I'm having an atrocious week. (2 Viewers)

[egg_]

Fine actress but I am fairly sure she uses immac for her upper lip and arse*

Jaysis dude! Who cares!

 

[MDR]

Let's have a thread about stress. I've been really stressed for the last three months. Low-lying, insidious, background-noise, chattering, anxiety. Busy life, unhealthy obsession with new album (peaks Vs Troughs - Hi cormac!), job unsettled, little prospect of rest.

Not good.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Crooked Wood

also in westmeath. Could there be a better county? home to the children of lir, the seven wonders of Fore, the centre of ireland, the list goes on

i must stop defending the place

 

[La La]

hi jane. im here for you.
first today, i have a pic i took a few weeks ago at a beach here in HK. it is NOT doctored. excellent!

and here's something funny from the web

and then,......well then there's this.

x

 

[MDR]

Justing Timberlake is only 26?? Christ. So much fun had, so much life left to live! The lucky cunt.
On the positive side, Minnie Driver is 37 and so perhaps starting to lose her youthful blush and more likely to turn to the likes of me for solace

Isn't 37 supposed to be a woman's sexual peak? G'wan Cormac - I'll hold your coat.

 

[therealjohnny]

Still, you know what I can't get over?

An 18" wall.

ah youre not that tiny Mike

 

[snakybus]

You know those mange-tout? They're really nice but I couldn't eat a whole one.

Let me know if my comedy isn't cheering you up.

 

[egg_]

Hey Jane, here's John-out-of-Stoat's favourite joke:

Did you hear about the dirty egg? He ran around with his yolk hanging out.

(I think it's a stupid joke myself, but there you go)

My favourite joke is this:

I say: Guess what?
You say: What?
I say: How did you guess?

Either that or this one:

What do you call a 3-legged donkey?
A wonky
What do you call a 3-legged donkey with one eye?
A winky wonky
What do you call a 3-legged donkey with one eye who likes country music?
A honky tonky winky wonky! Haha!

 

[jane]

There's a townland in Wexford called poulpayshtie (at least that's how it's pronounced) - i.e. poll péistí in Irish, or "wormhole"

Jane, you sound pretty damn frazzled this last while. Sounds to me like you need a month off or something - if I could give you one rest assured that I would. Hope things improve soon

Thanks, dude. I'm fine, and generally totally bouyant, just crippled by my workload to the point where I'm getting nowhere. Plus, these new immigration laws do not bode well for my future here, so I'm also crippled by the ever-encroaching reality that nothing I do on a daily basis is going to amount to squat. While what I'm doing could help me out career-wise if I can stay, it won't help me all that much in the US.

Every time I come up with a way to work it all out, the government shifts the goalposts and I'm fucked all over again. It's been really getting me down all week, and I'm feeling pretty fucking defeated. Am hopefully getting a lawyer soon who can help me figure out a way through all this mess, so that at least I've tried everything before I give up and go back to a country I don't know anymore, but it's tough to sleep at night, and I'm generally going through every day wondering what the whole point is if Michael McDowell's legislating on the basis of taxi driver hysteria could just pull the rug out from under me completely.

The result is, I feel totally fucking trapped, and it's not in my head. I am trapped until I finish the PhD that also sucks and which I also wish I'd never started. Can't make money or have a career until I finish. Can't finish until I know I won't be fucked out on my ass the day I submit.

Whatever about anyone else's experience, and while it's not entirely negative (there are lots of positives about being here, and if there weren't, I wouldn't be trying to stay), my personal experience of being a foreigner in Ireland, where I have to do things like an 'us' while having the legal status of a 'them' really sucks right now.

 

[snakybus]

>tap tap tap tap tap tap tap<

>shuffle shuffle<

>tap tap tappidy tap<

 

[jane]

I love you guys.

I love how yizzers turn into 'pull my finger' types, which is exactly how to cheer me up sometimes. That never, ever, ever fails to make me laugh my arse off.

The hill of Uisneach! Surely I should get an Irish passport for knowing the official name for the centre of Ireland, which is indeed located in Westmeath.

 

[snakybus]

my brother in law is in a similar boat!

being married to my sister, it is slightly different, but he can't work or anything

it doesn't help being Moroccan and muslim as well

they actually told him he as better off going back to Morocco and living there - and leaving my sister and their baby here!

wastards

 

[avernus]

I fix myself some herbal tea
'Cause it's healthier they say
Well, healthier ain't half as fun
I'll take a cold beer any day

I used to have dysfunctional fun
In the cancerous sun
With my codependent hun
Eating greasy, greasy hot dogs
On a buttered up bun.

Silver lining
Silver lining, where'd you go?

 

[egg_]

I am trapped until I finish the PhD that also sucks and which I also wish I'd never started. Can't make money or have a career until I finish. Can't finish until I know I won't be fucked out on my ass the day I submit.

I'm sure you've considered this already but just in case you missed it - ran into a old college friend of mine a while ago, and she hasn't submitted the Ph.D. she started in (I think) 1993 ... she started work before she finished writing it up, and just never got round to finishing it off and handing it in. Another friend started work with Coillte on the basis that he was about to hand up a Ph.D. and they expected him to do so shortly after he started. That's at least 7 years ago now and he still hasn't done so. Would something like this be an option for you?

 

[Vinnie]

You get blue like everyone
But me and Grandpa Joe
Can make your troubles go away
Blow away, there they go...

Cheer up, Janey
Give me a smile
What happened to the smile I used to know
Don't you know your grin has always
Been my sunshine;
Let that sunshine show...

Come on, Janey
No need to frown
Deep down you know tomorrow is your toy...

When the days get heavy
Never pitter patter
Up and at'em boy

Some day, sweet as a song
Janey's lucky day will come along
Till that day
You've got to stay strong Janey
Up on top is right where you belong

Look up, Janey
You'll see a star
Just follow it and keep your dreams in view
Pretty soon the sky is going to clear up
Janey,
Cheer up Janey,do
Cheer up Janey
Just be glad you're you

 

[billygannon]

Armando Ianucci never handed his thesis in. Apparently he still has to finish it. And he held a chair at Oxford last year.

I hope you get yourself sorted Jane. Surely there are naturalisation laws or something.

But you're dead right about Ireland and foreigners.

 

[jane]

I'm sure you've considered this already but just in case you missed it - ran into a old college friend of mine a while ago, and she hasn't submitted the Ph.D. she started in (I think) 1993 ... she started work before she finished writing it up, and just never got round to finishing it off and handing it in. Another friend started work with Coillte on the basis that he was about to hand up a Ph.D. and they expected him to do so shortly after he started. That's at least 7 years ago now and he still hasn't done so. Would something like this be an option for you?

Well, personally, I'd like to get it done and dusted so it's out of the way, and I hope I'll have that this time next year.

But if I did get offered a job with a work permit, at least it would change my status and I'd be a working person doing a PhD, rather than a struggling PhD student constantly trying to find ways to make ends meet without breaking employment laws (it's tough, but I can continue to manage if it's only temporary).

They give you 6 months now when you're done, but that only postpones the same predicament I'm in now, which is that there are no more work permits for jobs that pay less than 30k, and since I'm changing careers, I absolutely cannot expect such money for a while. I also can't even expect a contract job, let alone a permanent one for at least a few years.

The system is just so unmanageable it's insane. It's so utterly unrealistic that I can't imagine it can go on like this. Snaky, that's absolutely awful about your brother in law. I mean, that's a worse situation than mine. At least as a student, I'm entitled to work part-time, and I don't have a babba or a wife. And at least there are good jobs in the US.

I don't think going back to the US would be the end of the world, I just don't want to be forced into it, not when I've worked so hard here.

It sucks because I keep trying to put it out of my mind, but it won't budge.

 

[snakybus]

Ireland and foreigners.

Nowadays they're referred to as "Johnny Onion Ringses"?

 

[nlgbbbblth]

There's a townland in Wexford called poulpayshtie (at least that's how it's pronounced) - i.e. poll péistí in Irish, or "wormhole"

you've got the pronounciation spot on.
Poulpeasty I think.

 

[jane]

Armando Ianucci never handed his thesis in. Apparently he still has to finish it. And he held a chair at Oxford last year.

I hope you get yourself sorted Jane. Surely there are naturalisation laws or something.

But you're dead right about Ireland and foreigners.

There are naturalisation laws, but not a single day of my time here counts because I'm still a student. As soon as I finish, I'm back to square one. The worst part is, I know I'm not alone. Those of us who've gotten most of our education over here have also established lives here, and to have that pulled out from under us (unless we have fancy degrees that channel us right into fancy jobs) really sucks. It's really starting to affect the way I see myself here. I've almost started to internalise that whole second-class citizen thing. It's not that people actually treat me like that, but that I've gotten so used to the idea that full-time work, voting rights, etc, etc, are all for other people that it's starting to get to me.

And again, there are thousands of people in the same position, and yet because we can't vote (although I can and do vote in local elections), the government does what it wants.