashes with the police. What caught my attention was that our tutor mentioned the fact that the riot police use a lot of mounted cops and K9 units. I didn't think much of it because both security measures are common at riots or protests, but then I read that they use a greater amount of them than normal because the animal rights protesters will not fight against or harm the horses or dogs or any other animals that are used against them. I my mind I could picture a protester throwing Molotov cocktails and punching a cop and then getting jumped by a German Shepard. Trying to both run away and confront the dog with words, the protester calls out desperately to the animal as he is pulled down by another k9 eager to get a piece. Curled up in a ball he calls out to the dogs that he is thei...