I'm having an atrocious week. (1 Viewer)

[snakybus]

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.

Yeah it's pretty bad, but at least my sister can work so she can pay the rent and so forth. Hey there's a thought, maybe you can get married to an Irish guy! I hear JANER's available.

 

[Janer]

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

Posts like the above makes one understand why you have so many rep points.....I used to think you got them from diff means

 

[Lefty Frizzell]

Posts like the above makes one understand why you have so many rep points.....I used to think you got them from diff means

You remind of someone i know who always walks into a room, lets off an unbearable fart and then leaves.

 

[La La]

Posts like the above makes one understand why you have so many rep points.....I used to think you got them from diff means

most of it comes from my wit and charm, ackchully. and also the photo forum.

 

[Janer]

/Looks for photo gallery

 

[Janer]

You remind of someone i know who always walks into a room, lets off an unbearable fart and then leaves.

Guerrilla warfare FTW

 

[Bellatrix]

The road parallel to mine is called Crotch Crescent!

Oh, are we done with funny placenames?

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Oh, are we done with funny placenames?

you've got more havent you, you cheeky mare?!! go on then...

 

[Bellatrix]

you've got more havent you, you cheeky mare?!! go on then...

I think that's about it actually.

Apart from this old chestnut:

 

[egg_]

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).

If I was in your shoes I'd be looking for practical archaeological work, like digs or even tour guiding at OPW sites (they're interviewing for summer work right now), you never know you might find something that pays enough for you to get a work permit, and then you're in a better position right away. I know you're more of an academic but even career-wise it might be a good idea to get hands-on digging experience, there's tons of work going on account of all the road development. I've a buddy who's an archaeologist (mostly doing EISs for some consultancy), I could ask him for you if you like

Sorry, I know I'm supposed to be making you laugh but I'm cursed with practicality

 

[Osama Van Halen]

HEY JANE!!!... I'M DYIN' TO GET OUTTA HERE. PLAN TO DO SO IN THE REASONABLY CLOSE FUTURE. YOU CAN HAVE MY SPOT. SERIOUSLY.


ATROCIAQUAANNNDO!!!

 

[Corey]

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.

Wait.

You're not irish?

Back on the boat, no puppy picture for you.


Ah-ha-ha. Chin up. Be glad it's not chins.

 

[wild_cat]

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

Poul fucking pasty.

The other half of Cloughbawn GAA club, you'd understand why its called wormhole if you had the misfortune of playing camoige with those girls built like men.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

I think that's about it actually.

Apart from this old chestnut:

Who is that guy?

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Poul fucking pasty.

The other half of Cloughbawn GAA club, you'd understand why its called wormhole if you had the misfortune of playing camoige with those girls built like men.

remember when this came out first? Only £5. CD only.

 

[Corey]

/Looks for photo gallery

Janers in lurve with La-La.



again.

 

[carbide]

this cheered me up for no obvious reason...

"Most people seem to think I’m the kind of guy who shaves with a blowtorch. Actually, I’m bookish and worrisome."

oh, all right.

what's brown and sticky? a brown stick. (etc.)

 

[Mormon Nailer]

Allen took his blind date to the carnival. "What would you like to do first, Sandra?" asked Allen.

"I want to get weighed," said Sandra.

They ambled over to the weight guesser. He guessed 120 pounds. She got on the scale; it read 117 and she won a prize.

Next, the couple went on the Ferris Wheel. When the ride was over, Allen again asked Sandra what she would like to do. "I want to get weighed," she said. Back to the weight guesser they went. Since they had been there before, he guessed her correct weight, and Allen lost his dollar.

The couple walked around the carnival and again he asked where to next. "I want to get weighed," she responded. By this time, Allen figured she was really weird and took her home early, dropping her off with a handshake.

Her roommate, Laura, asked her about the blind date, "How did it go?" Sandra responded, "Oh, Waura, it was wousy."

 

[Doctor Muscles]

Took me yonks to get this:

 

[jane]

Yeah it's pretty bad, but at least my sister can work so she can pay the rent and so forth. Hey there's a thought, maybe you can get married to an Irish guy! I hear JANER's available.

But lose my right to work! No thanks. It's pretty shitty. I think I'm just coming to the end of the list of sacrifices I'm willing to make just to stay here. Like most people who don't mind the whole marriage concept, I'd like to do it just the once, and I don't want it to be burdened by necessity. And anyway, if I could no longer work, then it would sort of defeat the purpose of marrying to stay in the country. More importantly, though, I'd like to get hitched because I want to, and it still means something to me, and giving up everything just so I can live in a city that I can't afford, it just doesn't make sense. Anyway, there are still (for now) long-term partner visas for unmarried couples, but you have to have been cohabiting for a couple of years before you can apply. Maybe I could live with JANER's hairless dog for a while and apply that way.

Likewise for the archaeology thing, though I really do appreciate the practical insights, Egg. See, I don't have a lot of excavation experience. I would probably be able for EIS stuff (I've been doing archive searches for EISs for a company in Cork for about 2 1/2 years) , but it's all pretty logistically impossible because the jobs I could do that would allow me to finish the PhD are not really available, or they are hired internally. For digging, you have to move around a lot, and I'd end up paying two rents (one in Dublin, one wherever I was working) and in order to get the experience to get a decent job when I finished, I'd have to work full time because most companies won't take part-timers. Plus, I don't want to work in contract archaeology, and probably not in archaeology at all, so it wouldn't be a good career move because I'd have to give up the work that I already do that I like, and which is genuinely good for my career.

I'm trying to get out of academia, too, because that's really not for me. It's too long and complicated to go into on the internerd (not very interesting, either), but it's basically a matter of realising that my options here are extremely limited, and most of them seem to involve giving up things that are far too important to give up. I dunno, there may be a way, but it's now going to involve getting some lawyers to look really closely at the law and help me figure out what my rights are, if indeed there are any rights left. Like, I want to change careers, mainly out of necessity, but also because I don't see myself working in archaeology long-term. It'd be different if I were in my 20s and didn't want to have kids in a few years' time. But even now, I'd be totally fine with working for cheap in an area I was interested in, just to get some training, so I could get established and eventually make a decent living, but I'm not really able to.

It also stinks that you can only come here to do the thing you were brought here to do, and you can't change your mind. And it's not like I came into all of this blindly -- it really was less rigid when I first came here, and every time I find a way to do everything legally and above-board (because I'm just not willing to lie to stay here), they move the goalposts again. It's incredibly frustrating.

It's a real bummer because I know that the Small Firms Association put together a very realistic and very positive document for the government, advising them to lower the threshold for foreigners starting businesses here (currently, you have to bring in 300,000 to the exchequer, which no small business could generate, especially not in the early years). They pointed out that encouraging people to start their own small businesses would be a better way of integrating foreign people as part of the community, rather than forcing them into the corporate workforce or service industries, and which woudl allow them to be self-sufficient, contribute something genuinely new, and support their own families while adding even more to the economy. Plus, as the multinationals keep closing down, it's smaller businesses that will provide longer-term sustainability for the economy. I was actually hoping that the government would see the logic in that. Real integration, good for the economy, good for the people who are coming into Ireland, good for the people who are already here, and just plain good sense. It makes long-term sense socially as well as economically, but they don't seem to have listened.

Ack, sorry for ranting, I'm just tired of being put back to square one again every few months. It's making it extremely difficult to see the point of finishing the PhD, which is the whole reason I came here in the first place.